Folkets minnen. Traditionsinsamling i idé och praktik 1919-1964

Sammanfattning: AbstractFredrik Skott, Folkets minnen. Traditionsinsamling i id? och praktik 1919 1964. (Avhandlingar fr?n Historiska institutionen i G?teborg 53). 386 pages. Written in Swedish with an English Summary (The Popular Memory. Folklore Collecting in Theory and Practice, 1919 1964). Institutet f?r spr?k och folkminnen, Dialekt-, ortnamns- och folkminnesarkivet i G?teborg, G?teborg, 2008. In this thesis I analyse the popular images that the folklore collections communicate and the ideas behind the selection principles governing their construction. My overarching aim is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the folklore archives material and their governing processes during the period 1919 1964. The point of departure is present-day views of folklore material as a) an expression of politically conservative ideology and nationalism, b) reflecting the archive staff s objective ideas about the past, and c) an expression of nostalgia and the idealisation of the past. In the study I examine all these from a critical point of view. Apart from examining folklore collections from a national policy point of view, I also consider the archive personnel s and collectors view and use of folklore.Throughout my study I point to Swedish folklore collecting as a very heterogeneous project. Several perceptions of an ideal recording were included in the work. Struggles relating to the definition of the people, their recollections and the content of the archives were rife. Just as criticism could be directed towards that period through the documentation of the past, folklore could also be exploited to build the future or demonstrating (the need for) societal development. Aspects of the past were sometimes accentuated as contemporary ideals, and in part the collections should be regarded as a balancing of the books of peasant culture. The collecting of folklore cannot be regarded as a politically conservative project; if anything they represented the politically radical left s view of a more popular, more peaceable and more democratic historiography. In practical terms the recorders were also given a rather free hand to transfer their own images of the past to the future. The folklore collections can thus hardly be regarded as the elite s counterparts. It is rather the collectors and their informants picture of the past that is reflected in the folklore collections; an idea that corresponded with the earlier 20th century political left s wishes for a more popular historiography. Keywords: folklore archives, folklore research, questionnaires, history, politics, nationalism, tradition, folklife, folklore collecting, Sweden 1919 1964. Distribution: Institutet f?r spr?k och folkminnen, Dialekt-, ortnamns- och folkminnesarkivet i G?teborg, Vallgatan 22, SE-411 16 G?teborg, Sweden.ISBN: 978-91-7229-049-5ISSN: 1100-6781