Matija Murko is one of the most significant foreign researchers of Bosnian folk music. In 1909, he conducted the first field research in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since he was unable to obtain adequate recording equipment, Murko took notes in the field and kept detailed records of his observations. He received a grant from the Balkan Commission of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Vienna to study epic poetry in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina during the summers of 1912 and 1913. In 1912, he made the first phonograph recordings in northwestern Bosnia. The following year, in 1913, he continued his research in Sarajevo and western Herzegovina. He had planned to extend his work into the summer of 1914, but the outbreak of World War I prevented him from doing so. Murko later returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1930 and 1931. During a well-organized three-month research period, he traveled to eastern Bosnia and Sarajevo. Murko’s recordings provide valuable insights into the performance of epic songs accompanied by the gusle and the two-stringed tambura, as well as sevdalinka songs performed with violin and saz accompaniment. This paper examines the significance of Murko’s research in Bosnia and Herzegovina, his methodological approach, and the field materials he collected.

The paper presents the research and sound documentation carried out by Matija Murko in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1912–1913 and 1930–1931. It focuses on the importance of Murko’s research and his collected field material in gaining a historical perspective on the past and present musical traditions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its transformations. Murko’s recordings provide some significant insights into the singing of epic songs accompanied by gusle, the sevdalinke performed to the accompaniment of the violin, and the singing of ravna songs. Murko’s recordings are often the oldest and—in some cases—the only recorded evidence of the existence of certain musical practices.

Bosnian-Herzegovinian ethnomusicology started to develop in the early 1930s. The first Bosnian ethnomusicologist, Friar Branko Marić, began to research the traditional folk music of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1920s and presented the results of his research in the doctoral dissertation Volkmusik Bosnien und der Herzegovina (1936). The first systematic ethnomusicological research was initiated by Cvjetko Rihtman in 1947 within the Institute of Folklore Research. The main goal of his fieldwork was the collection of old, traditional “untouched”, and therefore locally colored music forms. Thus, the concept of “authentic” was for a long time dominant in collecting, and when associated with “old” it worked well. However, this one-sided approach had to be overcome, since rigid approach to modern processes was a threat to the development of Bosnian ethnomusicological thought.

Ovaj tekst ne treba doživjeti kao promicanje novog smjera, novih ideja, nego kao vrstu iščitavanja onog što je bilo i onog što se zbiva u domeni tradicionalnog/folklornog muzičkog mišljenja u Bosni i Hercegovini. U fokusu ove prezentacije su etnomuzikolozi starije generacije koji su djelovali u vremenu od šezdesetih do devedesetih godina prošlog stoljeća, dok ćemo umjesto zaključka na kraju predstaviti ono što je vidljivo u polju aplikativne etnomuzikologije od devedesetih godina do danas.

This paper should not be understood as the promotion of a new direction, new ideas, but rather as a kind of reading on what has happened and what is happening in field of the traditional/folk musical opinion in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The focus of our interest is on ethnomusicologists of the older generation, active in the period from 1960s to 1990s, although in the end, instead of the conclusion, we will present what is visible in field of applied ethnomusicology for period from the 1990s to this day.

Traditional folk music of Bosnia and Herzegovina can be best understood in light of the multicultural heritage of Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats, as well as many ethnic minority groups. But in the period 1878–1918, traditional music became open to Western European influences. Openness, as well as exposure, to the “new” becomes one of the characteristic signs of the Austro-Hungarian empire, whose new system of governance brought the unknown Western European cultural spirit to the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the mentioned period, new musical instruments appeared, which were previously unknown (e.g. clarinet, accordion), as well as professional musical ensembles which were not common in Bosnian tradition. These and similar appearances made the period of Austro-Hungarian empire a unique turning point in the development of urban traditional music which was developed within the Bosnian and Herzegovinian cafes.

In July 2015, Oxford University Press published a substantial volume titled The Oxford Handbook of Applied Ethnomusicology, co-edited by two eminent ethnomusicologists, Svanibor Pettan and Jeff Todd Titon. The book is an impressive collection of different approaches in applied ethnomusicology, developed through a combination of ethnographic research (personal experiences and fieldwork in different parts of the world) and contemporary scholarship.

Singing to accompaniment of the gusle is a very important form of vocal-instrumental performance in the musical tradition of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This paper will present historic sources and research on singing to gusle accompaniment, and the methods by which songs are created, transmitted and performed by guslars.