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FOLKLORE: FEJF 80. Birthlore and Childhood in Archaic and Modern European Cultures
Edited by Irina Sedakova and Nina Vlaskina
FOLKLORE: FEJF 80 is dedicated to a topic which has always been and will be of utmost interest to scholars of many humanitarian and social disciplines as well as of medical science. At the heart of this subject is an event which is both physical (natural, ontological) and symbolical in nature – the miracle of childbirth. It denotes and alludes to the origin and beginning of life, initiation and acquisi-tion of a new status. As such it has been thoroughly studied by ethnographers, ethnologists, cultural and medical anthropologists, historians, sociologists and theologians, linguists and folklorists, psychologists and pedagogues from various countries. In the twenty-first century, with the advent of new technology and research methods, together with huge advances made in medical care for women, academic studies of childbirth and early childhood became multidisciplinary. Archaic views on pregnancy, delivery, and the baby’s initial socialisation, which do not seem at first glance to be applicable in the most modern urban settings equipped with modern medical and scientific facilities, prove to be amazingly stable. Parallel to this continuation of tradition is a new attitude to the personal life and emotions – a “new sincerity”.
The authors of this issue are Rasa Paukštytė-Šaknienė, Tatiana Agapkina and Andrei Toporkov, Irina Sedakova, Oksana Labashchuk, Halyna Derkach, Tetiana Reshetukha, Lena Marander-Eklund, Natalia Gramatchikova, Alexander Novik, Natalia Dushakova, Adina Hulubaş, Anamaria Iuga.
The Folklore: FEJF is founded in 1996 as the academic printed and online journal. Read this issue: http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol80
