The ways of construction of own space in South Slavic oral lyric

Abstract

South Slavic oral lyric can form different spatial models. These models can be presented by house/castle, town or village as the enclosed spaces, but also by the open spaces, like a garden or vineyard. In both cases, it is important to note that they are organized and in that sense they are opposed to the open spaces. Notions of this world, especially the house, corespond with models of cosmic centre. In relation to them, the man positions himself in the space. The boundary is an important notion because it separates own world from the alien, open from the closed, organized from the unorganized. It is emphasized by ritual songs. Distinction of tame as an attribute of this world (in contrast with wild/alien) is relative when the mediating  position of the field – cultivated or uncultivated – is activated. It is even more complex in the motif of the house in the mountain, which merges domestic and alien, human and inhuman space. The place of isolation as a heterotopias forms specific position in opposition own/alien, marked by ritual layer of oral lyric songs. Lirical singing form complex and diverse constructs of own space and show that the binary system, on which the oral traditional culture is based, is dynamic and depends on perspectives and the context of singing.