Vitomir Belaj

Vitomir Belaj (November 8, 1937 – August 19, 2023) was a Croatian ethnologist.^[1][2] In 1979 he received his PhD at Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb.^[3] There was a professor since 1985, and since 2009 as emeritus professor.^[3] In his career, Belaj particularly studied ethnological history and mythological background of Slavs and Croats.^[3][4]

Belaj died on August 19, 2023, at the age of 85.^[5]

Selected works

• Utemeljitelj hrvatske etnologije dr. Antun Radić (1966) (master's thesis)
• Kultni vrtići u Jugoslaviji i njihov etnološki okvir (1979) (doctoral dissertation)
• Die Kunde vom kroatischen Volk. Eine Kulturgeschichte der kroatischen Volkskunde (1998) ISBN 3928624571
• Hod kroz godinu. Mitska pozadina hrvatskih narodnih običaja i vjerovanja (1998, 2007) ISBN 9789532123340
• Sveti trokuti. Topografija hrvatske mitologije (with Juraj Belaj; 2014) ISBN 978-953-6927-74-6

Awards

• 1998: Croatian State Award in Science (hr:Državna nagrada za znanost)^[6]
• 2006: Milovan Gavazzi Award for lifetime achievement, Croatian Ethnographic Society^[1]