Английский язык спецтексты для филологов
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Lesson 9. Folklore SocietiesBy the middle of the 19th century a growing interest in folklore was becoming evident not only through the publication of serious works but also through the many contributions to the “Byegones” or “Folk-Lore” columns printed in various newspapers and magazines, including Notes and Queries, the journal founded in 1849 by W.J. Thoms. In 1876 a letter published in that paper urged the formation of a society which could undertake the collection and printing of “all the scattered bits of folklore which we read of in books and hear of in the flesh.” Two years later, the Folk-lore society was founded in London, with W.J. Thoms as its direc- tor and G.L. (later Sir Laurence) Gomme as its honorary secretary. The society’s function was to publish books and monographs dealing with folklore in general and to issue a periodical which, as the first prospectus stated, would contain “those scatted notes on the popular superstitions, legends and ballads, which are almost the only traces of the primitive mythology of our islands.” This periodical first appeared in Feb. 1879 as an annual called The Folk-lore Record and, after passing through various changes, became a quarterly known as Folklore. Alt- hough the newly formed society was naturally deeply interested in the native tra- ditions of Great Britain and Ireland, and particularly with those most threatened by the rapidly changing social conditions of the time, it had no definite British bi- as and was thus able to deal with foreign as well as British material. This society was the first of its kind in the world, but it was soon followed by others in Europe and North America. In 1888 the American Folklore society was founded in the United States, with rules formed on the English model but with the inevitable difference that its studies were at first largely concerned with the tradi- tions and beliefs of primitive North American Indian tribes. In the course of time, similar societies, or institutes, came into being in Germany, France, Spain, Scan- dinavia, Rumania, Turkey, South America and elsewhere. Some of these, unlike the pioneer British society, were associated from the start with local universities or with the government of the country concerned. Thus, the Swedish Institute for Folk-Life Research was set up by the Nordiska museum and the University of Stockholm. The Institute for the Investigation of Swedish Dialects, Folk-Lore and Folk-Life, which sprang originally from the voluntary work of teachers and stu- dents at Uppsala, later became part of the University of Uppsala, and the School of Scottish Studies, founded in 1952, is part of the University of Edinburgh. In 1959, the Nordic Institute for Folk Literature, which deals with material from all over Scandinavia and receives grants from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Swe- den, began work in Copenhagen. In Ireland, folklore studies were greatly stimulated by the strong cultural and linguistic revival that followed the political changes in that country after World War I. The Folklore of Ireland society was founded in 1926. Four years later, the Irish government set up the Irish Folklore institute, which was replaced in 1935 by the state-aided Irish Folklore commission. In some of the smaller European countries, the upsurge of national feeling during the first half of the 20th century greatly encourages the study of local tradition and custom with the result that much valuable material was collected, particularly in regions (e.g., in Yugoslavia and other Balkan countries) where the change-over from ancient peasant ways of life to those of modern civilization was still comparatively new.
Swedish [´swi:diς], to set up, to deal with material, to be greatly stimulated, up- surge, change-over, comparatively new.
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