Slovenian Folk Culture: Between Academic Knowledge and Public Display

Up to the second half of the twentieth century, Slovenian ethnologists and folklorists were concerned almost exclusively with the phenomena of folk culture in the “traditional” sense generally used in European ethnology—that is, as the rural, low, simple culture typical of an ethnic community and, later on, a nation. Due to historical, economic, and social changes, the concept s semantic alterations (as reflected in academic definitions and public reception) were followed by more and broader ways of transmitting it. From the perspective of knowledge formats and other genres, the Slovenian case may offer some comparative insights into the establishment, development, and popularization of scholarship. These processes are the outcome of the scholarly reconceptualization of culture research as well as the commodification of culture.