Historical and philological assessment of the correspondence from Ján Albrecht

Jn Albrecht (1919-1996) was a Slovak musicologist, viola player, teacher, art historian and author of different studies focusing on cultural and historical questions, musical style, and interpretation of Early music performance practice. In 1972 he founded the first Slovak Early Music Ensemble, Musica aeterna, and started the Early Music Movement in Slovakia. The Communist regime considered him to be a guarantor of Austro-Slovak alliances, especially on the Bratislava-Vienna axis. Despite political interdictions, he tried not to break down the cross- cultural dialogue. It has to be mentioned that the whole Albrecht family cared for cultivating the mutual relationship that had existed between the two neighboring countries since the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Even before the collapse of the Communist regime, Jn Albrecht was using any way possible to bring his students closer to the Viennese cultural tradition to the music, art and literature that had been officially abandoned by the leading political party. These "secret" lectures took place in his house on Kapitulsk Street, situated in the old Bratislava city center. His family and friends who had gone to live in exile during the Second World War kept him continuously supplied with the newest outcomes of the Modernist movement in cultural life, so he could stay up- to-date. As a critic of the regime and a politically unreliable person he was hardly ever allowed to cross Slovakia`s borders. But he kept in touch with his friends in the West by corresponding with them. He left behind 5,272 letters that had been sent to him and also that he had sent as he made copies of his own letters. His pen friends included internationally appreciated personalities (see chapter 2.1.). Jn Albrechts correspondences have been archived at the Slovak National Museum under the signature MUS L VI. These letters have yet to be edited. The FWF research project that is being submitted will be a scientific study of them. Analysis of these letters will provide new insights into relationships between the West and the Eastern Bloc despite restrictions in travel and information among them, as it had been when Jn Albrecht used to live. The research project has three aims: a. To document cultural life by evaluating the 5,272 letters in the estate of the Albrecht family PhD dissertation and its publication. It will be the first scientific publication to present the importance of Jn Albrechts activities on the Bratislava-Vienna axis and worldwide. b. To prepare a critical edition of selected letters (most of the letters were written in German, though some are in Slovak, Hungarian and English). c. To produce a database of Jn Albrecht`s letters (categorize the letters, to match outgoing and incoming letters, determine any missing letters, contextualize letters).