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Conclusion 270 The tambura, a Middle Eastern long-necked lute, was brought to the Balkan Peninsula by Ottoman invaders nearly seven hundred years ago. It was a basic chordophone, highly portable, and originally made from natural materials. This type of lute has continued to be played in something quite similar to its original form, notably in the variant called šargija. Because the Balkan Peninsula is a place where the culture of the Middle East meets the culture of Central Europe, this lute, like everything else in the region’s traditions, has been modified by the competing influences of the two spheres. Thus, the Central European musical idea of a string section of various-sized instruments of the same type was applied to these Middle Eastern lutes, and the tamburitza orchestra came into being. Early on, the tamburitza was a manifestation of the manipulation of folkloreforotherpurposes,termed“folklorism”byscholars.Nineteenthcentury musicians using thesetamburitzas imbued them with meaning: theyweretheinstrumentsofCroatiansorSerbsintheAustro-Hungarian Empire, the embodiment of their nationality. Promoting tamburitza as a national instrument fit well into the ideology of the Illyrian movement , a Croatian-led movement to unify the South Slavs. Their goal was to ennoble the simple peasant instrument to render it on a par with the violins of classical music. Orchestral forms of the tamburitza were created and music composed for that type of orchestra. The orchestras performed in concerts with the pretensions of classical music. The players of these improved orchestral tambure adapted them to other uses, performing on them in informal bands at weddings and other festivities. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries , South Slavic immigrants carried tamburitzas across the Atlantic to North America. The tamburitza as the national instrument of the South Slavs in Austro-Hungary fit well into the New World setting as it became the national instrument of Croatian and Serbian ethnic communities in the United States and Canada. AccordingtotheIllyrianidea,thetamburitzaexpressedandvalidated Slavic culture to the dominant Austrians and Hungarians in Europe and to the dominant Anglo-Saxons and Germanic-heritage nationalities in America. In Europe tamburitza performance was imbedded with the political notion that there should be a South Slavic nation-state. In America it expressed the idea that the Slavs were and are a cultured people, and should not face prejudice or discrimination in American society. After World War I and the downfall of the Habsburg Empire, a South Slavic state was formed—the kingdom of Yugoslavia. Before long the Croatians of Yugoslavia chafed under the Serbian dynasty’s rule. The tamburitza and other folk arts and customs of Croatian villagers were displayed, with the expert guidance of Croatian ethnologists to express Croatian particularity, as distinct from the culture of the Serbian rulers, a reversal from Illyrianism. Their implicit message was to justify Croatian cultural and political autonomy, opposing hegemony from another South Slavic nation. In America there was no such dramatic change in the aftermath of World War I. The same Illyrian notion that the tamburitza validated South Slavic identity still applied in the United States. Moreover, Serbian and Croatian Americans held the same status in the United States; there were no ethnologists directing cultural activities of the immigrant workers, and the American tamburitza tradition evolved under the influence of American sociocultural conditions. World War II and the socialist revolution in Yugoslavia did not fundamentally change the meaning of the tamburitza traditions either in Yugoslavia or in North America. Postwar developments, however, eroded the identification of Serbian Americans with the tamburitza Conclusion 271 tradition. Refugees from regions that did not embrace tamburitza became a significant part of the Serbian ethnic community. DuringthedisintegrationofYugoslaviaatthebeginningofthe1990s, the tamburitza, like many other Croatian patriotic symbols, received greater emphasis, and there was an increase in musical activity involving the tamburitza. The overtly Serbian versus Croatian nature of the Homeland War disinclined both nationalities toward each other’s national symbols, which hastened the decline of the tamburitza’s use among Serbian Americans. Recently the interactions of tamburaši have been facilitated and intensified by the many improved means of communication: the Internet, social networking sites, cell phones, and less expensive international airline flights that bring musicians together. As a result, recent developments in the tamburitza tradition are becoming much more unified with diminishing differences between its European and American manifestations. Both in Europe and in North America, the tamburitza tradition enjoys the support of institutions to ensure its perpetuation. These institutions are more official in Croatia while in North America they are outgrowths of grassroots community activity. In all...

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