bavarikon4UEveryday Culture in Bavaria during the Early Twentieth Century: The Evaluation Sheets concerning the „Survey“ conducted by the Bayerischer Verein für Volkskunst und Volkskunde, 1908/09
"Survey" and thematic evaluation
In November 1908, the "Bayerischer Verein für Volkskunst und Volkskunde in München" (Bavarian Association for Folk Art and Folklore in Munich) conducted a Bavarian-wide "survey" with the aim of creating an ethnological archive that would contain written testimonies on a wide variety of everyday cultural topics. Together with some assistants, the heads of the association, the German philologist Friedrich von der Leyen (1873-1966) and the European ethnologist Adolf Spamer (1883-1953), analysed the answers sent in accordance with their subject keywords. From 1909 to about 1914, they produced individual thematic sheets, a total of over 26,600 mostly handwritten pages. The evidence came from about 800 locations and thus also from answers that were lost in the course of the twentieth century. After the WWI, the card index gradually fell into oblivion. It was not until the early 1980s that Torsten Gebhard (1909-1994) once more became aware of the source material.
Structure of the Evaluation Sheets
The original evaluation sheets are all set out in the same sheet format (approximately DIN A 5, portrait alignment) and usually display the same labelling structure. Each page contains the subject heading, on the right margin the town, the district office and the author of the letter are stated as well as in the main text the corresponding thematic excerpt from the letter. The editors then compiled the individual sheets according to thematic subject groups. These include rites and customs in the cycle of the year and of one’s life (only the topic "on death and dying" is partially lost here), in working life and in legal relations. They deal with forms of expressing material culture such as food, clothing, home and accommodation or appliances. Further there are beliefs, tales (legends) and other linguistic expressions.
Today's keywords (as of 2018)
The evaluation sheets have a new keyword system. The selected terms classify each document in a three-level system from general to special. The keywords try to meet historical categories as well as today's requirements. In this way, text passages that can be assessed as problematic today - for example in the areas of so-called "superstitious" ideas or anti-Semitic prejudices - can be contextualised. As for the full set of letters, a source-critical classification of a subject matter is indispensable both individually and in a summary in order to arrive at a historically appropriate assessment of the information provided.
>> This collection is part of the "survey" of the Bayerischer Verein für Volkskunst und Volkskunde (Bavarian Association for Folk Art and Folklore) from the holdings of the Istitut für Volkskunde (Institute for European Ethnology).