Professor Branislav Rusić (1912, Tomino Selo, Poreč – 1971, Belgrade) is the founder of post-war ethnography and ethnology as educational and research disciplines and is the initiator of systematic ethnographic research in socialist Macedonia. He headed the newly established study program in ethnology at the newly established Faculty of Philosophy in 1946. Thus, he directly participated in the design of the post-war study programs in ethnography and ethnology, participated in the organization of scientific research life in the field of ethnology, carried out field research throughout Macedonia, was the "chief trustee" for the SRM in the implementation of the large Yugoslav project "Ethnological Atlas of the SFR Yugoslavia". He participated as the conceptual creator of the report for the Institute for (Study) of Folk Culture or the Ethnological Institute, which in the 1950s resulted in the establishment of the Folklore Institute, today the Institute of Folklore "Marko Cepenkov". This met with great opposition from Branislav Rusić, because he advocated that the research institution should have the widest possible scientific research scope of folk culture, and not just one of its segments – folklore.Despite his extensive knowledge of contemporary theoretical approaches to ethnology and anthropology in the West, he decided to engage in field research and systematic recording of the characteristics of folk culture, which was already in an intensified and accelerated process of transformation under the influence of modernization, industrialization, and especially due to the drastic changes in the social and political order in the country. He left extensive field materials, which are still kept in a special archive fund in the Archives of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Skopje.Branislav Rusić was a great advocate of the use of audiovisual means in the research process, which is why he participated in the production of several ethnological films, and was a Yugoslav representative at the Congress of Ethnological Film in Athens.Branislav Rusić, as a professor of ethnology in Skopje, had the opportunity in 1950 to host and accompany Professor Albert Lord, the leading name in world folklore at the time, on his field trips from Skopje via Prilep to Ohrid, where they jointly concluded that Macedonia was the richest source of lyric poetry and that it had best preserved the tradition of oral epic. In 1962, Branislav Rusić also hosted the famous American couple, anthropologists Barbara and Joel Martin Halpern, who stayed and traveled throughout Macedonia and conducted research in Struga.
Brief biography and education
Branislav Rusić's family originated from the village of German in Aegean Macedonia. B. Rusić's father, Đerman Rusić, was born on 8.5.1880, and in 1906 he married Stamena Srbinović from the village of Manastirec in Poreč, where the Rusić family had probably already moved from Aegean Macedonia.Branislav Rusić was born on 29.10.1912 in Tomino Selo in Poreč, and after the death of his mother in 1918, his father remarried Jelena Apčević from the village of Brailovo, and the whole family moved to live in Prilep. Đerman Rusić was a teacher, an honest man, a homemaker, and his sons, Svetozar, Vukašin and Branislav, stood out as young men with great intellectual talent, excellent upbringing and quiet nature. In Prilep, the family was called Rusevci.Branislav Rusić began his primary education in Topolnica, in Poreč, and finished it in Prilep. He started high school in Prilep, continued in Kruševac, and passed his final exam in Bitola with excellent results. In 1934, B. Rusić enrolled in the ethnological group of the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade and studied with the famous professors Tihomir Đorđević and Jovan Erdeljanović. During World War II, in 1941, he was captured in Serbia and interned in a camp in Germany, and from there the same year he was transferred to Sofia, also to a camp from which he managed to escape. However, on the orders of the Bulgarian occupation authorities, the German security service arrested him again in Serbia, and he was supposed to be returned to Bulgaria as a prisoner. Instead, in 1943, he was sent to forced labor near Belgrade, where he spent six months. The entire family was subjected to persecution and humiliation during the Bulgarian occupation of Macedonia. The only pleasant moments of his war years were related to his meeting and marriage to Jovanka Cucic from the village of Aleksandrovo in Banat on April 15, 1944.
When the Faculty of Philosophy was founded in Skopje, the Government of the SR Macedonia invited him to make himself available for the needs of the faculty. On 11.10.1946, he responded positively and began his work as a university lecturer in ethnology in Skopje.B. Rusić submitted his doctoral thesis to the University of Belgrade in 1941, but due to the war and the death of professors T. Đorđević and J. Erdeljanović, work on it was delayed. He received his doctorate in 1951 at the University of Zagreb with the topic "The Nemušt language in the traditions and oral literature of the South Slavs" (Nemušt jezik u predanju i usmenoj književnosti Južnih Slovena).He died in August 1971 in Belgrade.
Work in an institution
In 1936, he was noted as one of the best students in the group and became a junior assistant at the Ethnographic Seminar. After serving his military service in 1938, he became a full-time assistant.From the end of August 1945 to the end of December 1946, Rusić served at the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade, and from the end of May 1946, he was "assigned" to work at the Institute for International Affairs at the then Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an advisor to the representative of the Paris Peace Conference - Dimitar Vlahov.From 1946, he began working as a lecturer in ethnography and ethnology at the newly founded Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje at the Seminar for Ethnography and Ethnology.In 1951, he was elected assistant professor, and in 1959, associate professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje. After the abolition of the ethnology studies and the Seminar for Ethnography and Ethnology, B. Rusić was transferred to the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the Department of Geography, where he taught general and special ethnology. In 1965, he was elected a full professor. He was engaged in the creation of a report for a special Institute for the Study of Folk Culture, which eventually led to the creation of the Folklore Institute in Skopje, where in 1950 he was appointed part-time head of the Department of Folk Literature and Literature, and in 1952 head of the Department of Folk Customs and Dances. B. Rusić opposed the creation of an institute for folklore until the end of his life, defending the idea of creating an institute with a broader field of activity in which the entirety of folk culture would be studied, and not just some of its aspects. Until his death in 1971, he was a professor of ethnology at the Department of Geography at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in Skopje.
In May 1939, B. Rusić participated as the leader of the Lazaropole dance troupe at the International Festival of Artistic and Folk Dances in Brussels, Belgium, where they presented specific folk dances from Western Macedonia.The same year, B. Rusić gave a lecture in Prilep entitled "Which Faith is the Oldest?".In 1946, at the Macedonian House in Belgrade, he gave a lecture "The Spirit of Freedom among the Slavs", and then in Belgrade and Aleksandrovo he gave a lecture "General Introduction to Articles and Writings about Julian Krajina". At the People's University in Skopje, he gave a lecture entitled "Slavic-Greek Ethnic Relations in the Middle Ages" in 1950.The same year, Prof. Albert Bates Lord from Harvard University, a well-known researcher in anthropology and folklore, with the intention of conducting some more research and comparing the contemporary state of folk poetry with what his professor Milman Parry had written down fifteen years earlier. While researching, A. Lord, accompanied by Prof. B. Rusić, traveled the fields from Skopje to Prilep to Ohrid. Then both of them concluded that Macedonia was the richest source of lyric poetry and that it had best preserved the tradition of oral epic. Macedonian epic poems, accompanied by a three-stringed gusla, as Prof. Lord believed, are short, without the embellishments and embellishments that he encountered in Muslim poems in Sandzak and Bosnia and Herzegovina; in addition, they recorded stories about wedding customs and instrumental music, especially bagpipes. In Milman Perry's book "Serbo-Croatian Heroic Songs" (Serbo-Croatian Heroic Songs), edited by A. Lord, he wrote: "In Macedonia, an area that was completely new to me, I was unusually fortunate to have the help of Branislav Rusić, professor of ethnology at the University of Skopje. He knew every village in Macedonia, and he himself is an experienced collector of folklore..."In the summer of 1962, B. Rusić and his colleague Prof. Joel M. Halpern from the USA conducted research in the Struga region.As a guest of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Comenius University in Bratislava, B. Rusić participated in the Third Ethnological Seminar (Seminarium Ethnologicum III) in Liptovská Teplická in July 1969, where he collected data on the life and customs of the locals. From there, he and his colleague Prof. Jan Podolak came to Macedonia to study sheep farming in Macedonia, especially in the eastern parts, as part of a joint scientific research project of the two universities. They traveled and stationed themselves among the herders in their settlements around the villages of Shipkovica and Kozbunar on the slopes of Plačkovica. The investigations were also extended to the mountains of Kožuv, Pelister and Bistra.In May 1957, as a guest, Rusić was on a ten-day tour of Slovenia, where he lectured to ethnology students at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and the Faculty of Philosophy in Ljubljana on the "Ethnology of Macedonia and Bulgaria". At the SAZU he lectured on the "Participation of a Part of the South Slavs in the Creation of the Greek and Albanian Peoples", and at the Society of Folklorists of Slovenia – on "On Gusl Playing in Macedonia".On his second trip to Slovenia, in 1963, he lectured to students on the "Non-Slavic Peoples of the Balkan Peninsula", and at the Institute of Musical Folklore – on "On Scottish Folklore". In October 1965, at the invitation of the Ethnographic Museum in Ljubljana, he lectured on "Former Windmills in Macedonia" in comparison with Slovenian ones.In 1959, the Assembly of the Ethnological Society of Yugoslavia and the Consultation of Ethnologists were held in Banja Luka, where Rusić participated with a paper "Ethnology and Film", and at the People's University he gave a lecture "The Origin of the Macedonian People and Its Present-Day Features" with a projection of an ethnological film from Macedonia. Whenever he had the conditions and technical means, he took photographs of field research, and later began to use film technology in order to create more successful and reliable ethnological documentation.In addition to the unedited field films, he also wrote the script and a professional text for the ethnological documentary film "Suvace", directed by Žarko Pešić. As an expert in visual anthropology, he participated in the congresses of the International Union of Film Archives (based in Paris), starting from the one in Dubrovnik in 1956, up to the meeting in Athens in 1961, at which B. Rusić was a Yugoslav delegate. At this congress, several lectures were held on ethnological and sociological film, and the Macedonian films "Tenda", "Easter Customs in Poreč" and "St. George's Day Customs in Skopska Crna Gora" were also shown.In 1959, he participated in the First Founding Meeting of Folktale Researchers in Kiel and Copenhagen with a lecture on the research work on folktales in Macedonia.In 1961, at the Gathering of Yugoslav Ethnologists in Veles, B. Rusić spoke about the population of Macedonia, and during June 1963, during his return visit to Britain, he spoke about his research projects on British radio stations (BBC) on the topic: "The Scottish Clans and the Montenegrin Tribes". At the Symposium on Old Town Architecture and Urbanization of Cities, held in Ohrid in 1964, B. Rusić participated with a co-presentation on the topic "The Need to Protect the Old Macedonian House".
Branislav Rusić participated in the last Congress of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research in Bucharest, in the second half of August 1969.
He also applied to the Congress of the Association of Folklorists of Yugoslavia in Bovec, in September 1970, with the lecture "Slovene settlers from the Julian Krajina in Macedonia". For the Consultation of the Ethnological Society of Yugoslavia in Montenegro, he applied to a lecture on ritual masks in Macedonia and among Montenegrins in Macedonia. For the First International Congress in Paris, in the second half of August 1971, he applied to a lecture "Gesture language among the South Slavs" (Language gestuel ches Slaves du Sud).
Unfortunately, a serious illness prevented the final realization of his research projects and scientific ideas.
Bibliography
1934. „Још нeштo о опасивању цркава, манастира и мртваца“. Гласник Етнографског музеја у Београду IX. Београд: Етнографски музеј, 95–99.
1935. „Диховске ваљавице“. Гласник Етнографског музеја у Београду X. Београд: Етнографски музеј, 78–84.
1936. „Гуслар Ванђел из Охрида“. Прилози проучавању народне поезије III. Во коавторство со А. Шмаус. Београд: Народна просвета, 119–133.
1936. „Хришћанска хамајлија“. Гласник Етнографског музеја у Београду XI. Београд: Етнографски музеј, 69–75.
1937. „Смоларење у Поречу“. Гласник Етнографског музеја у Београду XII. Београд: Етнографски музеј, 136–144.
1940. „Прилепски гуслар Апостол“. Прилог проучувању народне поезије. Посебна издања бр. 2. Београд: Народна просвета, 1–88.
1940. „Знаци немуштог језика“. Гласник Етнографског музеја у Београду XV. Београд: Етнографски музеј, 113–122.
1946. „Јегејска Македонија“. Тридесет дана VIII–IX. Београд: Култура, 129–145.
1948. „Његошева препорука Мојсеју Станковићу“. Стварање III/1–2, јануар – фебруар. Цетиње: Народна књига, 64–65.
1949. „Бакаловичев рад иконостаса у Рачи“. Годишен зборник на Филозофскиот факултет на Универзитетот во Скопје 2. Скопје: Филозофски факултет, 317–339.
1950. „Питање Закамена“. Годишен зборник на Филозофскиот факултет на Универзитетот во Скопје 3/7. Скопје: Филозофски факултет, 3–22.
1950. „Caиџијe у Македонији“. Годишен зборник на Филозофскиот факултет на Универзитетот во Скопје 3/8. Скопје: Филозофски факултет, 3–12.
1951. „Осврт на етничките прилики во Пиринска Македонија“. Пирински глас II/25. Скопје: Културен клуб на Македонците од Пиринска Македонија и бившите емигранти од Бугарија во НР Македонија, 2–3.
1953. „Прављење безира у Прилепу“. Зборник Етнографског музеја у Београду 1901 – 1951. Београд: Етнографски музеј, 86–91.
1953. „Малесија“. Годишен зборник на Филозофскиот факултет на Универзитетот во Скопје 6. Скопје: Филозофски факултет, 1– 64.
1953. „Основни белешки за презимињата во Македонија“. Македонски јазик: Билтен на Катедрата за јужнословенски јазици при Филозофскиот факултет во Скопје IV/8. Скопје: Филозофски факултет.
1953. „Beating the ’Tupan‘ in the Central Balkan“. Notes XI. September. Во коавторство со Yuri Arbatsky. Washington: Music Library Association, 566–567.
1954. „Поље Дебарско“. Годишен зборник на Филозофскиот факултет на Универзитетот во Скопје 7. Скопје: Филозофски факултет, 123–186.
1954. „Етнографија или етнологија“. Зборник Матице српске VIII. Нови Сад: Матица српска, 55–66.
1954. „Немушти језик у предању и усменој књижевности Јужних Словена: Етнолошка истраживања о питању тога веровања код нас и у науци уопште“. Годишен зборник на Филозофскиот факултет на Универзитетот во Скопје. Историско-филолошки оддел. Посебни изданија. Кн. 5. Скопје: Филозофски факултет, 1–136.
1955. „Никулич“. Годишен зборник на Филозофскиот факултет на Универзитетот во Скопје. Историско-филолошки оддел. 8. Скопје: Филозофски факултет, 115–131.
1956. „The Mute Language in the Tradition and Oral Literature of the South Slavs“. Journal of American Folklore 69/253. July – September. Slavic Folklore: Simposium 5. Philadelphia: American Folklore Society, 299–309.
1956. Македонија – туристички водич. Б. Русиќ и други. Скопје: Уред за информации при Владата на НРМ.
1956. „Старији обичаји око одређивање земљишних међа и око пољских радова у Кичевији“. Гласник Етнографског музеја у Београду XIX. Београд: Етнографски музеј, 1–26.
1956. „Рад на оснивању Југословенског одбора за етнолошки филм“. Гласник Етнографског музеја у Београду XIX. Београд: Етнографски музеј, 318–319.
1957. „Сеќавање на Апостола“. Стремеж 3–4. Прилеп: Клуб на младите писатели, 46–48.
1957. „Суваче у Македонији“. Гласник Етнографског музеја у Београду XVIII. Београд: Етнографски музеј, 1–20.
1957. „Bericht über die ethnologische Arbeit in der VR Mazedonien (1945– 1955)“. Südost-Forschungen / Südostforschungen 16/1957. Leibniz: Instituts für Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung für historische Forschungen zu Südosteuropa, 456–459.
1957. „Грнчарство у Вранешници у околини Кичева“. Гласник Етнографског института САН II – III, (1953 – 1954). Београд: Етнографски институт, САН, 511–527.
1957. „Жупа Дебарска“. Годишен зборник на Филозофскиот факултет на Универзитетот во Скопје. Историско-филолошки оддел. Посебни изданија. Скопје: Филозофски факултет, 1–130.
1958. Beleške о najnovijim naseljenicima iz Makedonije u sedam ѕеla vršačkog dela Banata. Posebno izdanje Matice srpske. Novi Sad: Matica srpska.
1958. „Забелешки во врска со едно надополнување и доизјаснување“. Гласник на Институтот за национална историја III/1. Скопје: Институт за национална историја, 283–296.
1958. „Насељеничко село Сретеново крај Дојранског Језера“. Гласник Етнографског института САНУ VIII. Београд: Етнографски институт САНУ, 105–116.
1959. „Преношење вести и пошиљака између македонских печалбара и њихових породица“. PTT аrhiv 3. Beograd: PTT muzej Zajednica JPTT, 59–68.
1959. „Одредба појма фолкора“. Rad Kongresa folklorista Jugoslavije u Varaždinu 1957. Zagreb: Savez folklorista Jugoslavije, 271–273.
1960. „Guslaгsko tajno spoгazumevanje“. Rad Kongresa folklorista Jugoslavije – Bled 1959. Ljubljana: Savez folklorista Jugoslavije, 351–354.
1961. „Volkserzählungsforschung in Mazedonien“. Internationaler Kongress der Volkserzählugsfoscher in Kiel und Kopenhagen (19.08. – 29.08.1959). Vortäge und Referate. Berlin: De Gruyter, 354–361.
1963. „Pesme ѕа pevanjem uz ljuljanje kod Makedonaca i susednih južnoslovenskih naroda“. Rad IX–og Kongresa SRJ u Mostaru i Trebinju 1962. Sarajevo: Savez folklorista Jugoslavije, 333–355.
1964. „Negdasnje vetrenjače u Makedoniji“. Slovenski etnograf XVI–XVII. Ljubljana: Slovenski etnografski muzej, 317–330.
1965. „Dalmatinska ’liгa‘ i ’gusla‘ makedonska“. Etnološki pregled 6–7. Spomenica u čast d-ra Milovana Gavazzia prilikom sedamdesette godišnjice života. Beograd: Etnološko društvo Jugoslavije, 105–110.
1965. „Лазо Коријарски, последен слеп гуслар во Македонија“. Гласник на Етнолошкиот музеј во Скопје 2. Скопје: Етнолошки музеј, 187–202.
1967. „Das Maskenwesen Jugoslaviens“. Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde 63. Ruѕić, Вrаniѕlаv, Ilić Ma1uckov, Mirjana, Fi1ipović, М., Benc-Bošković, Katica, Išgum, Marija, Gavazzi, М. Ваѕе1: Schweizerisches Gesellschaft für Volkskunde, 185–202 (делот за Македонија).
1973. „Slovenci v Bistrenici v Makedoniji“. Во коавторство со Vilko Novak. Traditiones 2. Ljubljana: Inštitut za slovensko narodopisje SAZU, 177–202.
Bibliography of published book reviews and reviews
1948. „Забележување и објавување народни песни“. Нов ден 1, јануари – февруари. Скопје: Друштво на уметници, научници и журналисти.
1950. „Нова книга за некои македонски народни ора“. Приказ. Нов ден 4. Април. Скопје: Друштво на уметници, научници и журналисти.
1950. „Dva nova antropogeografska rаdа geografa Makedonije“. Годишен зборник на Филозофскиот факултет на Универзитетот во Скопје 2. Скопје: Филозофски факултет.
1950. „Dva nova antropogeografska rаdа geografa Makedonije“. Geografski vestnik XXII. Ljubljana: Geografsko društvo Slovenije, 238–239.
1952. „Wilkinson, H. R. ’Maps and Polities. A Review of the Ethnographic Cartogpraphy of Macedonia.‘ Liverpool, 1951“. Гласник Српског географског друштва XXXII. Београд: Српско географско друштво, 148-149.
1954. „Македонски народни умотворби“. Современост 6. Скопје: „Кочо Рацин“.
1955. „Што е значајно музиколошко дело“. Современост 3. Скопје: „Кочо Рацин“.
1962. „Значајан рад Aлбepтa Лорда о гусларским песмама“. Рад војвођанских музеја 11. Нови Сад: Војвођански музеј, 252–254.
1965. „Две књиге о ветрењачама“ Ernesto Veiga de Oliviera, Fernando Grehono e Menjamin Periera. Moijnos de Vento. Acores e Porto Santo. Lisboa., 335–336.
Bibliography of units written by B. Rusić for the "Encyclopedia of Yugoslavia", Zagreb
1. Азот Велешки, 12 реда
2. Бабуна, 54 реда
3. Бојмија, 28 реда
4. Бошава, 12 реда
5. Брод Македонски, 8 реда
6. Брсјаци, 90 реда
7. Варош (код Прилепа), 32 реда
8. Власи, 30 реда
9. Витачево, 13 реда
10. Галичник, 15 реда
11. Горани, 16 реда
12. Горна Река, 4 реда
13. Јуруци, 38 реда
14. Клепа, 30 реда
15. Коџаџик, 18 реда
16. Лазарополе, 6 реда
17. Малесија, 14 реда
18. Малешево, 15 реда
19. Македонци, 180 реда
20. Нестран, 28 реда
21. Прилепско-битолско Поле, 90 реда
22. Ресен, 12 реда
23. Славиште, 24 реда
24. Струшко Поле, 12 реда
25. Тиквеш, 30 реда
26. Трифуноски, д-р Јован, 7 реда
27. Урошевиќ, д-р Атанасије, 6 реда
28. Черкези, 25 реда
29. Читаци, 18 реда
Author of parts of questionnaires for the Ethnological Atlas of the SFRY
1. Oven for baking bread outside the house
2. Water supply
3. Fence
4. Fireplace
5. Peer
6. Stoves and heating
7. Getting fire
8. Characteristic division of household furniture into the main rooms
9. Table - sofra
10. Beds in the house and temporary positions
11. Canopy - cradle
12. Coffin - kasela
13. Rests, keyholes, locks
14. Dibecs (foot and hand avan)
15. Water drinking vessels
16. Vessels and places for holding water
17. Vessels for milking and storing milk;
18. Names and times of meals at different times of the day.
B. Rusić began his scientific research work as a student through “excellently crafted St. Sava themed works – written without any encouragement or assistance – with numerous data, conscientiously and carefully arranged, with a multitude of extraordinary contributions: sketches, drawings, noted folk songs with melodies put into music” (Memoir, Jovan Erdeljanović).In 1934, he wrote the St. Sava themed work “Dolno Dupeni – ethnological notes from the life and customs of a settlement in Lower Prespa” (Donji Dupeni – etnološke obrazke iz života i obicaji jednog naselja u Donjoj Prespi) and submitted it to the University Competition under the code “Brsjak” for which he received the “Lazar Teokarevic” award.In 1936 He competed with a new St. Sava theme "Pletvar - Ethnological Notes" (Pletvar - etnological notes), under the code "Taylor", for which he received the award from His Majesty the King.In the third school year, in 1937, he participated in the Competition with the theme "History of the Guslars in Southern Serbia" (Istorija guslara u Južnoj Srbiji) under the pseudonym "Orpheus" and again received the University award from His Majesty the King.During his studies, with financial and professional assistance from professors J. Erdeljanović and T. Đorđević, he traveled and researched almost all of Macedonia. He collected rich ethnological material on folk guslarism, as well as comparative materials from Aegean and Pirin Macedonia.
In the period 1947/1948, he conducted field research in the ethnographic region of Prespa, where he returned again in 1950/1951.Starting from the view that folk culture in Macedonia, as well as in the wider region, is rapidly transforming and disappearing, B. Rusić believed that these were the last years when researchers would be able to register numerous phenomena of folk culture. Therefore, he engaged in intensive fieldwork, carrying out regional field research in: Malesia (1948; 1950), Ohridsko Pole and Struga (1948/1949; 1953), Železnik (1951/1952), Krivopalanečko – Slavište, Pijanec and Delčevska Osogovija (1953/1954), Debarsko Pole and Debarska Župa (Džupa) (1954), Caparsko (Saparsko) Pole (1956; 1957; 1958); in 1956 he worked among the Macedonian villages in the Vrsac part of Banat; in 1960 he began research among other ethnic communities in Macedonia: Jurci, Vlachs, Sarakačani, Arbanasi; he also worked among the immigrants from Slovenia in Macedonia.B. Rusić made a special contribution to the discovery of the third collection of collected poems by Stefan Verković in 1957. The manuscript of the Collection had about 40 pages and about 10,000 written verses. He carried out particularly detailed field research into the issue of the non-verbal language among Macedonians and other South Slavic peoples.