The Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art, 1930-1950

The history of the Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art ("Österreichisches Museum für Volkskunde"), the largest museum of volkskunde in Austria based on the extent of its collections, has hardly been studied from a contemporary perspective in respect to Austrofacism, National Socialism, and the first years of the Second Austrian Republic. In fact, a systematic study is lacking for any federally sanctioned and subsidised (cultural) historical museum with its own collections or with its own collection strategies and policies covering this entire critical period of Austrian history. Given that extant historical and executive files in the management offices of the museum are now accessible for the first time the present study will be able rectify this situation. For his study of the Society for Volkskunde in 2006 Herbert Nikitsch was able to use files from the Society as responsible executive body for the operation of the Volkskunde Museum; the rest of the files in the archive, however, still have not been systematically processed. For the years 1930 to 1950 there are 24 archive boxes containing materials relating to all aspects of museum operation such as scientific inquiries, records on finances, personnel, attendance, travel expenditures, requests for loan objects, file memoranda, logs of meetings and conferences, and concept designs. One of the most import items is a carton with the label "Ostreisen" (travel to the East) that contains information about the activities of the director Arthur Haberlandt in the service of the "Deployment Brigade East of Reich Commander Rosenberg," (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, ERR). The detailed focus of the present study will be on elementary museum tasks and activities: acquisition goals and strategies, research and exhibitions as reflected in exhibited collections, temporary exhibitions, participation in collaborative projects, popular promotional activities or scientific and educational activities, the component organisations of the museum from the vantage point of the body politic, human resources, finances, and infrastructure, as well as national and international, scientific and political connections and alliances. Equally important will be an analysis of the actively participating persons from an historical biographical perspective. The overriding goal of the present project will be to employ analytical techniques to bring to light - within the realm of tasks and activities fundamental to the operation of a museum - the museal and museological potential and strategies for the Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art from the years 1930 to 1950 against the backdrop of changing political systems. The project will attempt to explain efforts at conceivability and working hypotheses, as well as aspects of continuity and metamorphosis or the existence of traditionally motivated political objectives of the museum itself or of its functionaries. Intrinsic institutional restraints will be examined by finding both internal and external determinants. It is the intention of the project to raise awareness for the contradictory notions of stability and transformation, and for museal strategies in times of political upheavals not only for the Museum of Volkskunde in Vienna but for the entire domain of (cultural historical) museums in Austria.

Summary for public relations work The Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art (ÖMV), founded in 1895, has been housed in its current location, in the baroque Schönborn Palace in Viennas 8th district, since 1917. It is the research subject and site of the FWF project examining the history of the museum from 1930 to 1950 using ethnographical and cultural analysis and perspectives from museum studies. In doing so, it presents the first comprehensive portrayal of a cultural and historical museum institution in Austria for these years of political upheaval and, furthermore, can be seen as part of current research on ethnological knowledge and the production and popularisation of that ethnological knowledge in the 20th century.In order to delineate the specifics of the then emerging ethnological and folk-cultural field in the city and the country in the first half of the 20th century, and to explore dimensions of the politicisation and ideological use of ethnological knowledge and knowledge production, in the project the ÖMV is conceptualised as a complex space: On the one hand it is a public institution of display and education based on the Verein für Volkskunde (a particular form of governing body that operates as a legal entity). Of central importance to the museum and its academic staff, and therefore also to how it deals with content and strategic planning, are the objects and collections. A perspective that takes into account the meaning of things and an understanding of things as indicators of cultural change allows an analysis of prevailing constructions and representations of ethnographical knowledge and knowledge formats which are, ultimately, the crucial factors in the museums strategies, direction and activities. Moreover, the project understands the ÖMV as a place of social and ideological practice, which forms a background to the study of contemporary formations, performances and processes of (national) folk culture and, closely related to this, Viennese youth and popular culture. Given these multi-dimensional functions of the museum as a place, it is also relevant to look at the different actors and groups of actors involved (experts on folk culture and amateurs alike) since these were the people using folk objects and activities to put forward/produce meanings, recommendations and, not least, standards within the ethnological/folk-cultural field in Vienna and Austria.The years 1930 to 1938 are of central significance for the ÖMV and its history. During this period, an influential sphere of people, networks, structures, objects, scientific and cultural formats arose at the museum around the key terms Heimat (homeland) and Volkstum (folklore), variations of which were later called up and mobilised during the Nazi era and in the first postwar years. The museum (actors) and governing body both came out of the period undamaged, if not strengthened, thanks to a flexibility in terms of content and ideology, i.e. thanks to an attitude that supported each political system during the period in question and in each case not merely as a calculated move, but out of ideological conviction.