“Strange Maple Tree”: Serbian Lyric Folk Songs on Magical Plowman in the Floral World Milieu

Folkloristics 9/1 (2024)
Author: Sanja Lazarević Radak
Text:

Having been abandoned as one in a series of cultural universalizations, the term ‘mana’ became part of the structuralist understanding of a surplus meaning. Jung used the term ‘mana’ to indicate the presence of social energy. Discursive-mythological analysis took this term from branding theory and used it in the context close to Jungian in-depth analysis. Inseparable from the leader archetype, the meaning of ‘mana’ remains in the realm of the supernatural and inexplicable. After the end of the Second World War, the divided foreign policy discourse attributed special powers to Josip Broz Tito. Moreover, the supernatural nature of his actions became the central part of the Yugoslav political mythology. The analysis of statements published after Tito’s death shows that his ‘mana’ was located in the representations of the three figures that show a high degree of interdependence—a mage, an alchemist, and a hero.

Keywords: Josip Broz, mana, discursive-mythological analysis, political folklore, sacralization of political power.