Običaj i kriza
Custom and Crisis

Summary/Abstract: The author discusses the crisis of ethnology and the crisis of society. Some authors consider that these crises are causally connected. In the article this causal connection is not accepted. In a crisis of society the author sees a chance for ethnology at the same time, he examines the ethnology/ethnography of an uncommon peace happening on the basis of the Mare Abeles’s article (published in Current Anthropology, 1988.). An uncommon place happening is expressed in the political ritual of the proclamation of the new Croatian Parliament (30 May 1990). In this ritual the author sees a »new common custom« which is a possible subject-matter of ethnological research. Throughout the brief analysis he proves two values of modem political ritual: innovation and message. The innovation is in fact the falsification of common customs, and the message is very clear and strong and expresses what most people want to hear and see. The author sees in the new common custom an ethnological value and also a chance for prosperity and inclusion of the ethnological science in commonplace happenings from which it has been for decades in Croatia.

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