LadinoProverbs · Ladino Proverbs: Edition, Recovery and Dissemination of the Endangered Cultural Heritage in the post-Holocaust Yugoslavia
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-09-01 → 2021-08-31
- EU contribution
- €158,122
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Ladino Proverbs: Edition, Recovery and Dissemination of the Endangered Cultural Heritage in the post-Holocaust Yugoslavia
“Ladino Proverbs: Edition, Recovery and Dissemination of the Endangered Cultural Heritage in the post Holocaust Yugoslavia” (acronym LadinoProverbs, n. 792150) is an interdisciplinary project that started on 1 November 2019 and ended on 31 August 2021. The main idea of the project consisted of working on an intangible material which included various unedited manuscripts of Ladino or Judeo-Spanish proverbs in order to analyse, safeguard and disseminate knowledge of a culture and a language that has been declared by UNESCO in 2002 as a seriously endangered heritage. The material was collected by a few surviving members of the Sephardic community in Serbia and Bosnia following the events of World War II and the Holocaust, which adds an additional value to the material. In fact, we have become aware that the only way to secure the continuation of this European heritage is by preserving the remaining testimonies, which are spread throughout different countries and institutions, and often kept in inadequate conditions, thus jeopardising their survival. The aim of this project was to contribute to that idea by conducting an interdisciplinary study on the Sephardic paremiology from Serbia and Bosnia, which thus far has been neglected in Sephardic studies. The importance of this project for society as a whole lies above all in two aspects. First, as mentioned above, we are dealing here with an extremely sensitive material in that it represents the last remnants of the Sephardic culture and language from Serbia and Bosnia, countries which formed part of the former Ottoman Empire. Working on this material guarantees its survival and its preservation for posterity. Second, the Sephardic heritage and its language form part of the rich and varied European cultural history and linguistics, but have remained largely unknown to date. The project, thus, intended to shed light on an unexplored aspect of the Sephardic culture and raise/spread awareness of the importance of its preservation for the European and World cultural map. The overall objectives consisted of producing: two papers and a monographic study on the Ladino/Sephardic proverb tradition; organising an international conference that would set the basis for future collaborative projects by gathering together experts in different disciplines (to secure an interdisciplinary approach to the matter) and of different backgrounds; and to raise awareness and urgency in society of the importance of similar projects whose aim is to protect the survival and testimonies of endangered cultures. The activities undertaken as well as their results (detailed below) demonstrate that these objectives have been fully accomplished.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
This research project will constitute the first peremiological study of the Sephardic tradition from Serbia and Bosnia. Whereas other forms of the Ladino oral tradition from these countries such as ballads, songs or folktales have all been analysed, the proverb tradition remains largely unstudied. Thus my project seeks to fill a serious void in this field. I intend to edit and examine five manuscripts containing proverbs from these countries. All five manuscripts are postHolocaust. Three are exclusively in Ladino, whereas two are bilingual (Ladino/Serbian). The study will entail an analysis of the literary genre of the proverb from an interdisciplinary approach that will include contributions from biblical studies, medieval Iberian cultural studies, modern Balkan history, sociological criticism, linguistics, and folklore paremiology and narrative. The study will also include a cross-cultural analysis of the proverbs using a comparative method. The ultimate goal of this project is a monograph intended to preserve, revitalise and disseminate the endangered Ladino language and culture. Prof. Paloma Díaz-Mas, who works in the Instituto de Lengua, Literatura and Antroplogía (ILLA) of the Centre for Human and Social Sciencies (CSIC, Spain) is the ideal person to supervise my work. She leads a research group that focuses on the culture of post-diaspora of Hispanic Jews (Sephardim) and has an extensive and prominent list of works on the topic published either independetly or in collaboration with other members of the project. By joining her group I would be given the opportunity to [the] acquire new skills (transliteration of Ladino texts written in Hebrew script[s]; edition of texts) and disseminate my work among both academic and non-academic audience through a number of activities (international conferences, workshops and seminars; radio and television programmes; participation in Science weeks and fairs,organisation of exhibitions and promotional talks).
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS · MadridCoordinatorSpain
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union