215 R E C E N Z I J I • R E V I E W S Ankica Petrović The Art of Ganga Singing: Cultural Tradition of the Dinaric Area Ankica Petrović. Umjetnost pjevanja gange: kulturna tradicija Dinarske zone [The Art of Ganga Singing: Cultural Tradition of the Dinaric Area]. Livno, Zagreb and Sarajevo: Franjevački muzej i galerija Gorica and Synopsis, 2018. 288 pages + CD-ROM. 23 €. ISBN: 978-9958-01-060-6 (Synopsis, Sarajevo) 978-953-7968-54-0 (Synopsis, Zagreb) 978-9926- 8173-1-2 (Franjevački muzej i galerija Gorica). Ganga, currently the most popular traditional vocal genre of the Dinaric area (stretching across Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina), is one of the last examples of the archaic style of music making, entirely different from traditional styles and genres based on the heritage of Western European music, such as “klapa” singing. This style of traditional music making serves as an important identification marker of Dinaric communities in Southeastern Europe, both past and present. The author of the proposed book, the Sara- jevan ethnomusicologist Ankica Petrović, remains the greatest proponent of the ganga music phenomenon in scholarly circles outside former Yugoslavia. Petrović’s book is based on her fieldwork research undertaken in the early 1970s, which resulted in her doctoral thesis awarded in 1977, at Queen’s University Belfast. This was the first comprehensive study to analyze ganga as a leading genre in the context of other traditional music genres in the Dinaric area – a cultural practice that simultane- ously reflects and shapes local, regional, gender and ethnic identifications. The author points out that her choice of topic was a challenge in itself, given that, in Petrović’s own words, there was an expectation that she would choose a less “primitive” form of music than ganga, but also that she wanted to confront those very perceptions in the society in which she worked (Petrović 2018, 13). The influence of her mentor, John Blacking, expanded her views on traditional music, and specifically cultural and anthropological approaches to “ganga as culture,” along with its overarching structural and performance characteristics – a line of thought that was a novelty in Yugoslav ethnomusicology in the 1970s, and that remains relevant today. Petrović has also embraced a new theoretical- methodological approach concerned with the meaning and function of music in society, the concepts and practices of “tradition bearers,” the dynamics of gender, ethnic and regional identifications, and consideration of music practice in the real contexts of its performance – not on stage but as part of everyday life. The book comprises five substantial chapters – “Ganga in Time and Society,” “Pro- cesses of Studying ganga,” “Transcriptions of Musical Examples,” “Music Style Analy- sis” and “Aesthetic Evaluation of ganga” – framed by a preface, introduction and con- clusion. The book also includes a CD with thirty-five fieldwork recordings of ganga,