ABSTRACT
The descriptions of zadrugas and their life, although based on reality, were essentially following an almost identical pattern of communal family functioning, with an almost uniform value orientation and ideology. The zadruga union consists of a number of families whose members live and work communally according to the principle of division of labor, communally distribute the means of production which belong to the union, and communally consume the fruits of their own labor. Ognjeslav UtjeSenovic's work Die Hauskommunionen der Sudslaven, was the first thorough description of the zadruga and its communal family life. In Croatia, Utjesenovic's model of the zadruga prevailed in the work of Antun Radic, founder of modern Croatian ethnology. Radic sought to study folk culture. Antun Radic's concept of the people and folk culture was in harmony with these tendencies because when he said 'people' he was thinking of the peasants.
