Austrian Museum of Folklore

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Folklore Museum Vienna, main entrance
Folklore Museum Vienna
Folklore Museum Vienna, exterior view

The Austrian Museum of Folklore (Volkskundemuseum Wien) is the largest folklore museum in Austria and is located at Laudongasse 15-19, in the 8th district, in the Schönborn garden palace .

history

K. u. K. monarchy

Vexierkrug , a gift from the Bosnian government in 1898

The museum was founded in 1895 by Michael Haberlandt and Wilhelm Hein , both civil servants at the prehistoric-ethnographic department of the Imperial and Royal Natural History Museum (now the Natural History Museum Vienna ) and leading members of the Anthropological Society in Vienna . The legal entity is the Folklore Association founded by Haberlandt and Hein in 1894 . The collections were initially stored in apartments and stacks before the museum found its first accommodation in the great hall of the Vienna Stock Exchange in 1898 . In 1917 it moved to the baroque Schönborn Garden Palace and opened in 1920.

The collections were intended for the entire territory of the cisleithan half of the empire of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy ; all peoples who were united under the Austrian crown were to be represented. In accordance with a (multiethnic) state-preserving guideline, other European regions were extended and followed the direction of a "comparative" folklore.

First republic

In the interwar period, the interrelationships between the museum and the city intensified. A new generation of folklorists increasingly saw their subject as a “political” science, which should promote a national, regional and / or ethnic self-image. German-Austria was now the focus of the collection and exhibition work.

Austrofascism and National Socialism

With the establishment of the Austro-Fascist “ corporate state ” in 1933/34, folk culture and folk art were placed in the service of “corporate state” cultural policy. Folklore actors signaled their will to participate in this policy and benefited from the regime's access options. The Folklore Museum received more and more financial donations and became a contact and information point for cultural and political interests.

The " annexation " of Austria to the German Empire meant another smooth transformation for the museum in accordance with the wishes and requirements of the new rulers. The NSDAP trainee Arthur Haberlandt positioned the Museum of Folklore as the “House of German Volkstum in the Southeast” and wanted to use Vienna's new position in the German Reich for himself and his museum. Folklore was instrumentalized for the purpose of ideologically consolidating the “Germanic-German heritage”. Those in charge of the museum made themselves available willingly for the regime's projects, with the prospect of particularly favorable conditions for collecting and researching. Especially in the first years of Nazi rule, the Folklore Museum received increased attention and financial support.

After 1945, the collections were reorganized and reoriented towards the Second Republic , with the Austrian focus again. Arthur Haberlandt initially continued to work despite his membership in the NSDAP. He applied to the authorities to change the title to “Austrian Museum of Folklore” and wanted to express his commitment to Austria. He was finally removed from service and had to hand over management on October 20, 1945.

Reorientation in the Second Republic

After extensive construction work on the museum building between 1956 and 1959, a reorientation and thus consolidation of the museum took place under the director Leopold Schmidt . The consistent breakdown according to landscape and subject group spaces in the sense of a regional structure served the formation of an identity-creating Austrian folk culture and the encounter with primarily Austrian folk art for the purpose of "recovery" of the Austrian people.

In 1972 the Ethnographic Museum was founded in Kittsee , with a collection on the folklore of Eastern and Southeastern Europe. In 2008 this branch had to be closed due to insufficient funding.

The permanent exhibition was redesigned under Klaus Beitl and opened in 1994 after around ten years of renovation work. The exhibitions are increasingly integrating the collections from Europe, and the permanent exhibition is also nationally oriented.

In the Franz Grieshofer era (director from 1995 to 2005) exhibition activity was intensified, the museum experienced a professional opening and international orientation. Until 2001, the museum was managed in the culture report of the responsible ministry in the same way as the federal museums.

Permanent collection (2018)

Margot Schindler directed the museum from 2006 to 2012 . During this time, the debate about a merger with the Vienna Ethnographic Museum (now the Weltmuseum Wien), which lasted from 2010 to 2012, took place. The Folklore Association decided to withdraw from this project because the Art History Museum and the Federal Ministry for Education, Art and Culture did not create the necessary framework for the creation of one of the largest ethnological museums in Europe.

Matthias Beitl has headed the Austrian Folklore Museum since 2013 . Today the museum deals with historical folk art and culture as well as their current manifestations, primarily in Europe.

Institutional structure

Since it was founded in 1895, the museum has been supported by the Folklore Association, which was founded a year earlier . The association publishes the Austrian Folklore Journal every six months and is a member of the Association of Austrian Scientific Societies. The museum activities and a large part of the personnel positions are financed by state funds from the Austrian Federal Chancellery .

collection

Permanent collection
Madonna (around 1500)

The basis of the collections comes from the time of the Habsburg Monarchy , but the inventory also includes objects from numerous other European countries (e.g. the Eugenie Goldstern collection ). The inventory today comprises over 150,000 three-dimensional objects and more than 200,000 photographs and graphics.

The museum houses an extensive specialist library for folklore / European ethnology and related subjects. This comprises around 100,000 volumes.

management

Special exhibitions (selection)

  • 2001: Product: Mother's Day. For the ritual staging of a feast day.
  • 2003: Razor sharp. Reflections on an everyday object
  • 2003: body memory . Underwear from a Soviet era.
  • 2004: Ur-Ethnography. In search of the elementary in culture. The Eugenie Goldstern Collection .
  • 2006: Papageno backstage. Perspectives on birds and people
  • 2007: museum inside out. Work on memory.
  • 2008: time-space relationship. People and things in the Dachau concentration camp .
  • 2010: Saints in Europe - Cult and Politics
  • 2011: festivals. Struggles. 100 years of women's day .
  • 2012: The Emilie Flöge collection of textile samples in the Austrian Museum of Folklore .
  • 2012: Microphotographic Bible piercing. An exhibition as insight and comment.
  • 2012: Christmas - Any questions?
  • 2013: learned objects? - Paths to Knowledge. From the collections of the historical and cultural studies faculty of the University of Vienna
  • 2013: chop. Sting. Shot - weapons in the collection of the Folklore Museum
  • 2014: Provided. Photography as a tool in the Habsburg Monarchy.
  • 2015: Freud's Dining Room. Furniture moves memories.
  • 2015: Klimesch - The business with things. The local supplier in the museum.
  • 2015: Launch field Bethlehem. The baroque Jaufenthaler nativity scene from Tyrol.
  • 2016: Talking about displaced people and those left. Czechoslovakia 1937-1948.
  • 2016: Matthias dances. Salzburg pomace on stage.
  • 2016: Black Austria. The children of African American occupation soldiers.
  • 2017: Millionaires of Time ... Roma in Eastern Slovakia.
  • 2017: home: doing. The Folklore Museum in Vienna between everyday life and politics.
  • 2018: “At the beginning I was very much in love ...” 40 years of women's shelters in Vienna.
  • 2019: “You mean it politically!” 100 years of women's suffrage in Austria.
  • 2019: School Talks: Young Muslims in Vienna
  • 2019: I'm happy to be there - 15 years of volunteer work at the Volkskundemuseum Vienna

School talks

Young Muslims in Vienna

Property photos

  • Stove tile with a portrait of Emperor Karl V, presumably. Upper Austria 1520s

  • Shell, Moravia 1629

  • Temple of the Son of Man, around 1700

  • Figurine oven, Mühlviertel 18th century

  • Votive offering, Styria 19th century

  • Opanken, Dalmatia around 1900

  • Wehrmacht helmet, converted into a mortar scoop

Publications (selection)

  • Klaus Beitl (ed.): Display collection on historical folk culture . Vienna 1994, ISBN 9783900359607 .
  • Exhibition catalog: Alexander Boesch, Birgit Bolognese-Leuchtenmüller, Hartwig Knack: Product Mother's Day. For the ritual staging of a feast day. Vienna 2001, ISBN 9783900359928 .
  • Exhibition catalog: Franz Grieshofer , Messerscharf. Reflections on an everyday object , Vienna 2003, ISBN 3902381019 .
  • Exhibition catalog: Franz Grieshofer, Papageno backstage. Perspectives on birds and people , Vienna 2006, ISBN 9783902381118 .
  • Heidi Niederkofler, Marta Mesner, Johanna Zechner (eds.): Women's Day! Invention and career of a tradition . Löcker Verlag, Vienna 2011, ISBN 9783854095859 .
  • Exhibition catalog: Nora Witzmann, Dagmar Butterweck, Kathrin Pallestrang: Christmas - any questions? Vienna 2012, ISBN 9783902381248 .
  • Exhibition catalog: Herbert Nikitsch, Kathrin Pallestrang, Margot Schindler , Nora Witzmann: Saints in Europe. Cult and politics . 2., verb. Ed., Vienna 2013, ISBN 9783902381231 .
  • Exhibition catalog: Dagmar Butterweck, Hieb. Sting. Shot - weapons in the collection of the Volkskundemuseum , Vienna 2013, ISBN 9783902381262 .
  • Herbert Justnik (ed.): Provided. Photography as a tool in the Habsburg Monarchy . Löcker Verlag, Vienna 2014, ISBN 9783854097488 .
  • Exhibition catalog: Kathrin Pallestrang: The Emilie Flöge textile pattern collection in the Austrian Museum of Folklore . Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-902381-51-4 .
  • Ulrike Kammerhofer-Aggermann (ed.): Matthias dances. Salzburg pomace on stage. Art and science in dialogue . Vienna 2017, ISBN 9783902381545 .
  • Georg Traska (ed.): Shared memories. Czechoslovakia, National Socialism and the expulsion of the German-speaking population 1937–1948 . mandelbaum, Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-85476-535-6 .

literature

  • Leopold Schmidt: The Austrian Museum for Folklore. Becoming and essence of a Viennese museum. Bergland Verlag, Vienna 1960.
  • Klaus Beitl: 100 Years of the Society for Folklore in Vienna: Prolegomena to an Institutional History . In: Communications from the Anthropological Society in Vienna 125/16 (1995/96). Horn 1995, Berger, pp. 93-99.
  • Birgit Johler and Magdalena Puchberger: Who uses folklore? Perspectives on folklore, the museum and the city using the example of the Austrian Museum for Folklore in Vienna. In: Austrian magazine for folklore. LXX / 119, Vienna 2016, issue 3 + 4
  • Austrian Museum of Folklore. Permanent collection on historical folk culture. Companion book. Self-published by the Society for Folklore, Vienna 1994.
  • Herbert Nikitsch: Science used to be on the stage. From the history of the Society for Folklore (1894–1945) . Book series of the Austrian magazine for folklore. Edited by Margot Schindler. New series Volume 20, self-published by the Society for Folklore, Vienna 2006.

Web links

Commons : Austrian Museum of Folklore  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Leopold Schmidt: The Austrian Museum of Folklore. Becoming and essence of a Viennese museum. Bergland Verlag Wien, Vienna 1960, p. 24 f. and 71 .
  2. ^ Austrian Museum of Folklore. Permanent collection on historical folk culture. Companion book. Self-published by the Society for Folklore, Vienna, p. 7th f. and 17 .
  3. ↑ Birgit Johler and Magdalena Puchberger: Who uses folklore? Perspectives on folklore, the museum and the city using the example of the Austrian Museum for Folklore in Vienna. In: Austrian magazine for folklore . LXX / 119, no. 3 + 4 . Vienna 2016, p. 9 f .
  4. ↑ Birgit Johler and Magdalena Puchberger: Who uses folklore? Perspectives on folklore, the museum and the city using the example of the Austrian Museum for Folklore in Vienna. In: Austrian magazine for folklore . LXX / 119, no. 3 + 4 . Vienna 2016, p. 11 .
  5. ↑ Birgit Johler and Magdalena Puchberger: Who uses folklore? Perspectives on folklore, the museum and the city using the example of the Austrian Museum for Folklore in Vienna. In: Austrian magazine for folklore . LXX / 119, no. 3 + 4 . Vienna 2016, p. 27 ff .
  6. ↑ a b Klaus Beitl: permanent collection on historical folk culture. Companion book. Self-published by the Association for Folklore, Vienna 1994, p. 9 .
  7. ↑ Birgit Johler and Magdalena Puchberger: Who uses folklore? Perspectives on folklore, the museum and the city using the example of the Austrian Museum for Folklore in Vienna. In: Austrian magazine for folklore . LXX / 119, no. 3 + 4 . Vienna 2016, p. 31 f .
  8. ^ Klaus Beitl: Austrian Museum for Folklore. Permanent collection on historical folk culture. Companion book. Self-published by the Association for Folklore, Vienna 1994, p. 10 .
  9. ↑ Wolfgang Weisgram: Museum in Castle in Kittsee: "The locking is left to us". April 15, 2008. Retrieved July 9, 2018 .
  10. ^ Klaus Beitl: Austrian Museum for Folklore. Permanent collection on historical folk culture. Companion book. Self-published by the Association for Folklore, Vienna 1994, p. 7 .
  11. ↑ Showdown at the Folklore Museum. October 18, 2010, accessed July 9, 2018 .

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 '47.9 "  N , 16 ° 21' 3.3"  E