FLIGHT of the CAGED Bird In LIBERATION

FLIGHT of the CAGED Bird In LIBERATION

Indian Holocaust My father`s Life and Time - 3Thirty SIX

Palash Biswas

On 19th and 20th February, Lok Kavi the FOLK Legend VIJOY SARKAR and his excellent works are remembered and analysed in Vijoy Jayanti celebrated by the family , friends, devotees and Followers across the border.

On this occasion, GEETI malanch, a collection of songs bearing the legacy of the poet and written by my Cousin Nitai Pada Sarkar was inaugurated before my people in Keutia, the village of VIJOY Sarkar. CPIM leader and WB Minister of Sports and transport Subhash ChaKrabarti was scheduled to be on the Dias but he absented. Thus, CPIM listed INTELLIGENTSIA was absent. But the media was there to follow the minister.

I have been as regular visitor to the village since 1973 while I appeared in High school exams. I know the village known for its association with Narayanpur which happens to be the Father In law House of SAHITYA SAMRAT Bankim Chandra.

Keutia happens to be a very big village having four Bus Stops on the Kalayani highway. It is populated mostly by resettled East Bengal SC refugees. A siezable Muslim Population is also a part of the village.

Half of the village has been included in BHATPARA Municipality and the rest across Kalyani highway falls under Narayanpur Panchayat.

Though the audiences reach Keutia from every part of the Indigenous Bengal,luckily I am fortunate to know most of the faces. Most of them know me personally.

Thus, KAVI VIJOY jayanti turns as a GREATER FAMILY GET TOGETHER for us. But this year, the Marxists celebrated Seven Day Vijoy UTSAV before time in Barasat beginning on 25 th December. Then the Ruling Hegemony used the poet and his legacy to mobilise SC Vote bank celebrating Ganga Gomati Barak Brahmaputra UTSAV in Kolkata University this February only.The Ruling Hegemony captured our legacy and it is quite irritating for me.

This year also the celebration goes simultaneously in Keutia, North 24 Parganas of West Bengal, India as well as in the native place of the KAVIYAL in his birth place ,the home village DUMUDI situated in NARAIL, JASSORE in Bangladesh.

This is a rather legacy of Partition Holocaust which we have to bear in this divided geopolitics for a period infinite generation after generation.

The People of KEUTIA including my Cousin bear the INJURIES since the partition right into his heart. they were EJECTED not only out of their Homeland but also from the Fantastic World of Folk and Folklore. Nowadays I evade so called cultural package able programmes organised by the Civil society as it uses the Bangla nationality as HARD CORE PORN! Rather I focus on FOLK rooted Bangladesi Literature. Vijoy Utsav is also a rare occasion of Interactions between two separated parts of Bengal which is united in its culture and folk.

Anyone who has read the Hatred documentations of the Elite Bengali Intelligentsia dealing with Popular Literature and Celluloid would perhaps misunderstand the legacy of KAVIGAN as very Rustic, Crude and Obscene as we see in some so called classic Bengali Novels and Films titling around KAVI and KAVIAL!

The tradition is rather related with the uprising of the ENSLAVED Productive Forces INTO creativity as well as Insurrection. As in India, the Society is ruled by the laws of MANUSMRITI which deprived the majority Aboriginal Indigenous communities cursed as Shudras in VEDIC VARNASHRAM and later, divided further into SIX thousand castes hierarchical and graded in a counter revolution of the SCRIPTURE of Manusmriti after the DEMISE of the Great ASOKA Empire and Dynasty as well as Buddhism in India, during the tenure of King PUSHYAMITRA. Since the Vedic period the Aboriginal Indigenous majority Population in this subcontinent had been OUT CASTE, MARGINALISED and PERSECUTED. They were destined to live a BONDED LABOUR LIFE. DEPRIVED of Knowledge, empowerment, Human Rights and Dignity, Civil Right and Job Mobilisation, Freedom and Sovereignty.

Hence, because the Majority Negroid Non Aryans Negroids have been habitual of being Enslaved, Terminated and Annihilated for thousands and thousands period, they never feel the basic Instinct of FREEDOM and Sovereignty.

Genetically modified the majority Indigenous DIVIDED people of this Divided Bleeding Geopolitics never got any opportunity of Empowerment though being Human being they also possessed the human qualities of SENSITIVITY, AESTHETICS, Vision, dreams , illusion, Love, affection, spirituality and DREAMING. But they have no tools of EXPRESSION elite privileged for the ruling Class.

Thus,while Non Aryan SHAMBUK violated the VEDIC Injunction in his quest for Knowledge, MARYADA PURUSHOTTAM RAMA, the God and the SAVIOUR of VEDIC Rules had to kill the non Aryan SAGE!

But the RULING Hegemony could not Terminate the Basic human Instinct of CREATIVITY and Revolution even in those societies inflicted with either Caste System or Apartheid. In ancient Greece we may trace the Revolution of the slaves led by SPARTACUS.

FOLKLORE and ANTHROPOLOGY open the doors and windows of the CONSCIOUS SUBCONSCIOUS Indigenous Aboriginal mind worldwide.

Hence, the roots of Indian Poetry may be traced into Folk and Folklore, Myths and superstitions, totems and tradition as well as in Indigenous aboriginal history dismissed as DARK AGE!

Indian languages have to trace the history of language in the Folk Tradition of Poetry created by the marginalised out caste creativity known as CHARYAPADA.

In recent History of Bengal, Folk and Folklore played great role in Indigenous Aboriginal Insurrection against the Feudal and imperialist systems. Kavigaan should be traced in the line.
Kavi Vijoy Sarkar and his lot have been associated with creative empowerment of the productive forces consisting of Aboriginal Indigenous communities in the same line as those related with the tradition of AUL, BAUL, Vaishnav, Kartabhaja, SUFI Sant, Sahebdhani, PAGOL, Fakeer, BHAWAIA, BHATIYALI, Ashtak, GEETIKA, BIHU,BHANGRA, TAMASHA, PANDWANI, SHABAD,FAAG, AALHA,TAMASHA, GHUMAD, KAJORI, BARVAI in Awadhi, KEERTAN, RUPKEERTAN, Jhumur, TUSU,Gazan Nritya, ZARIGAAN, ZARIGAAN, Jatra, Palagaan, Bhasan and so on which has to be analysed in tradition with the objective and materialistic studies of the History of this subcontinent.

The tradition which originated with Charyapada, BHAKTI Andolan, Baishnav andolana and Baul Tradition spanning the sixth to eighteenth centuries onwards and the personalities like TULSI, KABEER, RAHEEM, DADOO and LALAN. OF which Rabindra nath tagore is the most sophisticated version of Indian labour, production and sprituality altogether.

Kavi Vijoy Sakar had been associated with Matua Dharma Movement of Harichand Thakur and Guruchand Thakur which may be described as the Real Renaissance in Bengal.

Recently, the Ruling Kayastha Brahmin Marxist hegemony has captured all forums and forms of Folk and Folk Lore under demographic readjustment and Vote bank Mobilisation which left me DETACHED from all these functions and I disassociated myself with all those public functions!

I had just forgot the occasion as I was aware of the fact that CPIM the main Political party Ruling Bengal organised a Week Long VIJOY Utsav on last CHRISTMASS day in the district headquarter of North 24 Parganas, BARASAT.

Matua movement is also Captured by either TRINMUL Congress or CPIM. It is nothing new as the Ruling hegemony used PRAMATHO Nath Thakur, the son of GURUCHAND Thakur to stop Dr BR Ambedkar as well as Jogendra Nath Mandal.

The fact of internal Empowerment by Kavigaan is depicted with the Reality that Partition Holocaust and the persecution of our people all over the Sub Continent could not disassociate or divide our association with the legacy of KAVI and KAVIGAAN.

I had been exhausted in energy and work during my Maharashtra Tour. Then, I was involved in my tedious livelihood as a journalist.

In Wednesday night I was troubled with LINK to publish the edition of the daily news paper chain with which I am associated for last eighteen long years without any incentive, recognition and promotion and face ultimate Turmination in near Future.

I woke in the morning with LOUD Rings of Land line.MY Cousin was calling me from keutia. He and my nephew Niranjan could not link me for few days as my CELL Phone remains dead as I could not replace the SET. Landline is often busy with NET or remains Disconnected.

My Cusin NITAI PADA SARKAR is the only SON of my Only PISIMA, aunt, the sister of my father late Pulin Kumar biswas. PISIMA SHREEMOTI Sarkar survives no more. She expired before my parents.

Me and Savita reached keutia on 1 AM. But I had to go to the local Saloon for shaving. I saw only three people in the line. As our daughters in law JHOOM and TUSI take every care for us ans tea happens always READY for me, I could go back into the house. but I decided to wait. but the waiting turned to be very long almost one and half hour.

One of the customer seemed to be a Muscleman who got Facial and then invested nearly a full hour in Massage. The second one was an old man. He had to get his HAIR colored. the third man was a TEENAGER who insisted to set his hair style.

I was stunned to see the change in lifestyle as i know the Village and the Villagers for no less than Thirty six years! Yes, the Kalayani highway has changed the life of the people here. I have seen the village surrounded by a lake called BORTI BILL which flooded in every monsoon to inundate not only the fields but the homes also. Their transport had been the Boats. Now they ply on two Wheelers and for wheelers. I remember the Village leaders who accompanied my father to New Delhi to solve the problem. They would meet ND TIWARI and KC pant with whom my father had special relationship. Then they would go to Rajendra Kumari Vajpayee, Mohsina kidwai or Manoranjan Bhakta. the problem remain unsolved until Kalani Highway essentially ate up the lake. It has not a trace of it anywhere as you may not trace the CLIFF in many parts of Mumbai or the SALT lake is not traceable in kolkata. salt lake has become the new kolkata.

The saloon workers have gained nothing from the changing lifestyle. They have to waste more time and more labour to get customers and get nominal payment. for facial rs Ten and for the massage Rs Five only!

I asked whether it was a festival trend and the saloon workers replied the People have become URBANISED.

Urbanisation has hiked the rates of land all along the kalayani highway from kalyani to DUMDUM Airport. You won`t be able to get a piece of land anywhere. the builders and promoters affiliated to Political parties have CAPTURED the land.

Cusin NITAI Pada sarkar happens to be a Successful Businessman today and Elder by no no less than Twenty five Years. He is in his seventies.

Lifelong, since partition, he invested himself to resettle in this part of Bengal after the Partition Holocaust. He resettled in the same village where Lok Kavi Vijoy Sarkar resettled, keutia. he was married to SHAROMA, the grand daughter of the poet.

Nitai da began his livelihood as a vendor or hawker working in Local Trains selling Lemonade. Then he worked as daily Wage based labour. Thus, he discharged his liabilities and got married off three sisters and also a niece.

But he continued the Job Mobilisation and emerged the first person to start a NURSERY and HATCHERY in the locality In sixties. then he was associated with JUTE and established a Jute godown by Kalyani highway where he has made an excellent House nowadays.

In seventies, while the JUTE industry was hit by Recession unprecedented and he was in deep Food Insecurity, glimpses of which I witnessed during early eighties as I was based in Dhanbad, Jharkhand and often visited Keutia for family Get together.

He chose to shift himself in Real TRADING in Share Market.

I would get BORE anytime as I was living in a MESS. I would travel to Howrah any week day and visit my Brother and sister in law as it was hard to visit Nainital so often!

I saw the JUTE Industry being destroyed. I visited the traders and the farmers from kolkata to the Rural pockets and the Jute mills. I wrote articles. But I could not prove myself a HELP for the family in economic sense.

Nitai da owned the Go down. Jute Mills were locked out with payments pending. Nitaida had to pay the small peasants. It turned out to be clear cut STARVATION while he opted for hatchery and nursery. Got gardens on lease for Nursery and ponds for Fishing. I won`t forget ICHHUMIA, a Muslim friend of my Cousin who had proved himself the LIFE LINE for the family. He would supply the CEREALS and vegetables for the family. he is no more. But we have maintained the relationship with the family. We would often visit the House of ICHHUMIAN in nearby Muslim Village Kusum pur and would get into the CURTAINS while the family is very religious and Conservative.

It helped me to understand the HINDU Muslim Chemistry of Fraternity and the peasant Insurrections and movements in East Bengal.

We had to understand the COMMON legacy as AZHAR has been the RIGHT HAND for my Cousin for all these 36 or 37 years.

AZHAR was a worker. But he was entitled to do all the business transaction.Nitaida helped him to raise his BUSINESS. He is an AFFLUENT farmer as well as businessman. His sons are well educated and established themselves in service and Business. but Azhar remains a part of the family. he happens to be the eldest son.

The Communal fraternity makes the BENGALI FOLK that important. it may be traced since JAIDEB and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

All the folk traditions in Bengal rooted in Fraternity.

Often the family was divided in religion but United in folk and relationship, livelihood.

The converted Muslims are our own real brothers and sisters, the HINDU Peasants of west Bengal understood well.

So, Jogendra Nath Mandal and Harichand Guruchand thakur could rise against Brahaminical hegemony with the help of the Converted Muslims which ultimately elected DR BR AMBEDKAR in the Constitution Assembly!

The Chemistry was diluted by the KAYASTHA BRAHMIN ELITE Politics, specially Hindu Mahasabha, Congress and the Marxist parties. Not by the Praja krishak party of fazlul haq or Muslim League of Najibullah or Suharawardi. It has to be understood and you have to read Jasimuddin, Manik Bandopaddhyay and Akhtaruzzaman ILIUS!

I am happy, despite the INJECTED Hate with partition HOLOCAUST, my people still bear the legacy of FRATERNITY, Kavi Vijoy and tradition of KAVIGAN are the evidences. i am happy that the Book written by Cousin also may be mentioned as a SOLID DOCUMENTATION of the tradition!

It was a tough Option any Bengali Rural person belonging to working class would have hardly dreamt of. But Nitaida was a DREAMER as well as Entrepreneur by nature. He established himself with hard work.

Since partition , Nitaida continued Job mobilisation before he could establish himself as successful and his sons NIRANJAN and Tapas could take over, the only daughter Supria is married off. But he continued clinging on with FOLK and FOLK Tradition.

He would relax with writing Poetry in Vijoy trdition. He was lucky enough to have the Inspiration directly from the poet who was the SENIORMOST, REVERED most in the relations.

His poetry was being recognised since earlier days as it was broad casted by All India radio and Doordarshan. Some CDs and Cassettes became hotcakes while released.

I was insisting for years to publish a COLLECTION.

The work was on and i had also approved the PROOF.

But as I chose to boycott the Ruling Hegemony and decided not to be a part of any occasion where CPIM leaders would take over,I had decided not to come to keutia.


But on Thursday Morning My Cousin and nephew informed me that BOOK was to be released in the same Evening.

Me and SABITA got ready immediately and left for Keutia!

The Collection is named as GEETI MALANCH consisting of different genres he composed.

FOLKLORE Academicia SHAKTINATH JHa wrote the Preface and VIJOYKAVIPUTRA, the son of VIJOY Sarkar Kajol Adhikari introduced Nitai da as Poet. After TUSHAR Chattopadhyaya, Jha happens to be the master of the subject.

Tushar Chattopaddhya was the head of Department of Folk in Klayani University. only University in West Bengal, incidentally where the Folk is taught as a different discipline.

Tushar Chattopadhyay is no more.

KAKOLI DHADA is the new head of the department. She released the book as FOLK Expert JATIN BALA from Nadia who happens to be the President of Lokvai VIJOY Memorial Committee analysed the content.

On this occasion, a novel written by a friend NAKUL Mallick, a vetarn dalit writer was released by Mr Bala. The novel entitled RATAN MAANIK dealt with life and works of VIJOY PAGAL. the poet.

The Audience was involved in Intense passion as RUP KEERTN was being enacted meanwhile the book reached late from the printers. It was so late that KAKOLI DADHA had no scope to talk academically at all as the audience of Rural Folk in thousands had no mood to hear.

Only a Vijoy oriented speech by Nakul Mallick himself full of emotions could calm down the excited people.

But it was a beautiful evening while the caged BIRDS got the Open sky to weigh their wings in Flights infinite.

`PUJO UPASANA ROZA NAMAAJ SAKOLI MITHYA
CHITTOSHUDDHI SATYANISTHA BINA ANYA CHINTA'

HAPPENS TO BE THE THEME OF NITAIDA`S POETIC ADVENTURE. IT IS FULL OF EXPERIENCES IN FIELDS AND HOME. IT IS FULL OF SPRITULITY AND HUMOUR AND PATHOS.

HE WROTE:

`JOBON KTHA AAR MANER BYATHA
AEI NIYE HOI GAANER KATHA'

HE SOUNDS QUITE MYSTIC WHILE HE WROTE THE LINES LIKE THESE:

`AAMI TO AEI GHARER MAALIK NOI,
DUI CHAAR DIN AACHHI TAI AEIGHARETE ROI'

The PATHOS is revealed like this:

`AAMAR RUP GELO JAUBON GELO MANER JWALA GELO NAA
EKE OKE SAKAL DILAM, MON-MANUSE MON DILAM NAA.'

HE WROTE ON TASLIMA NASREEN ALSO:

`NASTO MEYE PASTO AAMI TOMADERI JONYE,
DHNIR TAKAI AAMRA BIKOI PANNEY.'

PANGS OF EMPLOYMENT CRISIS AND JOB LOSS:

`BEKAR KHATAI NAAM LIKHIYE BEKAR BEDAI GHURE.
ROCKBJI AAR JHKMAARITE DAGDHO JIBON PUDE.'


The BOOK is paged 111 and Priced at RS EIGHTY only. You may book your copy writing to:

NIRANJAN SARKAR/ NIRMALENDU SARKAR
VILLAGE AND POST KEUTIA
VIA KANKINARA
DIST: NORTH 24 PARGANS
PIN: 743126
PHONE: 033-25814035
MOBILE: 09830149154, 09433959719



Folk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
See also: Folk (disambiguation) and Volk (disambiguation)
English Folk "people" is derived from a Germanic noun *fulka meaning "people" or "army" (i.e. a crowd as opposed to "a people" in a more abstract sense of clan or tribe). The English word folk has cognates in most of the other Germanic languages. Folk may be a Germanic root that is unique to the Germanic languages. although Latin vulgus, "the common people", has been suggested as a possible cognate. [1]

Contents
[hide]
1 Etymology
2 Cognates in other Germanic language
2.1 Volk in German
2.1.1 Background
2.1.2 19th century and early 20th century
2.1.3 Nazi era
2.1.4 Today
3 References
4 See also



[edit] Etymology
The Modern English word "folk", derives from Old English "folc" meaning "common people", "men", "tribe" or "multitude". The Old English noun itself came from Proto-Germanic "*fulka" which perhaps originally referred to a "host of warriors". Compare Old Norse "folk" meaning "people" but more so "army" or "detachment", German "Gefolge" (host), and Lithuanian "pulkas" meaning "crowd". The latter is considered to be an early Lithuanian loanword from Germanic origin, cf. Belarusian "полк" - "połk" meaning regiment and German "Pulk" for a group of persons standing together.

The word became colloquialized (usually in the plural "folks") in English in the sense "people", and was considered unelegant by the beginning of the 19th century. It re-entered academic English through the invention of the word folklore in 1846 by the antiquarian William J. Thoms (1803-85) as an Anglo-Saxonism. This word revived folk in a modern sense of "of the common people, whose culture is handed down orally", and opened up a flood of compound formations, eg. folk art (1921), folk-hero (1899), folk-medicine (1898), folk-tale (1891), folk-song (1847), folk-dance (1912). Folk-music is from 1889; in reference to the branch of modern popular music (originally associated with Greenwich Village in New York City) it dates from 1958. It is also regional music.


[edit] Cognates in other Germanic language
Folk has a cognate in almost every other Germanic language, all deriving from Proto-Germanic "*fulka", some are listed below:

Danish - folk
Dutch - volk
Swedish - folk
Frisian - folk
Norwegian - folk
Icelandic - fólk
Faroese - fólk
German - Volk
Afrikaans - volk
Scots - fowk
In all Germanic languages, the variant of "folk" means "people" or something related to the people.


[edit] Volk in German
For other uses, see Volk (disambiguation).

[edit] Background
In German the word Volk can have several different meanings, such as folk (simple people), people in the ethnic sense, and nation.

German Volk is commonly used as the first, determing part (head) of compound nouns such as Volksentscheid (plebiscite, lit. "decision of/by the people") or Völkerbund (League of Nations), or the car manufacturer Volkswagen (literally, "people's car").


[edit] 19th century and early 20th century
A number of völkisch movements existed prior to World War I. Combining interest in folklore, ecology, occultism and romanticism with ethnic nationalism, their ideologies were a strong influence on the Nazi party, which itself was inspired by Adolf Hitler's membership of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Workers' Party), even though Hitler in Mein Kampf himself denounced usage of the word völkisch as he considered it too vague as to carry any recognizable meaning due to former over-use. Today, the term völkisch is largely restricted to historical contexts describing the closing 19th century and early 20th century up to Hitler's seize of power in 1933, especially during the years of the Weimar Republic.


[edit] Nazi era
During the years of the Third Reich, the term Volk became heavily used in nationalistic political slogans, particularly in slogans such as Volk ohne Raum — "(a) people without space" or Völkischer Beobachter ("popular observer"), an NSDAP party newspaper. Also the political slogan Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer ("One people, one country/empire, one leader"); and the compound word Herrenvolk, translated as "master race".

Even though Hitler in his book Mein Kampf often mixed up specific biological and zoological terms such as race, species, and others, the Nazi-era use of Volk could not, depending on context, be interpreted as "race", "Germanic", or "European." In Nazi propaganda, several peoples made up a race, so these two terms did not denote the same thing during the Nazi years. The German people was considered part of the Germanic race which latter officially included the Scandinavians, the English, and the Dutch as well (while Hitler himself also included the Celts), so Volk did not equal Germanic either. Nazi-era publications on pre-history only differed whether their Germanic race equalled the Indo-European race or the Germanic race itself was part of a family of Indo-European races, since indogermanisch is the common German term for Indo-European.


[edit] Today
Because Volk is the generic German word for "people" in the ethnic sense today as well as for "people entitled to vote" (Wahlvolk), its use does not necessarily denote any particular political views in post-1945 Germany. However, because of its past, the word is rarely used with Bevölkerung ("population") serving as a substitute.


[edit] References
Henning Eichberg (2004), The People of Democracy. Understanding Self-Determination on the Basis of Body and Movement. (= Movement Studies. 5) Århus: Klim (Theory of folk, people, and civil society with Scandinavian background)
Emerich K. Francis (1965) Ethnos und Demos. Soziologische Beiträge zur Volkstheorie. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot (classical German-American sociology of folk, ethnos and demos)
Emerich K. Francis (1976) Interethnic Relations. An Essay in Sociological Theory. New York u.a.: Elsevier.
Raphael Samuel (1981) (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
^ Calvert Watkins (ed.), The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, second edition (Houghton Mifflin, 2000) ISBN 0-618-08250-6


Folklore
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2008)

For other uses, see Folklore (disambiguation).
Folklore is the body of expressive culture, including tales, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions (including oral traditions) of that culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The academic and usually ethnographic study of folklore is sometimes called folkloristics. The word 'folklore' was first used by the English antiquarian William Thoms in a letter published by the London Journal Athenaeum in 1846.[1]

Contents
[hide]
1 History
2 Types of folklore
2.1 Folklore as describable and transmissible entity
2.2 Material culture
2.3 Culture as folklore
2.4 Behavior as folklore
3 Categories of folklore
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links
7.1 Malta
7.2 North America
7.3 Russia
7.4 Slovakia
7.5 Ukraine
7.6 United Kingdom



[edit] History
The concept of folklore developed as part of the 19th century ideology of romantic nationalism, leading to the reshaping of oral traditions to serve modern ideological goals; only in the 20th century did ethnographers begin to attempt to record folklore without overt political goals. The Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm, collected orally transmitted German tales and published the first series as Kinder- und Hausmärchen ("Children's and Household Tales") in 1812.

The term was coined in 1846 by an Englishman, William Thoms, who wanted to use an Anglo-Saxon term for what was then called "popular antiquities." Johann Gottfried von Herder first advocated the deliberate recording and preservation of folklore to document the authentic spirit, tradition, and identity of the German people; the belief that there can be such authenticity is one of the tenets of the romantic nationalism which Herder developed. One definition is "artistic communication in small groups," coined by Dan Ben-Amos a scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, and the term, and the associated field of study, now include non-verbal art forms and customary practices.



French-Canadian folklore includes tales of the "bewitched canoe"

[edit] Types of folklore
Folklore can be divided into four areas of study: artifact (such as voodoo dolls), describable and transmissible entity (oral tradition), culture, and behavior (rituals). These areas do not stand alone, however, as often a particular item or element may fit into more than one of these areas.[2]


[edit] Folklore as describable and transmissible entity
Folklore can contain religious or mythic elements, it equally concerns itself with the sometimes mundane traditions of everyday life. Folklore frequently ties the practical and the esoteric into one narrative package. It has often been conflated with mythology, and vice versa, because it has been assumed that any figurative story that does not pertain to the dominant beliefs of the time is not of the same status as those dominant beliefs. Thus, Roman religion is called "myth" by Christians. In that way, both "myth" and "folklore" have become catch-all terms for all figurative narratives which do not correspond with the dominant belief structure.

Sometimes "folklore" is religious in nature, like the tales of the Welsh Mabinogion or those found in Icelandic skaldic poetry. Many of the tales in the Golden Legend of Jacob de Voragine also embody folklore elements in a Christian context: examples of such Christian mythology are the themes woven round Saint George or Saint Christopher. In this case, the term "folklore" is being used in a pejorative sense. That is, while the tales of Odin the Wanderer have a religious value to the Norse who composed the stories, because it does not fit into a Christian configuration it is not considered "religious" by Christians who may instead refer to it as "folklore."

"Folktales" is a general term for different varieties of traditional narrative. The telling of stories appears to be a cultural universal, common to basic and complex societies alike. Even the forms folktales take are certainly similar from culture to culture, and comparative studies of themes and narrative ways have been successful in showing these relationships. Also it is considered to be an oral tale to be told for everybody.

On the other hand, folklore can be used to accurately describe a figurative narrative, which has no sacred or religious content. In the Jungian view, which is but one method of analysis, it may instead pertain to unconscious psychological patterns, instincts or archetypes of the mind. This may or may not have components of the fantastic (such as magic, ethereal beings or the personification of inanimate objects). These folktales may or may not emerge from a religious tradition, but nevertheless speak to deep psychological issues. The familiar folktale, "Hansel and Gretel," is an example of this fine line. The manifest purpose of the tale may primarily be one of mundane instruction regarding forest safety or secondarily a cautionary tale about the dangers of famine to large families, but its latent meaning may evoke a strong emotional response due to the widely understood themes and motifs such as “The Terrible Mother”, “Death,” and “Atonement with the Father.”

There can be both a moral and psychological scope to the work, as well as entertainment value, depending upon the nature of the teller, the style of the telling, the ages of the audience members, and the overall context of the performance. Folklorists generally resist universal interpretations of narratives and, wherever possible, analyze oral versions of tellings in specific contexts, rather than print sources, which often show the work or bias of the writer or editor.

Contemporary narratives common in the Western world include the urban legend. There are many forms of folklore that are so common, however, that most people do not realize they are folklore, such as riddles, children's rhymes and ghost stories, rumors (including conspiracy theories), gossip, ethnic stereotypes, and holiday customs and life-cycle rituals. UFO abduction narratives can be seen, in some sense, to refigure the tales of pre-Christian Europe, or even such tales in the Bible as the Ascent of Elijah to heaven. Adrienne Mayor, in introducing a bibliography on the topic, noted that most modern folklorists are largely unaware of classical parallels and precedents, in materials that are only partly represented by the familiar designation Aesopica: "Ancient Greek and Roman literature contains rich troves of folklore and popular beliefs, many of which have counterparts in modern contemporary legends" (Mayor, 2000).

Vladimir Propp's classic study Morphology of the Folktale (1928) became the basis of research into the structure of folklore texts. Propp discovered a uniform structure in Russian fairy tales. His book has been translated into English, Italian, Polish and other languages. The English translation was issued in USA in 1958, some 30 years after the publication of the original. It was met by approving reviews and significantly influenced later research on folklore and, more generally, structural semantics.Though his work was based on syntagmetic structure but it gave the scope to understand the structure of folktale where he discovered thirty one function of folktale[3]


[edit] Material culture
Elements such as dolls, decorative items used in religious rituals, hand-built houses and barns, and handmade clothing and other crafts are considered to be folk artifacts, grouped within the field as "material culture." Additionally, figures that depict characters from folklore, such as statues of the three wise monkeys may be considered to be folklore artifacts, depending on how they are used within a culture.[4] The operative definition would depend on whether the artifacts are used and appreciated within the same community in which they are made, and whether they follow a community aesthetic.


[edit] Culture as folklore
Folklorist William Bascom states that folklore has many cultural aspects, such as allowing for escape from societal consequences. In addition, folklore can also serve to validate a culture (romantic nationalism), as well as transmit a culture's morals and values. Folklore can also be the root of many cultural types of music. Folk, country, blues, and bluegrass all originate from American folklore. Examples of artists which have used folklore to produce beautiful music would be: Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, Old Crow Medicine Show, Jim Croce, and many others. Folklore can also be used to assert social pressures, or relieve them, in the case of humor and carnival.

In addition, folklorists study medical, supernatural, religious, and political belief systems as an essential, often unspoken, part of expressive culture.


[edit] Behavior as folklore
Many rituals can be considered folklore, whether formalized in a cultural or religious system (e.g. weddings, baptisms, harvest festivals) or practiced within a family or secular context. For example, in certain parts of the United States (as well as other countries) one places a knife, or a pair of scissors, under the mattress to "cut the birth pains" after giving birth. Additionally, children's counting-out games can be defined as behavioral folklore.[5]


[edit] Categories of folklore
Genres
Archetypes, stereotypes and stock characters.
Ballad
Blason Populaire
Childlore
Children's street culture
Counting rhymes
Costumbrismo
Craft
Custom
Folk play
Epic poetry
Factoids
Festival
Folk art
Folk belief
Folk magic
Folk medicine
Folk metaphor
Folk narrative
Anecdote
Fable
Fairy tale
Ghost story
Joke
Legend
Myth
Parable
Tall tale
Urban legend
Folk poetry and rhyme
Folk simile
Folk song
Games
Holiday lore and customs
Mythology
Riddle
Saying
Maxim
Proverb
Superstition
Taunts
Weather lore
Xerox lore
National or ethnic

Further information: List of mythologies
American folklore
Canadian folklore
Latin American folklore
Brazilian folklore
Caribbean folklore
Colombian folklore
United States folklore
Australian folklore
East Asian
Chinese folklore
Japanese folklore
Korean folklore
European
Albanian folklore
Alpine (Austrian and Swiss) folklore
English folklore
Estonian folklore
Dutch folklore
Finnish folklore
French folklore
German folklore
Hungarian folklore
Irish folklore
Italian folklore
Lithuanian folklore
Maltese folklore
Montenegrin folklore
Romanian folklore
Scandinavian folklore
Scottish folklore
Slavic folklore
Polish folklore
Russian folklore
Swiss folklore
Welsh folklore
Near Eastern
Aggadah
Arab folklore
Iranian folklore
Jewish folklore
Turkish folklore
South Asian
Indian folklore
Pakistani folklore
Southeast Asian
Philippine folklore

[edit] See also
Folklore portal

Applied folklore
Appropriation (music)
Chinook wind
Folk
Intangible Cultural Heritage
pashto Folklore
Petrosomatoglyph (image of parts of a human or animal body incised in rock)

[edit] References
^ Georges, Robert A., Michael Owens Jones, "Folkloristics: An Introduction," Indiana University Press, 1995.
^ Georges, Robert A., Michael Owens Jones, "Folkloristics: An Introduction," pp.313 Indiana University Press, 1995.
^ L. V. Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, Second Edition, revised and edited with a Preface of Louis A. Wagner, University of Texas Press, 1968.
^ Wolfgang Mieder, "The Proverbial Three Wise Monkeys," Midwestern Journal of Language and Folklore 7 (1981):5-38.
^ Kenneth S. Goldstein, "Strategy in Counting Out: An Ethnographic Folklore Field Study," in Elliott M. Avedon and Brian Sutton-Smith, eds., The Study of Games New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1971.




[edit] Further reading
Adrienne Mayor, "Bibliography of Classical Folklore Scholarship: Myths, Legends, and Popular Beliefs of Ancient Greece and Rome", from Folklore (April 2000)

[edit] External links
Folklore-BG Monthly Electronic Magazine
Folklore Festivals - international listing

[edit] Malta
Maltese Folklore- feasts, plant lore, local traditions, music, dance and humour

[edit] North America
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Folklore




American Folklore
American Folklore Society
American Folklife Center
Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures
Folkstreams
Western States Folklore Society
Folklore Studies Association of Canada
Folklore and Folklife Studies at Penn
Indiana University's Folklore Program
The Ohio State University Center for Folklore Studies
Folklore Program at the University of California at Berkeley
Memorial University of Newfoundland's Folklore Program
Folklore Program at Western Kentucky University
Folklore Program at Utah State University
University of Oregon's Folklore Program
Folklore Program at the University of North Carolina
World Arts and Cultures Program of the University of California at Los Angeles
Slavic and East European Folklore Association
The Center for Studies in Oral Tradition, University of Missouri
Oral Tradition Journal
Folklore Program at University of Wisconsin
McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina
Digital Traditions
The Missouri Foklore Society

[edit] Russia
Bashkir folk-tales and legends

[edit] Slovakia
Slovak Folklore — folklore groups, videos, songs, history, news, events, festivals

[edit] Ukraine
Ukrainian Folklore Centre, University of Alberta
Ukrainian Traditional Folklore, University of Alberta

[edit] United Kingdom
Mysterious Britain & Ireland Folklore and legends of Britain and Ireland
The Folklore Society, founded 1878 — very extensive links list among much else
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklore"

A REPUBLIC OF DYNASTIES
- The feudal system is taking time to disappear from India
Cutting Corners - Ashok Mitra



It is almost like the Unsinkable Molly Brown Hollywood had once made a celebrity out of; cheerfully or otherwise, the Republic of India takes all the buffetings it is subjected to.

In one constituent state of the republic, the father is the chief minister and his son has recently been sworn in as deputy chief minister. Hardly any murmurs have been heard from any quarter, for has not the country experienced much weirder phenomena in the course of the past half-a-century? Not so long ago, in another state, a chief minister, temporarily disabled by the legal process, installed his wife in the slot; she carried on for months on end with none seemingly noticing anything less than right anywhere. The practice of keeping power within the family fold has now turned contagious, with dynasties emerging at a fast pace all over. You name a state, any state — Haryana, Karnataka, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu — a dynasty is either presiding over the administration or waiting in the wings.

As the country’s most ancient political outfit, the Indian National Congress of course took the lead in the matter, with the father as the country’s prime minister and the daughter named as party president way back in 1958. That cosy arrangement set in motion a perpetual sequence people have tended to accept as a normal happening: three prime ministers of independent India have hailed from the same family; a fourth one is currently being groomed for the position. India may yet emerge over the next couple of decades as one of the technologically most advanced and, therefore, strategically one of the most important, countries in the world. But its system of governance might tenaciously adhere to the feudal doctrine of dynastic succession.

To describe this situation as an Indian oddity is, it would be immediately pointed out, factually inaccurate. Just take a look at the topography of South Asia. Whether it is Pakistan or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, dynasties are alive and kicking in each of these countries too. A theory could even be aired that, in view of the specificity of land relations in South Asia, the feudal curse has endured here longer than elsewhere. A bolder assertion is in fact conceivable. Even within a solidly democratic framework, dynasties can still play, it may be argued, an impressively constructive part if called upon to play a major role in administration. Have not members of particular families in the United States of America been dominant in national politics continuously for a number of generations without hurting a pie? The Roosevelts and the Kennedys did not at all spoil the ambience of democratic functioning in America, and that country has survived the aftershock of the two Bushes as well.

The Doubting Thomases will not suspend their disquiet though. In the US, members of the same family have of course come to acquire and hold on to political power for long stretches, but they could do so only after going through the rough-and-tumble of precinct politics and all the rest of the routine; it was tough terrain, and they succeeded because they were able to prove their mettle; their pedigree had nothing to do with it. In India, on the other hand, the dynasties themselves decide the issue of succession; the approval of the people is taken for granted. True, formal democratic consent is sought subsequently; in most instances, such consent is not refused either.

The uncomfortable feeling may still fail to disappear altogether. Memory could hark back to that eerie midnight episode in New Delhi a quarter of a century ago, when the country’s president, rushed back from a foreign trip to swear in a young man without any constitutional credentials as the nation’s new prime minister; the set-up was that of a rushed coup d’êtat. At this point, someone with a mawkish sense of humour can put in an additional input: even in a supposedly diehard communist regime as the People’s Republic of Korea, the present ruler has reportedly made up his mind to nominate one of his sons as his successor as the all powerful boss of the communist party and, simultaneously, head of the government.

Dissenters will yet not yield. Opportunities, including opportunities to lead the nation, must, in their judgment, be equally available to all citizens, dynasties cannot be allowed to appropriate the prerogative. It is indeed theoretically possible for a dynasty to produce generation after generation of worthy offspring who prove themselves to be natural leaders. It could even happen that, while initially a bit of a dullard, someone from the dynasty, once named to a key position, picks up enough competence to shape into a successful administrator. The objection against a closed shop will nonetheless not be withdrawn. The simultaneous existence of a democratic system and delegating, on a permanent basis, the privilege to a single family to preside over it, appears to suffer from an internal contradiction.

The contradiction persists because free, democratic, one-man-one-vote polls have not frowned upon the concept of dynastic succession. The vast majority of the electorate remains steeped in illiteracy, which coalesces with a frightening lack of social awareness. Those conditioned for ages to depend on the king and his emissaries are unable to shed their old reflexes even under the domain of a Constitution that provides them with equal rights with each and everybody else. The issue of class hardly breaks in either; it has been, in large parts of the country, shoved off the arena by the consanguinity of caste. But the allure of a monarchical order, fortified by dynastic succession, continues to overwhelm.

For the present, there is little that can be done about it. Protesters may line up any number of arguments to establish how ill-suited the dynastic system is to the needs of the times. What, though, if the electorate decides otherwise? To express astonishment at the fact that a nation which sticks to the medieval principle of dynastic succession in its choice of rulers can yet have a stockpile of intellectual capability that could place it in the fore amongst nations is equally beside the point. The mandarins who have, over the centuries, guided the destiny of nations in the different continents have always been a narrow minority. They have managed to survive — and prosper — despite their vulnerability to forces unleashed in nether quarters.

One particular worry may still linger: what if a dynasty, once ensconced in power, wants to put an end to what it considers the farce of democracy — and the mandarins are unable to dissuade them? Even in such a contingency, all need not be lost; the chances are that the other dynasties would then come together and seek to put a restraint on the vaulting ambition of one of their breed.

However bitter the truth, it cannot be said that India is hopelessly out of alignment with history; the dynasties will take a while to fade away. Meanwhile, why not wring the last bit of wry humour out of the folklore around A.K. Fazlul Huq, premier of pre-Partition Bengal during 1937-42? His near relations came to occupy prize posts in government soon after his accession to the provincial administration. When charged with nepotism, his scornful response was, “What can I do if all my nephews happen to be brilliant?”


http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090213/jsp/opinion/story_10518528.jsp