Bogucka, Aleksandra (EN)

Bogucka, real name Szurmiak-Bogucka, Aleksandra, *26 December 1928 Nowy Sącz, †17 July 2020 Polish ethnomusicologist, animator of the regional movement. She graduated from the Secondary Music School in Krakow in H. Ekier’s piano class. Between 1949 and 1953, she studied musicology at the Jagiellonian University under Z. Jachimecki, J. Reiss, S. Łobaczewska and W. Poźniak, as well as ethnography under K. Moszyński and J. Klimaszewska. Between 1950 and 1954, she participated in the nationwide Musical Folklore Collection Campaign in the Krakow Regional Team, recording around 1,000 songs, mainly in the Carpathian region in the Lach and Krakow areas. From 1954 to 1962, she worked at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw (until 1959 PIS) in the folk music research section under the supervision of J. and M. Sobieski. In 1965–91, she was an editor at PWM, including the «Obrzędy i zwyczaje ludowe» [Folk Rites and Customs], and head of the Editorial Department of Early Polish Music and Folklore. She also taught classes in folklore: in 1963–64 at the Jagiellonian University’s Department of Musicology, in 1982–84 at the Jagiellonian University’s Department of Ethnography, from 1985 to 1989 at the folklore studies programme of the Provincial Cultural Centre in Nowy Sącz, and annually since 1972 at folklore seminars in Limanowa. She was a member of the artistic committee and a juror at many folklore festivals, including the International Mountain Folklore Festival in Zakopane. Her research and practical activity in the regional movement were characterised by her concern for preserving the purity of local traditions, striving to perpetuate and revive them. In 1986, she received the O. Kolberg Award, and in 1996 she became an honorary member of the Związek Podhalan [Podhale Highlanders Association].