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1 results

  • Chapter 5 - Ancestral Voices

  • from Part II - Romancing the Nation
  • Joep Leerssen, University of Amsterdam
  • Book:
    Charismatic Nations
    Published online:
    14 February 2026
    Print publication:
    05 March 2026, pp 109-132
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  • Summary

    The Romantic interest in popular and oral traditions accompanied the historicist interest in ancient manuscript materials but turned to living performers rather than to archives for its sources. This interest in oral-performative literature as a window on a nation’s ancient imagination was especially strong in the more peripheral parts of Europe, from the Scottish Highlands to the Balkans and the Baltic, but was theorized most effectively by the eminent German scholar Jacob Grimm. It deepened into an ethnographic interest in ancient national myths. It was felt that studying the roots of the nation’s language, customs and legends could map its primeval world-view and document the workings of its essential character or Volksgeist.