Aleksandra Pavicevic

• Doctor of Ethnology and Anthropology
• Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts

The idea of modern cremation was much more than a notion of a more hygienic, ecological and aesthetically acceptable method for the disposal of human remains. From its inception at the end of the 18th century, all the way into the second half of the 20th century, it was tied to various political, national and cultural ideologies, with the common fa...

Ideas of Enlightement, national romanticism and transformation of geopolitical situation on the Balkans, were cultural and historical context in which bases of modern Serbian state was established. That was the time of intensive social change directed towards building institutional infrastructure as well as towards transforming traditional, ?obsole...

Development of death studies, choice of topics and aspects of their interpretations were influenced by many factors, both global and local. The former were related to universal processes of medicalization, bureaucratization and professionalization of death and dying, as well as to processes of general secularization of society and culture. The latt...

Los murales en los templos cristianos ortodoxos siempre han tenido el siguiente objetivo: visualizar el orden litúrgico y completar la experiencia religiosa del tiempo yespacio sagrados. Fuera de los templos y oficios religiosos, los creyentes podían mantenerel contacto con estas historias santificadas y sus santos, a través del uso de los iconos q...

This text points out some less known facts about death and funeral of great Serbian scientists Nikola Tesla. Keeping on mind social and political contexts in which Tesla's post mortem destiny took place, author offered possible answers on the issues of ideological usage of his work and character. Different features of public discourses about Tesla...

The author discuses the funeral of Yugoslav writer, Ivo Andrić, with a particular focus on his wish to be incinerated. This wish is analyzed from several aspects: through the concept of celebrating great people in the time of socialism and from the standpoint of Andrić’s delicate political position and his consistent attempts to avoid alignment ins...

In this paper, some aspects of current transitional processes in Serbian society are considered. In the public speech of Serbian political and intellectual elite, religion, religiosity and public and social engagement of religious institutions are emphasized as one of the key problems and obstacles for democratization processes. They are also obser...

It is widely known and has been more or less elaborated in scientific literature that return to religion in the area of former SFRY was conducted hand-in-hand with the development of the new national states and establishment of new/old ethnic borders and identities. This is why it is logical that this phenomenon is frequently qualified as the relig...

Autonomy of science and art is an ideal of every civilized society. The distance between a certain society and this ideal depends on a large number of parameters, among which cultural enlightenment and consciousness of the main protagonists in realization of these two areas seem to be most important. Unfortunately, Serbia cannot boast with a high l...

The beginning of the process of repeated actualisation and revitalisation in Serbia coincided with the beginning of the social, economic and political crisis on the territory of the former SFRY, which took place in the beginning of 1990s.On the official political (and life) scene during the 1990s and in the first decade of the 21 century, religious...

This paper discusses the role of media in a construction of public image speech and presentation of death. The main research questions could be posed as follows: does the media discourse confirm a thesis about modern society as the one which intensely avoids encounter with Death, or does it defy it? Frequent images or hints of death in visual media...

The most impressive event of death in the Yugoslav region in the last 50 years was definitely associated with death and funeral of Josip Broz Tito, in May 1980. The departure of one of the last European pharaohs has marked the beginning of an end of an era, with still hard to measure ideological and political consequences. In a symbolic sense, the...

Topics of ethnological research, as well as scientific discourse in general often represent the mirror of social reality. This paper researches the ways in which dealing with death and current ethnological approaches in Serbian ethnology during the second half of the 20th century, reflect the Zeitgeist. The intensity and the quality of interests fo...

Intensive development of socialist society, which started immediately after Second World War, proceeded simultaneously on two mutually conditional tracks: on material and ideological. In certain way, both were based on the critique of traditional social concept: starting from its economic and all the way to value characteristics under all encompass...

And although the development and spreading of the idea of cremation, as well as mentioned laws, could be seen as the beginning of secularization of death death has remained, for a long time, closely associated with this or that religious beliefs and practice. Still, the development of the idea of cremation during the 20th century testifies on chang...

The question of "invented traditions" became very popular among academics of various backgrounds, especially among anthropologists and ethnologists. It becomes almost a rule to proclaim that such and such custom or cultural element belongs in fact to "the invented tradition", made up by some power group as a means to a political or social end. Most...

The question of "invented traditions" became very popular among academics of various backgrounds, especially among anthropologists and ethnologists. It becomes almost a rule to proclaim that such and such custom or cultural element belongs in fact to "the invented tradition", made up by some power group as a means to a political or social end. Most...

The territory of the former Yugoslavia (within all of its structures and forms during the second half of the 20Č century - from FPRY, SFRY, FRY, to Serbia and Montenegro) was the subject of more or less intensive external and internal migrations. The first larger wave of emigration occurred immediately after the end of World War II, mostly due to t...

The territory of the former Yugoslavia (within all of its structures and forms during the second half of the 20Č century - from FPRY, SFRY, FRY, to Serbia and Montenegro) was the subject of more or less intensive external and internal migrations. The first larger wave of emigration occurred immediately after the end of World War II, mostly due to t...

Traditional form of getting married included wedding ceremony in which we had, among other rituals, obligatory church wedding. Church wedding was omitted in certain cases, as it was, for example, marriage of underage partners. When transformation of traditional life begun, church wedding was omitted more often, though it was still norm (in traditio...

Traditional form of getting married included wedding ceremony in which we had, among other rituals, obligatory church wedding. Church wedding was omitted in certain cases, as it was, for example, marriage of underage partners. When transformation of traditional life begun, church wedding was omitted more often, though it was still norm (in traditio...