Cocchiara, Giuseppe (1904-1965)

Giuseppe Cocchiara (1904-1965) is a major representative of Italian demologia. His work was primarily marked by late folklorism with its interest in popular traditions as historical or even pre-historical survivals. He then opened up to innovative themes of an ethnological nature, while insisting on the fact that the so-called primitives are “like us”. Cocchiara, who did not conduct fieldwork on his own, also devoted himself to the history of the disciplines he constantly brought together, folklore and ethnology. Among his reference works stands Storia del folklore in Europa (1952), whose English translation in 1981 assured its lasting international repercussions.

Keywords: Folklore | History of folklore | Evolutionism | History of Anthropology | Demology | 20^th century | European folklore | Folk culture