Šojmanka – Women of Eastern Serbia who communicate with fairies.
Curare , 2019
This paper is written to confuse all those researching on the topic of fairy-seeing individuals in Southeastern Europe and those who might be interested in it for some unclear reason. There is a multitude of expressions, designations on various languages for similar phenomena in a relatively small region. The terms often refer to the same phenomenon, but sometimes they don’t. The term ‘the semantic field’ in linguistics means, that one word covers a particular meaning, and another covers a different field. The fields can be similar and converge but are not identical. This is the case with the various expressions by fairy-seeing individuals in this region. The phenomenon of individuals capable of communication with creatures of the invisible world was scientifically analyzed in the past six decades and diverse perspectives were offered as theoretical approach: as fragments of pre-Christian belief systems that were mostly found in historical documents such as witch-hunt trials (Eliade 1975 in general, Ginzburg 1966 for Italy, Klaniczay 1983 & 1984 & 2006 for Hungary, Henningsen 1993, Čiča 2002 for Croatia), as remnants of still existing complex popular belief systems about witches and fairies and the syncretism between these two female benevolent/malevolent creatures (for instance Pòcs 1986 and , Zentai 1976, for Central Europe Bošković-Štulli 1953 & 1960 for Croatia, Đorđević 1952 –Serbia, Yugoslavia), and from the ethnomedical standpoint as vestiges of traditional holistic beliefs about human health and its connection to nature and divinities (for instance.i. for Serbia: Tucakov 1965, Radenković 1996,Vivod 2015). The traces of this phenomenon, such as the texts of charms or fairy-tales were often analyzed as bits and pieces of the local folklore (f.i. for Serbia: Zečević 1981, Radenković 1996, Šešo 2003 Đorđević 1989). If this didn’t confuse you, there are still a lot of other things coming.
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