User:Zoupan/Ojkača

Ojkanje or Ojkača is a traditional polyphonic a capella singing, prevalent in the Zagora (Dalmatian hinterland), Kordun, Banija, Lika in Croatia, and Bosanska Krajina in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Vojvodina in Serbia. It is sung in two-part and to the syllable "Oj", hence its name. It is an important cultural marker in the Krajina Serb population.

In 2010, it was inscribed in UNESCOs List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding as representative of Croatia. This has met criticism from Serbian writers who have said that the Ministry of Culture (Serbia) should protest against the nomination, together with Bosnia and Herzegovina, so that ojkanje would be a joint cultural item (compare Stećci).

History
It is though to be derived from the isokratema, or Byzantine chant (drone).

In 1899, Ludvík Kuba (1863-1956), the Czech professor, said: "This way of singing is wide, in all of Dalmatia. I have understood that it is especially loved in the Orthodox regions. This is backed by the fact that in Croatia, it is found only within refugees from Bosnia and Serbia." This view is supported in Antun Dobronić's work "Ojkanje" from 1915.

Nenad Grujičić said "In the Balkans there were always great migrations, we remember the migrations after the fall of Wien in the hand of the Turks in 1683. In the refugee camps, the people exchanged their singing, and here emerged the ojkača. Today in Vojvodina, for example, in the village of Prigrevica in Sombor, and not only here, Ojkača is prevalent. Here lives Krajišniks from various historical migrations and turbulence. Ojkača is a proud and known part of their souls and ancestors".

In Stanko Opačić Ćanic's "Narodne pjesme Korduna" (Folk songs of Kordun, 1972), he says that the domestic ojkača was called "to sing in Cyrillic" or "Cyrillic-singing".