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Paper short abstract:

We introduce our research on the Italian Committee for the Study of Population. Founded by Corrado Gini in 1928, it accomplished multidisciplinary expeditions in the 1930s to confirm his Cyclical theory of the nations whereby demographic miscegenation produces populations' revitalization.

Paper long abstract:

In this presentation we introduce our research on archival documents about the Italian Committee for the Study of Population (CISP). This research institution, founded by Italian statistician Corrado Gini in 1928, accomplished ten multidisciplinary scientific expeditions between 1933 and 1938 under his direction and collected a vast documentary material consisting of ethnographic, medical and anthropometric questionnaires, as well as material finds. We analyse three expeditions: the Inchiesta demografica sulle popolazioni della Tripolitania, the Inchiesta demografico-antropologico-sanitaria sui Samaritani and the Inchiesta demografico-antropologico-sanitaria sulle popolazioni indigene e meticce del Messico. Gini defined the latter as "the largest expedition carried out by the Committee" and it took place in a post-revolutionary Mexico committed intellectually and politically in the construction of a national identity.

CISP expeditions served to confirm one of Gini's theories - the cyclical theory of the nations - whereby demographic isolation favors population decadency while miscegenation produces their "revitalization". We first focus on Gini's cultural relativism which, though grounded on a paternalistic racism of positivistic matrix, dramatically diverges from official anthropological theories during Fascism. We then reflect on methodological paths defined by CISP expeditions vis-à-vis former European traditions. Finally, we stress Gini's participation in the interconnected Atlantic world during the 1920s and 1930s, with its network of scientific practices and thoughts. In this regard, particularly the Mexican expedition highlights how miscegenation, one of the central points of his theory, becomes an ideological, political and scientific bridge between post-revolutionary Mexico and CISP.

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Paper short abstract:

I would like to explore the birth of a "totalitarian folklore" during fascist Italy. In the early 1930's, folklore was integrated within the institution of fascism. This caused a decisive change in the paradigm of folklore studies as fascist ideology influenced folklorist's works.

Paper long abstract:

Italian fascism held an interest for folklore from the beginning of its coming into power as the Italian government. The educational reform of 1923, created by the philosopher Giovanni Gentile, contributed to diffusing the interest for folklore amongst the younger generations. The reform included teaching folklore and regional culture to children in elementary school. The purpose of this new school discipline was to promote and improve the sentiment for the nation and, while doing so, to strengthen national consciousness.

In general, during the 1920's the interest for folklore was very developed. Folklorist Raffaele Corso founded the review Il Folklore italiano and in 1929 organized the first Congress of Popular Traditions in Florence. In this period, fascist ideology began having a certain degree of influence on folklore studies but these were mainly shaped by a nationalist ideology, just like during the Risorgimento phase.

The development of a "fascist folklore" truly takes place after Mussolini's totalitarianism turn as folklore occupies a more important role in the regime's propaganda policies. In regards to folklore studies, effects can be witnessed after the second Congress of Popular Tradition in 1931, when all of the folklore initiatives are included in the OND and in the politics of the regime's propaganda. This determined a conversion in folklore studies as folklorists had to harmonize their studies with the regime's ideology. This union caused a decisive change in the paradigm of folklore and in its theoretical approaches.

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Paper short abstract:

In Florence, the Anthropological sciences formalized from 1929 a dangerous liaison with the Fascist Totalitarian State that turned them into instruments of internal and colonial politics. This paper focuses on how this co-operation was applied and re-interpreted by Florentines in everyday practices

Paper long abstract:

In 1929 Florence hosted the First National Congress of Popular Traditions, commissioned by the Center for Advanced Studies of the Fascist Institute of Culture. On the banks of the Arno, the Anthropological sciences formalized a dangerous liaison with the Fascist Totalitarian State that turned them into instruments of internal and colonial politics. In fact, both the study of folklore and that of races contributed to the building of consensus.

But how was perceived this co-operation by the Florentines? In which way was it applied in everyday lives? In Florence, the capillarity of the propaganda was often intertwined with playful and cultural events set in popular "Case del Fascio". Very important was the role played by art exhibitions and events, newspapers, and magazines, including "Il Bargello" and "Lares". Lidio Cipriani's racism, for example, reached a larger audience thanks to the showcases of the local Museum of Anthropology, not thanks to his writings.

More generally, the National Recreational Club (Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro) promoted traditions capable of "highlighting the psychological profile and the popular characteristics of a city or an entire region". Alessandro Pavolini, Florentine Minister of Popular Culture, promoted various forms of cultural and traditional re-enactment (from historical football to crafts) useful to support a "foreigner industry" that still marks the image of the city.

This paper aims at exploring the social practices used to build Fascist consensus in connection with Anthropology and Folklore Studies in Florence during the Ventennio Fascista and how they were re-interpreted by the local population.

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Paper short abstract:

In 1940 Himmler declared the fragmentation of the Polish population as main goal of Nazi racial policy in the occupied territories. This lecture examines the involvement of Reich's anthropologists and ethnologists, using the example of the Góral research of Viennese ethnologist Anton A. Plügel.

Paper long abstract:

After the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the German occupying power was faced with the question of how to effectively administer the large territory. Poles living in the "racial dumping ground" of the Generalgouvernement were regarded as cheap labour. They were classified as either being of "German origin" or "inferior". National Socialist policy aimed at splitting the population groups in order to destroy national unity by strengthening local separatism - with the obedient help of pro-Nazi anthropologists and ethnologists. This lecture examines their active involvement using the example of the Góral research of the Viennese ethnologist Anton A. Plügel.

At the beginning of 1940, Anton A. Plügel (1910-1945), an enthusiastic National Socialist and alumnus of the University of Vienna's Institute of Ethnology, relocated to Cracow. There he was head of the section for Racial and Folklore Research at the Institute for German Studies in the East. The young researcher and his (mainly Viennese) team collected biometric data of the Polish population in preparation for selection and extermination. His field research among the Górals, a small population group in the southern part of Poland, was to identify so-called Aryan evidence. As proof, "Nordic racial elements", traditional folk costumes, folklore and swastikas on traditional wood carvings were used. The special treatment of the Górals by the German occupation authorities led to conflicts between them and other groups in the region, which continued in the post-war period.

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Paper short abstract:

This lecture examines Caucasus and "Turkestan" research from Vienna at the end of the Second World War. The focus is on voice recordings of defectors, who helped the Nazi intelligence service set up an "Eastern Turkic SS Corps" against the Soviet Union.

Paper long abstract:

This lecture deals with voice recordings (mainly songs and fairy tales) from the Phonogrammarchiv (PhA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) concerning Caucasus and "Turkestan" research at the end of World War II. The recorded individuals were mainly soldiers assigned to the troops of the German Wehrmacht, but also to the SS. This leads to the conclusion that they were not prisoners of war, but defectors of the Soviet army to German combat units.

The voice recordings are related of the Nazi intelligence service, which at the time cooperated closely with the Vienna Oriental Studies and the Ethnology Department. The recordings were supervised by the Viennese Turkologist Herbert Jansky (1898-1981). Jansky participated in the SS research group "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Turkestan" in the field of "folklore", which had been initiated by Kaltenbrunner in early 1944 as a camouflage facility for SS research on Central Asia.

At the end of 1944, an "Eastern Turkic SS Corps" (OTWV) was set up under the command of Wilhelm Hintersatz, an SS-Standartenführer who had converted to Islam. In order to stir up the fighting spirit against the Soviet Union, Jansky participated in the Panturkish Commission supported by the SS, which published the Panturkish, anti-Soviet magazine "Tyrk Birligi" (Turkish Unity) of the OTWV. OTWV's regional connection to Vienna has been largely ignored in research to date. This research project tries to close this desideratum with new archive material.

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Paper short abstract:

How deeply anthropology was involved with the representations of different ethnic groups in the construction and maintenance of a specific culture? The aim of my paper is positive self-reflexive critique of (post)colonial and political compromise in Volter's ethnography and anthropology.

Paper long abstract:

The paper discusses how deeply anthropology was involved not only with (racial) ideology, but also with representations of different ethnic groups, material culture and folklore in the construction and maintenance of a specific culture. One of "uncomfortable ancestors" for totalitarian regime was Eduard Volter (Wolter 1856-1941). Known Latvian academic of the Russian Imperial Geographical Society and Saint Petersburg University withdrew to Lithuania from Russian totalitarian regime in 1918. He was actively involved in Lithuanian nation-building movements. In the Russian Imperial Geographical Society Volter developed ethnographical-statistical studies in order to determine the 'tribal' composition of the population. These concepts he distinctively integrated with the European anthropological approach to ethnic group, material culture, and regional studies. In Lithuania he shift the anthropological object from the Other to the self and developed the postcolonial self-confidence discourses of "the soul of a nation", the holistic rhetoric of historicism and etc. What was Volter's legacy and the impact on later/actual Lithuanian anthropology in different political contexts? The aim of this paper is a positive self-reflexive critique of colonial and political compromise in Volter's academic legacy and the role for the later rise of anthropological discipline in Lithuania. I'll focus on the following questions: the academic legacy in Russian Imperial Geographical Society, the approach to anthropology and beyond in Lithuania, and the opposite sides of academic activities and legacy in a healthy dynamic of the scientific growth.

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Paper short abstract:

The paper looks at the dynamics of relations between Soviet ethnographers and their foreign colleagues in the 1940-60s. It shows that the discipline acquired a global outlook and developed tactics aimed at attracting the minds of scholars from all three "worlds" of the Cold War geography.

Paper long abstract:

Stalinist regime had ambivalent effect on the Russian science. Repressions and governmental support collided to create a specific intellectual environment in which anthropological knowledge was highly politicized. Soviet ethnography, decimated in the 1930s, acquired new dynamics due to the war-related project of ethnic mapping of the territories of Europe occupied by Nazi Germany. This classified work was in direct connection with the post-war redrawing of European national borders. The institutional base of ethnography was further solidified with a launch of the book series "The Peoples of the World", an 18-volumes set completed in 1964. The writing of the volume "The Peoples of Central and South-Western Europe", joint projects, conferences and the German-language journal "Demos" provided the venue for collaboration within socialist bloc. Soviet ethnographers were also eager to establish their science as a template for scholars of the decolonizing "third world". The "Peoples of Africa", the first volume in the set, was widely advertised as a pioneering work that described the crimes of slavery and colonialism. In their relations with the capitalist west, Soviet ethnography pursued the politics of seeking alliance with left-oriented and Marxist scholars such as Leslie A. White and Eleanor B. Leacock, while harshly criticizing "personality and culture" studies, which were labeled "psycho-racism". The peak of international efforts of Soviet ethnographers was the Moscow international congress of ethnological and anthropological sciences held in 1964. Nevertheless, Stalinist legacies were preserved in dogmatic Marxist evolutionism and black-and-white perception of the development of world anthropology.

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Paper short abstract:

My paper aims at analyzing the ways in which the ethnologists (Folklore Studies specialists and Ethnographers) displayed their activities, constructing and profiling specific forms and contents of their domains during the totalitarian regime, in Romania.

Paper long abstract:

My intention is to deconstruct different decades of the mentioned period, with a special focus on 50-ies and 80-ies, for reasons I am going to explore in the paper. Specifically I am going to deepen the topic, considering the scientific activities, researches planned, conducted around two institutions placed in Cluj-Napoca/Transylvania: the Cluj Archive of Folklore, and the Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania.

In particular, my paper attempts to focus on the specific strategies developed by the totalitarian regime to control the ethnological scientific productions and research in general. How the totalitarian state did construct these strategies,how they were conducted and performed through agents of different institutions of control, which were their limits? - are main research questions, addressed in my paper. I also aim to analyze the ways in which the researchers working in the mentioned institutions faced these challenges, how they perceived all these intrusions and crossed over those times. Different levels of compromise and resistence they were exposed to and made, as well as the ways in which particular strategies of survival had been constructed in specific contexts, need to be put and addressed in the general political and ideological frames of that period and in their particular dynamics. Associated to these main research topics, my paper will tackle also the ways in which the relationships between the Western anthropologists and local/Cluj specialists in Folklore studies and Ethnograhy had been articulated and configured, questioning how deep the regime, through its agents, interfered, attempting to control them.

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Paper short abstract:

The presentation provides a critical understanding of the relation between Albanian ethnographic knowledge and the dictatorial state, and how the former participated in sustaining a state-led holocaustic culture while the latter implemented an ideologically motivated vision on society.

Paper long abstract:

In 1947, a small unite for ethnographic research (sektori i etnografisë) was established in the newly founded Institute of Science in post-WWII Albania. Over time, ethnography was established as a scientific discipline producing its own discourses on the material and non-material culture of the Albanians. Within the historical context defined by one of the harshest dictatorships installed under the banner of the communist ideology of Eastern Europe, Albanian ethnographers continuously created and shaped their own research topics to respond accordingly to the totalitarian state understanding of culture and society's past, present and future. It is in the intention of this presentation to provide a critical and reflective understanding of relation between ethnographic knowledge and the dictatorial state, and how the former participated in sustaining a state-led holocaustic culture while the latter implemented an ideologically motivated vision on society, culture, and people aiming the creation of "new man's world".

Keywords: Ethnography, knowledge, dictatorial situation, holocaustic culture, communism, Albania.

Bio: Dr. Olsi Lelaj, is the Head of the Departement of Ethnology, Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Art Studies in Tirana. He has published the monographs "Nën shenjën e modernitetit: antropologji e proceseve proletarizuese gjatë socializmit shtetëror [=Under the sign of modernity: anthropology of proletarianisation processes under state socialism] in 2015, and "Etnografi në Diktaturë: Dija, Shteti dhe "Holokausti Ynë"" [=Ethnography under dictatoship: Knowledge, the state and "Our Holocuast"] (co-authored with Nebi Bardhoshi) in 2018. Lelaj's research interests include anthropology of modernity, anthropology of class formation and visual anthropology.

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Paper short abstract:

The development of anthropology and folklore in relation to the state ideology has always been a problematic issue in Turkey. We explore the state of anthropology and folklore studies in the 1930s-1940s in dialogue with the developments that took place since the 2000s under the current regime.

Paper long abstract:

Institutionalizing anthropology (1925) was the flagship of Turkish nation-building, to which certain anthropologists/historians contributed through specific theories--particularly between the 1930s--the 1940s, such as Turkish History Thesis, pointing to the so-called origin of the Alpine race as Central Asia/Anatolia. Similarly, the Sun-Language Theory argued that the world languages stemmed from 'proto-Turkish.' This racial and racist anthropology aimed at proving the 'superiority of the Turkish race,' as folklore research solidified the claims of a homogenous nation from within.

While ethnologists in post-war Europe discussed new epistemologies, theories, and disciplinary identities and shifted their attention from 'race/past' to 'culture/everyday,' the persisting authoritarian regime in Turkey barred a general disciplinary self-reflection. Besides, peaking racism and frequent military coups caused unbearable social traumas. Mass murders, ethnic cleansings, and other forms of injustice towards ethnic minorities as well as women and LGBT were and still are made 'in the name of the pure nation.' Today, anthropology/folklore follows nationalism, blending it with neoliberalism, globalization, and precarity.

In our paper, we will address the following: How Turkish anthropologists contributed to the strengthening of racial and/or cultural paradigms? What ideological differences and similarities can be traced between 'old' and 'new' Turkish anthropology/folklore? What is the future for anthropology in the aftermath of the actual intellectual brain-drain, loss of funding, economic deprivation, compromised scientific publishing, and a general lack of social trust in Turkey? What can we learn from and how do we come to terms with our past?