In an interview with “Fuyuzat TV” Doctor of Sciences in Philology, Director of the Institute of Folklore of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) Hikmat Guliyev shared his views on the contemporary socio-cultural nature of folklore rather than merely its historical formation, the dynamic character of the relationship between the people and knowledge, the function of folklore in the formation of national identity and collective cultural memory, the preservation of the folkloric heritage of various ethnic groups in Azerbaijan, as well as new forms of folkloric creativity in the context of digital communication and artificial intelligence.

In the interview it was mentioned that understanding folklore merely as texts and traditions inherited from the past was not sufficient to explain its contemporary nature. The relationship between folklore, national identity and cultural security was also discussed from a socio-anthropological perspective. Hikmat Guliyev noted that globalization and digitalization had led to the rapid encounter of diverse cultural contents within a shared communication space. In such a context, national identity became relevant not only as a matter of preserving historical heritage, but also as a matter of how social groups express themselves and through which cultural codes, they articulate their experiences.

Hikmat Guliyev also noted that the study of digital folklore had expanded the methodological boundaries of folkloristics.