ON THE HISTORY OF THE FIRST PHONOGRAPH RECORDS IN SLOVAKIA: THE CORRESPONDENCE OF KAROL MEDVECKÝ AND ANDREJ KMET DURING 1901

• Authors: Urbancova H.
• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

Private correspondence belongs to the important secondary historical sources. In the complex social and political conditions during the break of 19th and 20th centuries it was the key communication medium for the Slovak intellectuals. It facilitated creating the net of professional and personal contacts which served as a basis for the formation of the Slovak cultural life and its further development after 1918. The private correspondence between Karol A. Medvecký (1875-1937) and Andrej Kmet (1841-1908) helped to reconstruct the history of the first audio records of the Slovak folk songs and their public presentation in the context of the contemporary social and political situation. Karol Medvecký used phonograph for recording songs during the summer 1901 in the village Detva while preparing ethnographic monograph about this village. He came to Detva as a chaplain in 1899. In modern terms, he had a possibility to conduct stationary field research of the numerous forms of the traditional culture. On one side, the use of audio documentation facilitated collecting material, on the other side it allowed to record folk songs and instrumental music in an authentic form which is not possible to recognize from the score. This scientifically based approach was accompanied by the romantic effort to rescue vanishing cultural values which were observed by the last witness - the collector. Medvecký used for records the device which was purchased in cooperation with Béla Vikár, the author of the first phonograph records of the folk songs in Europe. Part of these records was later published in the monograph Detva (1905). At present damaged Medvecký's phonograph barrels are waiting for the evaluation of the possibility of their audio renewal.

Keywords

EN

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY; HISTORY OF AUDIO RECORDS; PHONOGRAPH; SLOVAK FOLK SONGS

Discipline

• ETHNOLOGY: ETHNOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Ethnology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovenský národopis (Slovak Ethnology)
• Year: 2006
• Volume: 54
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 5-29
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Urbancova H.

• H. Urbancova, Ústav etnológie SAV, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

06SKAAAA01102521