Vinko Žganec (January 22, 1890 – December 12, 1976) was a

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

n ethnomusicologist. Žganec was born in Vratišinec in Međimurje. He started to be interested in

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

early in his childhood and jotted down his first folk song in 1908. In 1916, he published his first

book A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...

of Croatian folk songs from Međimurje. Later he extended the work to cover the Bunjevci

Croats The Croats (; , ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and other neighboring countries in Central Europe, Central and Southeastern Europe who share a common Croatian Cultural heritage, ancest ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

and

from Gradišće in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. He studied

theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...

and later law, becoming a Doctor of Law in 1919. The

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

and ethnomusicologist Béla Bartók kept in close contact with him while collecting folk songs along the border of Hungary and

. Bartók respected Žganec because of both the accuracy of his research and the

notation In linguistics and semiotics, a notation system is a system of graphics or symbols, Character_(symbol), characters and abbreviated Expression (language), expressions, used (for example) in Artistic disciplines, artistic and scientific disciplines ...

. Music started to be his primary focus in 1945 when he became the head of the Ethnographic Museum in

Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

. During the span of his research, Žganec collected, recorded, and wrote down more than 19,000 songs, including many Croatian tamburica; these have been preserved for future generations to be used and studied. There is some evidence that he collected more than 25,000 songs (15,000 just from his native Međimurje). Some of them were not entirely documented. Žganec became the first director of the Institute of Folklore Research, and was an active participant in the Folklorist Society of Croatia. He taught at the Academy of Music in Zagreb where he was a great influence on his colleagues and students. Similar to Žganec's work was that of Franjo Kuhač, another man who devoted his life to research on the national cultural heritage.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zganec, Vinko 1890 births 1976 deaths People from Vratišinec Croatian ethnomusicologists Croatian lawyers Members of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts 20th-century musicologists Yugoslav lawyers Međimurje