Munib Maglajlić and Bosniak Oral Literature: Contributions to the Study of Prose, Ballads, Epic Poetry and Sevdalinka

Abstract

Although the name of Munib Maglajlić in the study of oral literature is most often associated with research on sevdalinka, ballads and romance, an important part of his scholarly oeuvre is also devoted to oral prose. The first part of this paper examines Maglajlić’s contributions to Bosniak oral prose, with particular emphasis on his relationship to collectors of oral literary material, narrators, and oral-prose forms. It demonstrates that Maglajlić viewed oral prose simultaneously as a folkloristic source, a literary creation, and a form of cultural memory. The analysis encompasses his works on Mehmed-beg Kapetanović Ljubušak, Nikola Tordinac, Antun Knežević, the journal Novi Behar, the character of Nasreddin Hodja, and his study of Hamdija Šahinpašić. Particular attention is devoted to the methodological characteristics of Maglajlić’s approach, which combines the history of recording, the context of performance, narrative practice, and literary interpretation. The second part of the paper focuses on his research into the Bosniak oral ballad, epic and lyrical poetry, examining his contributions to the study of individual ballads, the historical and cultural context of their emergence, the relationship between poems and reality, variants, and poetic characteristics. The focus is on Maglajlić’s study of sevdalinka, which encompassed sources, performers and recorders, the history of the creation and transmission of songs, as well as their poetic and local characteristics. His scholarly evaluation of sevdalinka was rounded off by his lexicographical definition of this song as a representative form of lyrical oral poetry in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Viewed as a whole, Munib Maglajlić’s oeuvre confirms the breadth of his contribution to Bosnian and Herzegovinian folkloristics and the study of oral literature, in which text, context, the history of recording, narrative and singing practices, and literary interpretation are interconnected.