The Birth of Greece out of the Spirit of Music: The Romantic Folk Song Discourse and its Significance for German Philhellenism

Abstract

This study sheds light on the German reception of modern Greek folk songs and their significance for the philhellenism of the early 19th century. Based on the folk song projects of Johann Gottfried Herder and the German Romantics, it shows how the contemporary folk song discourse contributed to imagining the Greeks as prototype of the natural human being and, on the other hand, to constructing a historical connection between modern Greece and its ancient cultural heritage based upon this “nature and national poetry”. The development of the philhellenic folk song discourse is examined here using the example of Werner von Haxthausen’s collection of modern Greek folk songs, created in the transitional phase from the romantic interest in folk songs to the political movement of 1821.