The papers in this volume of Ethnologia Balkanica focus on various kinds of emotions of people in Southeast Europe. Grief and sadness are, of course, universal, but they take on different forms of expression, as some papers in this volume show. In the times of the socialist system laughter could express resistance, and for the many labour migrants from the Balkans visiting their country of origin often evokes feelings of being at home. Cities make efforts to attract visitors through emotions and many people try to relive times of past glory emotionally by means of historical re-enactments. In everyday life, gossip is an important means of expressing positive or negative emotions, just like smells and rituals can become expressions of actual or remembered emotions. Thus, for researchers emotions are a factor that always must be taken serious, both those of the people they study and their own. The volume also contains obituaries of two outstanding social anthropologists, Joel Halpern and Christian Giordano, whose work focussed on the Balkans, as well as reports and book reviews that relate to this region.
Klaus Roth is professor em. at the Institute for European Ethnology of Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich
Editorial
Papers
Ioannis Karachristos, Athens Dealing with Emotions in the Field and from the Field: The Researcher’s Role
Georgios Kouzas, Athens From Public to Private Life and vice versa. Social Comments (Gossip) as a Dynamic Expression of Positive and Negative Emotions
Zlatina Bogdanova, Sofia “Kapana” in Plovdiv – the “Emotional” Trap of the Urban Culture
Blaž Bajič, Ljubljana/Joensuu Nose-talgia, or, Olfactory Remembering of the Past and the Present in a City in Change
Maria Mateoniu-Micu, Bucharest Laughter as a Strategy of Resistance in Socialist Romania. The Case of Jiu Valley
Svetla I. Kazalarska, Sofia Historical Reenactments of the “Heroic Times”: Performance and Affect
Lumnije Kadriu, Prishtina Kosovo Albanian Diaspora Holidays and the Feeling of “At-homeness”
Mirela Hrovatin, Zagreb Tracking Historical Changes in Personal Religious Practice on the Examples of Votive Prayers
Leontina Musa, Prishtina Emotions of Separation and Cohesion during Death Rituals
Georgeta Nazarska, Svetla Shapkalova, Sofia Faith, Sacraments and Emotions: Projections of Religiosity in Contemporary Bulgaria
Florența Popescu-Simion, Bucharest Taming the Unknown: Emotional Aspects of a Ritual Dedicated to Some Miraculous Graves in a Catholic Cemetery in Bucharest
Obituaries
Christian Giordano (1945–2018). In Memoriam Milena Benovska, Sofia; Klaus Roth, Munich
Joel Martin Halpern, 1929–2019. Joel Martin Halpern, cultural anthropologist and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), died in Greenfield, Massachusetts, on July 4th, 2019 at the age of 90 Hannes Grandits, Siegfried Gruber, Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler
Reports
International Conference “(Re)thinking Socialism: Knowledge, Memory and Oblivion of the Socialist Past”, Sofia, November 7–9, 2019. Zlatina Bogdanova, Sofia
Book reviews
Caroline Hornstein Tomić, Robert Pichler, Sarah Scholl-Schneider (eds.): Remigration to Post-Socialist Europe: Hopes and Realities of Return (ERSTE Foundation Series, Volume 3), Vienna: Lit 2018 Violetta Parutis, University of Essex
Lozanka Peycheva: “Narodnijat duh” v avtorskite pesni ot Bălgarija [“The folk spirit” in author’s songs from Bulgaria]. Sofia: Sofia University press 2019. Orlin Spasov, Sofia
Claudia-Florentina Dobre: Ni victime ni héroïne. Les anciennes détenues politiques et les mémoires du communisme en Roumanie. Bucharest: Electra, 2019. Antoine Heemeryck, Paris
Alexandra Ion: Regi, sfinți și anonimi. Cercetători și oseminte umane în arheologia din România [Kings, saints and the anonymous dead. Researchers and human remains in the archaeology of Romania]. Târgoviște: Cetatea de Scaun 2019. Stelu Șerban, Bucharest
Addresses of Editors and Authors Instructions to Authors