Storytelling Through Poetry

We invite you to the multimedia exhibition “Storytelling Through Poetry: Narrative Songs in the Tradition of Bosnia and Herzegovina” which provides an opportunity to gain insight into the wealth of material related to the narrative oral-poetic forms of the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina – material that the Department of Ethnology of the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina has been collecting, systematizing and studying since its establishment in 1888.

In one place, folk musical instruments, authentic photographs and sound recordings of folk musicians and singers, recordings of narrative songs, and other precious objects that testify to the ability and inventiveness of folk artists to tell stories through dozens, hundreds or thousands of verses will be presented.

The exhibition is a unique opportunity to see the fiddle of Fra Grgo Martić, the manuscripts of Kosta Hörmann and Ludvik Kuba from the 19th century, and other precious artifacts.

In a time without radio, television, the internet or photography, these songs were everything mentioned to our ancestors… and film and theater and everything without which we can hardly imagine everyday life.

Author of the exhibition: Zanin Berbić, ethnomusicologist curator

The opening of the exhibition will be on October 9, 2025 at 19:00 at the Department of Ethnology.