HomeAbstract of 6th-iacrssSoldiers’ Poems As An Ideal Indicator Of A Soldier’s Psychological Microworld

Soldiers’ Poems As An Ideal Indicator Of A Soldier’s Psychological Microworld

Proceedings of The 6th International Academic Conference on Research in Social Sciences

Year: 2023

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/6th.iacrss.2023.03.001

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Soldiers’ Poems As An Ideal Indicator Of A Soldier’s Psychological Microworld

Ana Tereza Zelinski

 

 

ABSTRACT: 

Luka Lukić, a Croatian ethnographer, melograph and folklorist, created reliable records of cultural heritage on the territory of Slavonia, between the late 19th and mid 20th century. During his 56-year-long career, he collected descriptions of life and customs of the inhabitants of Klakar and a wider Brod-Posavina area. His manuscripts contain over 10,000 pages. Although presented as a monograph, the manuscripts have not been sufficiently analysed in the context of psychology, sociology, politics, history, philology and other sciences. They contain folk chants, notes on social relationships, customs, beliefs, folk medicine, architecture, economy, the art of traditional clothing, folk songs, prayers, stories, short stories, incantations, fables, jokes and complex soldiers’ poems which form the basis of the analysed corpus. As Lukić meticulously documented his materials and conveyed the atmosphere of his time, the soldiers’ poems are an ideal indicator of a soldier’s psychological microworld before and after WWI. It seems like the inhabitants of the Brod-Posavina region themselves speak through the poems honestly, as witnesses, about the events, feelings, and situations in the armed forces, and discipline and drills they had experienced before battles and during the war. They speak about relationships between the soldiers and their superiors, and soldiers’ feelings and dissatisfaction caused by disrespect for human dignity. They mention fears, restlessness and uncertainty due to battles they were about to enter, and dissatisfaction with the relationships between them and their superiors. Soldiers’ poems, therefore, speak for the first time about the main protagonists of WWI, from first-hand experience.

keywords: Brod-Posavina, Luka Lukić, soldier; soldiership, World War I