Work

Until the 1970s the Yugoslavian ethnology was a blend of evolutionary anthropology and Marxist historical materialism.^[8] In his work Ideological and Theoretical Grounds for the Development of Our Ethnographic Museum (1953) criticized the inter-war museological practice, as well introduced a new name for the discipline, ethnography instead of ethnology.^[9] He strongly criticized the Soviet ethnography, its absolutization of science and the chauvinistic Pan-Slavism. He noted that since the establishment of Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1914) the ethnology was a subject of political oppression by the centralist regime, while the Serbian bourgeois ethnology (and its school founded by Jovan Cvijić and Jovan Erdeljanović^[9]) which also originated in the 19th century, worked on the political class assumptions and ethnocentric premises. Such political hegemony influenced the museology which presented integralist Yugoslav and Serbian ethnocentrism, while underestimated the development of minority groups, as well supported methodological formalism.^[10]

There existed scholarship rivality between Kulišić and Serbian scholar Milenko Filipović. Kulišić supported "antiquarian ethnology", while Filipović "social ethnology", they debated on the structural functionalism,^[11] which resulted with Kulišić accusation of Filipović for anti-historicism, their broken cooperation, and Kulišić withdrawal of Ph.D. degree dissertation on Christmas ritual breads.^[12]

The work by Manojlo Glušević, Ethnography, Ethnology, and Anthropology (1963), which criticized the Erdeljanović's idea of ethnology as discipline of nations, ethnicity and ethnogenesis, and in the core the putative history idea based on hypothetical reconstructions on the basis of unreliable oral tradition, was objected by Kulišić for neglecting historicity of man's existence.^[13] The Kulišić's tendency for using Marxist quotes and negative labels in theoretical discussion was later called as "Špirinism".^[14]

In 1973 wrote a paradoxal lament on the Marxism in the Yugoslav science during its trend of liberalization.^[15]

He researched the pre-Christian religion, mythology and tradition. He considered patriarchy as the historical next stage from matriarchy, and that the South Slavs had a matriarchal origin, contrary to the Yugoslav historiography consideration that during the Slavic migration there was transition in the Balkan, yet had patrilineal-patrilocal family and military-democratic social system.^[16] Kulišić considered zadruga (cooperative) a transitory form, like Vlach katuns and fraternity, that they lack patriarchal structure, and showed an archaic Balkan historical longevity and adjustment to the new socio-economical formations (like feudalism).^[17]

Ethnogenesis of Montenegrins

His most influential work is the book Ethnogenesis of Montenegrins (O etnogenezi Crnogoraca) which was published in the Montenegrin capital of Titograd (modern-day Podgorica) by the state Pobjeda in 1980.^[18] This work sparked a huge amount of controversy and interest in the general, scholarly and political public, as since the 1960s there was a developing theory on the autochthonous school about the Montenegrin ethnic origin,^[19] whereas the dominant and official one until then was that Montenegrins were of Serb ethnic background. It was Kulišić's final confrontation against the 19th century national-romanticist approach of Serbian anthropology, and positivist orientation of Yugoslav Marxist historiography and archaeology.^[20]

It contradicted the official viewpoint by the communist party ideologue, Serb Milovan Djilas (1945–1947), that the Montenegrins were an ethnic group within the Serb nation, and only in 1878 formed their nationality due to social-capitalism;^[21] he denied that the Montenegrins were a separate ethnic group and nationality.^[22] Kulišić's work was criticized for various misinterpretations including of historical sources, and immediately followed a public panel in 1981,^[20] all in the intention of discrediting.^[23]