Have you ever heard of Alsatian folklore? I’m sure you’re thinking about that. When you look at it, there is not just one folklore. The word folklore comes from English, folk, people, lore, knowledge, knowledge, which is transmitted from one generation to another. Music, songs, costumes, legends, dances, there are plenty of aspects, and when you are interested in it, it is very diversified in our beautiful Alsace, just look at the research of Auguste and Adolf Stoeber between 1820 and 1870.
But what happened to cause us to quickly lose this diversity? Well, imagine that it happened in Lorraine. In 1909, Nancy hosted a major event: the International Exhibition of Eastern France. This great barnum intended to demonstrate the economic and cultural vitality of these territories, at the gates of the German Empire. There were several Alsatians settled in the Lorraine city following their option for France in the organizing committee, they wanted to give pride of place to the territories annexed by Germany in 1871 and, in the first place to the Alsace.
This is how the idea was born to present in Nancy, within the framework of the exhibition, a reconstituted Alsatian village giving to see an ideal and nostalgic image of the “lost province”.The exhibition of the Alsatian museum of the city of Strasbourg “1909. Alsace in Nancy” returns to this event by presenting the actors, the cultural and political issues, in the context of the hardening of relations between France and Germany, but also by considering it from the point of view of the construction of regional identities.
– Alsatian Museum of Strasbourg
If this Alsatian village of 1909 contributed to perpetuating the memory of the provinces lost in the French national consciousness, it also participated in the construction of a satisfactory, but reductive image of the region, many elements of which are still very much alive today. today. Understand the idea of folklore to better deconstruct it, finally, because the Hàns im Schnockeloch in Alsace, it can also look like this: This exhibition on the invention of Alsatian folklore is to be seen at the Alsatian museum in Strasbourg until May 23 2022, in partnership with the Lorraine Museum of Nancy.
The site of the Alsatian Museum of Strasbourg.