Soul of Dandelion Religion, Death and Politics in the “Seeing off” of the Body and Funeral of Patriarch Pavle
Abstract
In this paper, I focus on the issues of religion, religiousness and the phenomenon of death
in modern Serbian society. My research is aimed at analysing a relatively recent event:
the death, seeing off of the body, and funeral of Patriarch Pavle, the 44th patriarch of
the Serbian Orthodox Church. This event fits into wider models of the ideological use of
religious discourse on the phenomenon of death. However, I believe that a deconstructivist approach – significantly different from those prevailing lately in anthropological
analyses – may be applied to this event (and also to others). Moreover, by widening the
focus of our analysis from the final image conveyed by a certain social ritual, to incorporate the bottom-up processes underlying the ritual, we should be able to address
a wider range of questions, extending beyond the anthropo-political significance of the
event itself. Thus, the final goal of this research – rather than illuminating the implicit ideological messages ...of the ritual – will be to answer the question: Which particular
systems of individual and collective values are applied to the shaping of the ritual, and
in which way?
Keywords:
Dearh / Funeral / Patriarch Pavle / politics / collective identitiesSource:
Ethnologia Balkanica, 2012, 16, 193-207Publisher:
- Lit Verlag
Funding / projects:
Institution/Community
Етнографски институт САНУ / Institute of Ethnography SASATY - JOUR AU - Pavićević, Aleksandra PY - 2012 UR - https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=95114 UR - https://dais.sanu.ac.rs/123456789/4816 AB - In this paper, I focus on the issues of religion, religiousness and the phenomenon of death in modern Serbian society. My research is aimed at analysing a relatively recent event: the death, seeing off of the body, and funeral of Patriarch Pavle, the 44th patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church. This event fits into wider models of the ideological use of religious discourse on the phenomenon of death. However, I believe that a deconstructivist approach – significantly different from those prevailing lately in anthropological analyses – may be applied to this event (and also to others). Moreover, by widening the focus of our analysis from the final image conveyed by a certain social ritual, to incorporate the bottom-up processes underlying the ritual, we should be able to address a wider range of questions, extending beyond the anthropo-political significance of the event itself. Thus, the final goal of this research – rather than illuminating the implicit ideological messages of the ritual – will be to answer the question: Which particular systems of individual and collective values are applied to the shaping of the ritual, and in which way? PB - Lit Verlag T2 - Ethnologia Balkanica T1 - Soul of Dandelion Religion, Death and Politics in the “Seeing off” of the Body and Funeral of Patriarch Pavle SP - 193 EP - 207 IS - 16 UR - https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_dais_4816 ER -
@article{ author = "Pavićević, Aleksandra", year = "2012", abstract = "In this paper, I focus on the issues of religion, religiousness and the phenomenon of death in modern Serbian society. My research is aimed at analysing a relatively recent event: the death, seeing off of the body, and funeral of Patriarch Pavle, the 44th patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church. This event fits into wider models of the ideological use of religious discourse on the phenomenon of death. However, I believe that a deconstructivist approach – significantly different from those prevailing lately in anthropological analyses – may be applied to this event (and also to others). Moreover, by widening the focus of our analysis from the final image conveyed by a certain social ritual, to incorporate the bottom-up processes underlying the ritual, we should be able to address a wider range of questions, extending beyond the anthropo-political significance of the event itself. Thus, the final goal of this research – rather than illuminating the implicit ideological messages of the ritual – will be to answer the question: Which particular systems of individual and collective values are applied to the shaping of the ritual, and in which way?", publisher = "Lit Verlag", journal = "Ethnologia Balkanica", title = "Soul of Dandelion Religion, Death and Politics in the “Seeing off” of the Body and Funeral of Patriarch Pavle", pages = "193-207", number = "16", url = "https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_dais_4816" }
Pavićević, A.. (2012). Soul of Dandelion Religion, Death and Politics in the “Seeing off” of the Body and Funeral of Patriarch Pavle. in Ethnologia Balkanica Lit Verlag.(16), 193-207. https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_dais_4816
Pavićević A. Soul of Dandelion Religion, Death and Politics in the “Seeing off” of the Body and Funeral of Patriarch Pavle. in Ethnologia Balkanica. 2012;(16):193-207. https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_dais_4816 .
Pavićević, Aleksandra, "Soul of Dandelion Religion, Death and Politics in the “Seeing off” of the Body and Funeral of Patriarch Pavle" in Ethnologia Balkanica, no. 16 (2012):193-207, https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_dais_4816 .