Калекцыя фальклорных запісаў

The Collection of Folklore Records, which is the largest folklore archive in Belarus, was founded in 1957 when the Institute of Art, Ethnography, and Folklore — named after K. Krapiva — was established at the Belarusian Academy of Sciences. The Collection belongs to the Department of Folklore and Culture of the Slavic peoples. The Collection of Folklore Records contains materials from Institute staff field expeditions (1960–2016), manuscripts which were sent to the ‘Best Folklore Collector’ contest, materials from the archives of Belarusian universities, and private archives donated by writers, cultural figures, researchers, etc. In 2001 the Collection obtained heritage status for its contribution to National Sciences.

Collections

The Collection of Folklore Records covers all aspects of folklore, and includes manuscripts, photographs, musical note transcripts, and audio and video recordings. Most of the items are of Belarusian folklore, but there are also collections of Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Jewish, and Gypsy folklore. It contains more than thirty thousand rare sound recordings of ethnic folklore, which were made during field expeditions in Belarus and neighbouring countries from the early 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century. The Department of Folklore and Culture of the Slavic peoples is currently in the process of digitising the materials of the Collection and making the catalogue database available online.

Web

spadchyna.basnet.by:8080/clbel/index.html

Address

Belarus, Minsk, Surhanava St., 1, Bldg. 2, 220072

The Center for the Belarusian Culture, Language and Literature Research of the NASB

phone: +375 17 284-23-83;

e-mail: belfolkarchive@gmail.com

Студэнцкае этнаграфічнае таварыства

Student Ethnographic Association (SEA) is the non-governmental organization which carries out research, preservation and promotion of the traditional culture of Belarus in all its diversity: dances, music, singing, crafts, ceremonies and other types of traditional knowledge. The organization was established in 2002 and in 2014 was accredited by UNESCO as the only organisation in Belarus to provide advisory services to the UNESCO International Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Since 2016 SEA os working on the project called ETHNO.by ("Этнаўсё" - literally means "ethno-everything"). It is an online media library, aimed to collect and systematize all kinds of publications (books, video, audio, photo, media, folklore items) on traditional culture (folklore, arts, crafts etc.) via crowdfunding and crowd-sourcing and provide legal access to the materials online to increase their visibility and support cultural diversity in a globalized world. Currently (in 2019), the project is in MVP stage (there is already about 10000 items in the database) and it is in active development.

The project also includes several sub-projects: media label of authentic folklore and online video-courses on the ethnography, crafts etc.

Currently, the knowledge base is in Belarusian only, but translation of the interface in English is planned. Currently pages could be translated via GoogleTranslate snippet.

Some example links with explanations:

https://ethno.by/lakatsyi/ - a catalog of locations;

https://ethno.by/audyioteka/ - discography on Belarusian folklore (both authentic one and interpretations);

https://ethno.by/fotateka/ - photobank of archival photography;

https://ethno.by/videateka/ - video library;

http://academy.ethno.by - online video courses.

The knowledge base was focused on published materials so far, but now SEA is preparing its own field expedition archives to get published within the portal.

SEA proposes its ready-made technical solutions and technical expertise for online archives and related projects. It also thinking of expanding the project to other countries, so SEA is looking for international partnerships.

Web

ethno.by

Address

220012, вул. К. Чорнага, 32

Minsk, Belarus