Notes on the oral fairy tale of the unfortunate and persecuted girl in Bosnian oral literature

Apstrakt

The prevalence of plot patterns featuring an unhappy girl, whose life is filled with unimagi nable hardships, preserved in both manuscript and published collections, highlights this as one of the most persistent plot patterns in Bosniak oral tradition. These stories coincide with the oral stories of other European nations but also contain characteristics of the environment that transmit them and ensure their permanence. An example recorded in February 2024 in Sarajevo underpins the hypothesis that the story of an unhappy and haunted girl is interesting to the participants of the oral tradition chain in the 21st century. The story-telling under the title Kamenčić suburčić [The little stone of patience] is important because it shows the presence of oral fairy tales in the storytelling repertoires of today’s tellers, whose analysis can complete the idea of the style and language of oral fairy tales told today. The starting assumption of the work is that the oral fairy tale in the 21st century has the characteristics of a classic oral fairy tale style. The goals of the work are reflected in the theoretical analysis and questioning of the language and style of oral fairy tales recorded in the Bosniak environment. The analysis and interpretation of fairy tales included working on the text, which made it possible to conclude, using the comparative method, that fairy tales in the 21st century retain the features of the oral fairy tale style.