The Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage of Serbia at the Ethnographic Museum has organized the presentation of “living heritage” of Serbia during the European Heritage Days 2023, in cooperation with the bearers of the heritage. Some of the skills and knowledge that were preserved to this day by passing down from one generation to another and included in the National Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage were presented from September 14th to September 26th 2023, through educational and promotional programs at Manak’s House and the Ethnographic Museum.
Workshops in crafts included in the National Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage – opanak-making craft, weaving and filigree craft – took place at the Manak’s House of the Ethnographic Museum, which (since the 1990s) has been actively developing programs for introducing the audience to various techniques of traditional and artistic crafts. On September 14th, Dejan Milosavljević, master of traditional shoemaking, presented the skill of hand-making opanak shoes from various types of tanned leather and rope. This presentation of the craft was also an opportunity for visitors to try their own hands in the process of making opanak shoes and to learn about the craft, which was included in the National Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2018. The significance of the filigree craft, an element of “living heritage” that has been part of the National Register since 2012, was presented at a lecture on September 15th by the filigree artist Goran Ristović Pokimica, a longtime associate of Manak’s House and one of the organizers of the summer educational program “Ten days of filigree”. The filigree artist Ivana Stojanovska Stanković led the interested participants through a three-day workshop (on September 16th, 18th and 19th), organized with the aim of mastering the craft of filigree – specific craft skills and techniques of shaping the metal wire, most often used to make jewelry. Another part of the program included a two-day weaving workshop by academic artist Ivana Čolić, intended for participants who wanted to acquire basic knowledge and skills of weaving on a horizontal loom.
During the European Heritage Days, a workshop of clamor singing, which is a Serbian singing tradition from the Zlatibor District of Western Serbia entered in the National Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2012, took place at the Ethnographic Museum on September 26th 2023. Svetlana Spajić, a folk singer of Serbian traditional music, introduced the knowledge and skill of clamor singing to the interested audience, which included students and teachers of music schools, ethnomusicologists and ethnologists-anthropologists. The participants learned about the foundations of performing practice, which belongs to older two-voice singing traditions and is performed by two singers of same gender or combined, through lectures, audio-recordings in natural surroundings as well as through practical activities.
The visitors to the Ethnographic Museum also had an opportunity to watch video-presentations of elements of intangible cultural heritage of Serbia, which was performed as part of nomination files for inclusion of elements from Serbia in the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage of Serbia, in cooperation with interested parties promoting these elements. The program on September 22nd included presentations of family slava, kolo - traditional folk dance, singing to the accompaniment of the gusle, hand-wheel pottery from village Zlakusa in Western Serbia and social practices and knowledge related to preparation and use of traditional plum spirit. Another part of program included screenings of films presenting certain elements of “living heritage” included in the National Register, such as the St. George’s Day ritual, Christmas ritual processions, making stone roof slabs in village Maće near Ivanjica, preparation of cipovka – traditional bread in Vojvodina etc.
The program was realized as a part of activities of the Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage on celebrating the 20th anniversary of the adoption of UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.
