THE SOUND ARCHIVE OF THE INSTITUTE OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY OF THE RESEARCH SCIENTIFIC CENTER OF THE SLOVENIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE AND ARTS
Authors: Mazurenko Anastasiia 
Published: December 2023

Since the end of February 2022, Ukrainian science experienced significant disruption caused by the full-scale war launched by the Russian Federation against Ukraine. As has often been the case in the history of armed conflicts, they have significantly affected various areas of culture, art and science, including ethnomusicology and its subject of research. The exodus of scholars within the country and abroad, the relocation and risk of destruction of archives, the more difficult condition for work in the field due to the martial law, the reduction of state funding in the fields of science and education, and, at the same time, the growing demand of society for traditional culture and the emergence of new initiatives to protect and preserve Ukrainian heritage — all these facts create new realities to which researchers have to adapt and within which they have to find new approaches to scientific activity. The experience of similar crises in other countries, as well as the experience of preserving archives in general, can be very useful for domestic science. Therefore, with the beginning of the war, institutions, foundations and associations from European countries, the USA and Canada began to actively offer their help in preserving Ukraine’s cultural heritage.

The forced migration of researchers also brought a number of advantages, namely the strengthening of international contacts, the acquisition of work experience in foreign institutions by Ukrainian scientists, the presentation of domestic science to colleagues from other countries and thus the popularization of Ukrainian culture in the world. Throughout the war, Ukrainian researchers — musicologists and cultural activists — took part in the scientific and creative processes of various institutions in Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Sweden, Canada, the USA, and other countries.

The author of the article examines the history and principles of the organization and preservation of the Sound archive of the Institute of Ethnomusicology of the Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU, Ljubljana), having the opportunity to work directly with this collection as a forcibly resettled researcher. The article gives a brief overview of the history of the Institute as the most important ethnomusicological center of Slovenia, examines the activities of key personalities of the Institute, their role in the history of the Institute and the archive, the approaches to collecting and studying the traditional music of Slovenes and outlines the current directions of work with the digital archive. Based on these facts, a comparison is made with traditional music archives in Ukraine and an assessment is given of the possibilities of incorporating the considered methods of organization and data storage into work with domestic collections of musical folklore, taking into account the urgency of such measures in times of increased risk of loss of cultural heritage due to the war.