Forgotten Treasure: Field Recordings from Bjelašnica in 1955
Forgotten Treasure: Field Recordings from Bjelašnica in 1955

Summary/Abstract: During the Second Congress of the Association of Music Folklorists of Yugoslavia, held on Bjelašnica in 1955, associates of the Institute of Ethnomusicology in Ljubljana made sound recordings of various forms of music performed by the local population. The recordings were made with the Magnemite Portable 610 C portable field tape recorder, which was a rarity in ethnomusicological fieldwork at the time. Such a recorder enabled in situ recording, because it did not need to be connected to the electrical network, which gives the recordings a special authenticity and documentary value. The peculiarity of these recordings lies in the fact that they were recorded during the teferič in the small village of Umoljani in Bjelašnica, i.e. in their original context. For more than half a century, these unique recordings have been almost forgotten. Thanks to the cooperation of the Institute of Ethnomusicology of the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Institute of Musicology of the Music Academy of the University of Sarajevo, the recordings have once again become a subject of interest for academics. This paper aims to point out the first experiences of researchers with portable field tape recorders, the importance of new technologies for ethnomusicological research, as well as the importance of these recordings for ethnomusicological research in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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