Going Their Own Way? The Swiss Ethnology in the 19th and the First Half of the 20th Century

• Authors: Woitsch Jiří

Title variants

CS

Vlastní cestou? Švýcarská etnologie v 19. a první polovině 20. století

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The article submits a chronologically explained development of the Swiss ethnology with an emphasis on the development in the 19th century through the 1960s, whereby the interest in cultural diversity as well as that defined in other ways in older periods is partially included as a theme. Great attention is paid to key personalities in the history of the Swiss ethnology, in particular to Eduard Hoffmann­Krayer and Richard Weiss, and to how they influenced the theoretical and methodological as well as thematic shifts in the orientation of the discipline. Further significant persons and important works of the Swiss ethnology are mentioned as well, and the institutional basis of the discipline is described. The author presents the Swiss ethnology as quite a peculiar and progressive research discourse. This was formed under a strong influence of the German Volkskunde, but evolving in a country featuring a specifically multi­ethnic composition of the population, a significantly different historical development, as compared to Germany, and special, even extreme natural and geographical conditions that contributed to the survival of many archaic elements of the so­called folk culture until the 20th century.

Keywords

EN

European ethnology; folklore studies; history of ethnology; Switzerland; Richard Weiss

Discipline

• ETHNOLOGY: ETHNOLOGY

• Publisher: The National Institute of Folk Culture
• Journal: Národopisná revue (Journal of Ethnology)
• Year: 2019
• Volume: 29
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 15 - 29

Contributors

author

Woitsch Jiří