On the history and present of German-language folklore in South-Eastern Europe

This research project, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, aims to conduct a comparative historical study of "Southeast German folklore studies" as producers, interpreters and mediators of knowledge about cultural diversity. In terms of time, the project begins with the formation and institutionalisation of folklore from the mid-19th century and will follow its developments and continuations through the upheavals of the 20th century. Spatially, the project will focus on the folkloristic enterprises that emerged in the Kingdom of Hungary and the 'small' German-language folkloristics that established itself in the successor states of Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia, as well as on the historically specific internal disciplinary positions of this 'Southeast German folkloristics' in relation to the 'native German' discipline.

The project is based on the assumption that "Southeast German folklore studies" have played a hitherto underestimated role in the development of the discipline. Rather, they played a central role - at least at times - as innovative leading sciences, which grew above all out of the methodological and theoretical demands of the multicultural life-world of Southeast Europe. Through the theoretical and methodological integration of the key concepts "diversity - knowledge - culture", the project promises insights into the knowledge-generating potential of cultural diversity beyond the dimension of the history of science.