Customs and festivities in Slovenia in the second half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century

The proposed research project is going to continue and update two fundamental works on Slovene customs, both by Dr. Niko Kuret: Praznično leto Slovencev (The Festive Year of Slovenes, last edition in 1989), and Maske slovenskih pokrajin (Masks of Slovene Regions, 1984). Due to this superb basis the project will be able to emphasize the period from the end of the 1980s and the sociopolitical, historic and cultural changes in which the yearly and life-cycle customs appeared. This is the period after Niko Kuret concluded his Praznično leto Slovencev, and when important political and social changes started to occur in Europe and in Slovenia as well; these were visibly manifested in various customs and holidays. We will be especially interested in the phenomena which appeared due to changes after Slovenia gained its independence and changed its political system. We will follow the customs of the yearly and life cycles from the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s when certain, especially religious customs gained a prominent role in public life. The project will go into four groups of customs: those which existed before World War II and continued afterward as well; those which disappeared (or were even banned) after World War II and were resurrected toward the end of the 20th century; the customs which were emphasized after World War II, or which originated in that period; and those which have been taken over from western Europe and the USA.