Liszka József (szerk.): Az Etnológiai Központ Évkönyve 2000-2001 - Acta Ethnologica Danubiana 2-3. (Dunaszerdahely-Komárom, 2001)

1. Tanulmányok - Danglová, Ol'ga: Az etnicitás mint a lokális és regionális identitás összetevője

The rich composition of the mosaic of folk decorative tradition, manifested in numerous local and regional styles, was preserved in Hont approximately into the first half of the 20th century, and in some culturally isolated localities or micro-regions, especially the Slovak villages of Hrušov and Sebechleby, it survived even longer. One of the causes was also the continuation of the self-sufficient character of the economy - especially in the Slovak villages of central Hont, where most products were home produced and only the most essential were bought from shops, according to the words of informants from Sebechleby only sugar, salt and petroleum. The predominance of objects from the hands of domestic producers (objects of wood, textile, embroidery) satisfied the needs of the immediate and extended family or the locality and its immediate surroundings. The specific objects made in the framework of the village were strongly connected with local and regional taste and conditioned the variety of local and regional changes of decorative styles in Hont.

The crystallization of the creative expression of the language of local and regional forms was the result of the subconscious or deliberate imitation of the inherited form of style. Clearly there was also an irrational factor, which naturally led people to imitation of what they saw in others. Thus, style was also strengthened on the socio- psychological level. Between localities and regions, the style of dress, housing and decoration of objects was a mutually comprehensible language of communication. Thus, for example, it was expressed in the appearance of things like the colour of textile decoration. Standardization of the artistic language of a particular community was expressed both in the specific choice of colours and a specific method of organization, arrangement of colours or negation of a certain colour. As an illustration, I will mention at least one of many such examples. At Sebechleby, Hontianske Nemce, Domaníky and Dolné Rykynčice, where women wore a costume of a special local form, yellow was omitted in the embroidered decoration. The following was said about the colour decoration of women’s dress in the north-eastern part of Hont, in the so-called krekáčske villages and neighbouring Hrušov, which frequently used yellow, embroideries were yellow and yellow appeared in blue-printed cloth: The Hrušov costume is the ugliest that can exist. It disfigures those women. The old are yellowish like birds. They don’t want yellow here, it's typical of Hrušov. It is necessary to comment that Hrušov was a poorer and more culturally isolated village. Decoration, in this case colour, was indirect, symbolic, metaphorical information representing a locality. It was symbolic-cultural information defining a village or region.

Strengthening of people’s own local or regional forms of artistic expression was typical of traditional folk culture. It was difficult for a member of a traditional society to enjoy creations and phenomena different to those which had something in common with those he knew. Therefore, individual efforts to introduce innovations - attempts at other forms of decorative expression or use of a different decorative technique - were successful only if they corresponded to what was already to some extent known and so also acceptable. For example, adaptation of the originally bourgeois Biedermeier fine white holed embroidery to the decorative repertoire of village costume embroidery at Hontianske Nemce, Sebechleby, Domaníky and Dolné Rykynčice around 1900, was possible also because it corresponded to the old familiar custom of decorating home woven linen with cutwork embroidery. The familiar and newly adapted form gave approximately similar visual impressions (Danglová 1975, 25-30).

87