The Austrian Museum ofFolk Life and Folk Art

The Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art is the largest museum of itskind in Austria. The museum endeavours to reflect societal processes in itspresent- day collecting, preservation, research, and exhibiting activities.These centre on social and ethnic groups' past and present cultural expres-sions, and the museum's geographic emphasis is on the European culturalsphere.

In keeping withthe ideas ofits founders,today's AustrianMuseum of FolkLife and FolkArt is committedto a Europeanperspective

It was Michael Haberlandt and Wilhelm Hein, two employees of thePrehistoric- Ethnographic Department of the Imperial-Royal Natural History Court Museum in Vienna, whofounded what is now the Association for Folk Life and FolkArt in 1894. Prominent representatives of the House ofHabsburg as well as further aristocratic families, bank-ers, and artists proceeded to lend their support to his as-sociation and its Museum of Austrian Ethnology( Muse-um für österreichische Volkskunde), which was foundedin 1895. This museum's collection was conceived as a" monument to the multi- ethnic state", representing theAustro- Hungarian Empire and its ethnic groups. And inthe interest of" ethnographic comparison", its collect-ing activities were expanded to encompass other Euro-pean regions, as well. The museum's first exhibition took place in the mainhall of the Old Stock Exchange on Vienna's Ring Road. In 1913, the decisionwas made to relocate to the baroque Schönborn Garden Palace- which themuseum finally occupied in 1917. With the museum's substantive orienta-tion having changed in the meantime due to the Habsburg Monarchy's col-lapse, its first permanent exhibition on Laudongasse finally opened in 1920.

Upon the establishment of the Austro- Fascist corporatist state in1933/34, those running the museum oriented themselves towards the cul-tural policy precepts of a specific" Austria- Ideology"( Österreich- Ideologie).And with the" annexation"( Anschluss) of Austria by the National Socialist Ger-man Reich in 1938, National Socialist ethnology- as it had been established

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