THE ETNOGRAPHER OF KOSSOVO PRIEST-DENA DEBELJKOVIĆ, NATIONAL WORKER AND NATIONAL VICTIM

Abstract

Dena Debeljković, his real name being Mladen, served as a priast, and as a teacher in fis native village, Lipljan. Having completed his studies at the Prizren Seminary in 1879, he began to work first as a teacher, and in 1897 he received his first syncellus for the First Lipljan parish. He served as a priest until his death in 1915 when he was arrested and killed by the Bulgarin army occupying Kossovo. He was the chronicler of his time who noted down all important events that occurred in his own life and service, as well as in the life of his parishioners. As an ethnograoher he collected a large body of various ethnographic facts concerning traditional folk culture, and especially folk artistic expressions in Kossovo. He was an associate of the Ethnographic Board of the Serbian Royal Academy.