The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
CredoResearch digital collections in Credo

Collecting area: Balkans

D'Annunzio, Gabriele, 1863-1938

Gabriele D'Annunzio Collection

1919-1920
1 box 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 763
Depiction of Seal of the City of Fiume
Seal of the City of Fiume

An Italian poet, journalist, novelist, and dramatist, Gabriele D’Annunzio enjoyed a flamboyant career in international affairs after the First World War when he raised a small army and seized the port of Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia). Failing in his attempts to annex his territory to Italy, D’Annunzio reigned as Duce over the micro-state for over a year before being forced to relinquish control.

The fifteen imprints comprising this collection of scarce broadsides, all printed in the short-lived Free State of Fiume. During the brief period of his reign in Fiume, D’Annunzio issued propagandistic broadsides, proclamations, and leaflets almost daily, often distributing them by airplane drop over the city. Included is a rare first edition of D’Annunzio’s most famous piece from the Fiume period, Italia e vita.

Acquired from Steve Resnick, Jan. 2013
Language(s): Italian

Subjects

Free State of Fiume--History--20th centuryItaly--History--1914-1922Rijeka (Croatia)--History--20th centuryWorld War, 1914-1918--Baltic StateWorld War, 1914-1918--Italy

Contributors

D'Annunzio, Gabriele, 1863-1938Druscovich, MarcoZoll, Corrado

Types of material

BroadsidesFliers (Printed material)
Denny, Walter A.

Thin Veneer: The People of Bosnia and Their Disappearing Cultural Heritage

1953-1996
2 boxes 0.5 linear feet
Depiction of Bosnian baker at his shop, ca.1955
Bosnian baker at his shop, ca.1955

UMass Amherst faculty members Walter Denny (Art History) and Joel M. Halpern (Anthropology) collaborated in 1997 on an exhibition in the University Gallery exploring Bosnian multiculturalism prior the Yugoslav civil war. Denny, a specialist in Islamic art, and Halpern, an ethnographer whose research in the Balkans began in the early 1950s, assembled dozens of images from eight photographers depicting Bosnia from the nineteenth century to the start of the civil war, illustrating both the past history of the region and then-current attempts to erase that history in the name of cultural purity. The final part of the exhibition included a set of prints first exhibited in Sarajevo in 1992 comprising creative reactions to the war by Bosnian artists.

This small collection consists of 38 matted prints, 20×24″, that were part of the Thin Veneer exhibition in April through June 1997. All were taken by Halpern during field work in Bosnia betwee 1953 and 1996.

Gift of Betty Siersma, Jan. 2008

Subjects

Bosnia--Photographs

Contributors

Halpern, Joel M. (Joel Martin), 1929-

Types of material

Photgraphs
Halpern, Joel Martin

Joel Martin Halpern Papers

1950-2007
ca.300 linear feet
Call no.: FS 001
Depiction of

Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA to request materials from this collection.

The anthropologist Joel Martin Halpern (1929- ) has worked in regions from the Alaskan arctic to Laos and Lapland, but he is best known for his studies of modernization in the Balkans. Following undergraduate study in history at the University of Michigan (BA, 1950), Halpern entered the renowned anthropology program at Columbia, receiving his doctorate in 1956 for a study of the village of Orašac in the former Yugoslavia, which in turn became the basis of his first book, A Serbian Village (N.Y., 1958). After two years working in Laos as a Field Service Officer with the Community Development Division of the U.S. International Cooperation Administration, Halpern was a member of the faculty at UCLA, Brandeis, and the Russian Research Center at Harvard (1965-1967) before coming to UMass Amherst in 1967. A prolific author, Halpern has written or edited dozens of books on the Balkans and Southeast Asia, including A Serbian Village in Historical Context (1972), The Changing Village Community (1967), The Changing Peasantry of Eastern Europe (1976), and The Far East Comes Near (1989). Since retiring from the university in 1992, Halpern has remained in Amherst.

A massive collection documenting the long and varied career of a prolific ethnographer, the Halpern Papers include a wide range of textual and visual materials documenting the anthropological study of modernization, ethnicity, rural life and urbanization, the economy, and cultural change. Much of Halpern’s research centered on the Balkans (Macedonia and Serbia), Laos, and arctic Alaska and Canada, however he has worked on Asian immigrant communities in the United States and many other topics.

Subjects

Balkan Peninsula--Ethnic relationsLaos--AnthropologyMacedonia--AnthropologySerbia--AnthropologyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of AnthropologyYugoslavia--Anthropology

Contributors

Halpern, Joel Martin

Types of material

Field notesPhotographs
Macedonian Students

Macedonian Students' Scrapbook

1946
1 vol. 0.15 linear feet
Call no.: MS 262 bd
Depiction of Dancing the hora around a Red Cross flag, 1946
Dancing the hora around a Red Cross flag, 1946

The Red Cross played an important relief role in Yugoslavia, helping the still volatile region recover from the devastation of the Second World War.

The sketches and essays in this scrapbook, accompanied by a handful of photographs, were apparently made by grade school students in Skopje, Macedonia, just after the Second World War. The images depict the city, countryside, and people, with a handful of more abstract designs. Red Cross imagery is prominent throughout. Although the provenance of the album is uncertain, it seems possible that it was assembled to pay homage to the organization’s relief efforts.

Gift of Joel Halpern
Language(s): Macedonian

Subjects

Students--MacedoniaWorld War, 1939-1945--Macedonia

Types of material

Scrapbooks
Obrebski, Joseph, 1907-1967

Joseph Obrebski Papers

1923-1974
48 boxes 24 linear feet
Call no.: MS 599

A student of Bronislaw Malinowski, the Polish ethnographer Jozef Obrebski was a keen observer of cultural change among eastern European peasantry in the years before the Second World War. After working with the resistance in Warsaw during the war, Obrebski went on to do additional ethnographic research in Jamaica (with his wife Tamara), taught at Brooklyn and Queens College and C.W. Post University, and from 1948-1959, he was senior social affairs officer with the United Nations. He died in 1967.

The Obrebski collection consists largely of ethnographic data collected by Obrebski in Macedonia (1931-1932), Polesia (1934-1936), and Jamaica (1947-1948), including field and interview notes, genealogies, government documents relating to research sites, and ca. 1000 photographs; together with correspondence (1946-1974), drafts of articles, analyses of collected data, and tapes and phonograph records, largely of folk music; and papers of Obrebski’s wife, Tamara Obrebski (1908-1974), also an ethnologist and sociologist.

Language(s): Polish

Subjects

Anthropologists--PolandEthnology--JamaicaEthnology--MacedoniaEthnology--PolandPeasantry--MacedoniaPeasantry--Poland

Contributors

Obrebski, Joseph, 1907-1967

Types of material

Photographs