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Contribution short abstract:

The folkloristic embedding in the Slovenian musical institutions of the 19th century was discussed exclusively in relation to Slovenian (folk) music. In addition to the public reports, ethnographic vignettes testify to a greater heterogeneity and inbetweeness of the actors, audiences and programs.

Contribution long abstract:

The musical institutions in the towns of the Habsburg lands were closely linked in the late 19th century. Young professionals from different ethnic/national backgrounds were mainly trained at the same institutions, where they formed common social networks that remained influential even when they worked in different towns of the Empire. Migrations between institutions were common, as the structure and mechanisms of action were similar. Small ethnographic vignettes are used to question the hegemonic narrative about the activities of the Philharmonic Society of Ljubljana, the Slovenian Matica and the Ljubljana Music Matica, as well as related institutions in Klagenfurt, Gorizia and Trieste. The functioning of these institutions was largely determined by their leading actors, some of whom are known today as notorious folklorists, such as Karel Štrekelj and others.

The paper examines their transcultural embeddedness and the similarity of their approaches and practices even in their attempts at nationalization. Tiny ethnographic vignettes from newspapers, diaries and other records show their numerous positions of in-betweenness: between the national and the cosmopolitan, between 'folk' and high culture, between the political and the esthetic, i.e. all kinds of inbetween spaces that elude established narratives that disregard the multiple situations and everyday positions of the individual folklorist in a particular temporal and spatial setting.