Folksongs as “Jack of all Trades”: About the Meanings of Singing Folksongs in the First World War in Austria

Abstract

During the First World War the singing and collecting of folksongs obviously had importance. There even were projects of collecting them on the front, in prisoner of-war camps and in the hinterland. The functions of that practice were different. Folksongs in their traditional interpretation as a symbol of an innocent idyll could be used for producing a counterword to a problematic reality, and as an expression of a nation they were good for creating identities in varying forms. There are different forms of practicing and publications, which can be regarded as a mirror of desires and utopias of the then protagonists.