Henryk Oskar Kolberg App to Download

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An android app celebrating the life of Oskar Kolberg (February 22, 1814 – June 3, 1890) has recently been made available at

play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=inforit.kolberg

Kolberg did ethnographic music research among Rusyns in both Poland and what is now Western Ukraine. The app includes both maps, texts, music and photos.

Here is the product description:
The application was created in honour of the Kolberg Year 2014. It allows you to get acquainted with the places related to the private and professional life of this exceptional ethnographer and folklorist.

Municipal routes of Warsaw, Poznań and Cracow allow you to learn many details of Kolberg’s life. They include information about the people he met, those he worked with and those he exchanged letters with, at the beginning just as a musician and composer, but later also as a field researcher, documentalist and the author of ‘The People’.

Regional routes retrace the paths of Kolberg’s field research. Following his steps you will visit many places which are important for the history of Poland. In addition, the guide consists of passages from Kolberg’s materials, often, illustrated by drawings from Kolberg’s day. The subsequent parts of the guide are accompanied by music tracks of folk musicians taken from the archive of Polskie Radio and the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

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www.oskarkolberg.pl/page.php/0/news/0/ also is to be read in English or Polish (look in the upper right margin).



A map of the regions of his work is to be seen in Flash at
The map of regions from O. Kolberg monographs

www.oskarkolberg.pl/page.php/2/show/7/

The map on the App itself shows quite clearly the relationship between Poland and East Galicia / Ukraine, his travels and research nto folk music having covered both territories quite thoroughly.



Henryk Oskar Kolberg, (February 22, 1814 – June 3, 1890), was a Polish ethnographer, folklorist, and composer.

He was born in Przysucha, the son of Juliusz Kolberg, a professor at Warsaw University, and Fryderyka Mercoeur. His family's acquaintances included Samuel Linde, Mikołaj Chopin (father of Frédéric Chopin), and Kazimierz Brodziński.

He is best known for his work titled Lud (re-published as Dzieła Wszystkie), a compilation of folk traditions from all the Polish regions. Between 1857–1890 he published 33 volumes and after his death a further 3 volumes were published. The compilation contains 12,000 folk songs, 1250 folk tales, 670 fairy tales, 2700 proverbs, 350 riddles, 15 folk spectacles and many other ethnographic documents.

Kolberg also compiled some ethnographic information on neighboring regions. He died in Kraków.

Oskar Kolberg (1814-1890), kompozytor i folklorysta o najbogatszym dorobku w dziewiętnastowiecznej Europie. Utrwalił, w wydanych za życia 33 tomach monografii regionalnych, wierny obraz polskiej sztuki i kultury ludowej. Zapisy muzyki i tekstów folkloru, ukazane w kontekście życia i kultury wspólnot lokalnych, do dziś wykorzystywane są przez kompozytorów, nauczycieli muzyki, muzyków folkowych, zespoły amatorskie, wreszcie przez badaczy i wszystkich pragnących poznać kulturę wsi polskiej XIX wieku.


In 1839 Oskar Kolberg began to gather and record the folk music. He wanted to find in it the inspiration for his own composing. Later he admitted the significance of recording of folklore solely in the authentic form. A shining example of that in particular were the "Songs of Polish people" (1857).



Since 1845 he worked as an accountant in the Warsaw-Vienna railway administration and later in the Directorate of roads and bridges. This job allowed him to save money for publishing activities, research and travel. In 20 years Kolberg's research covered the following territories: Kutno, Kurpie, Kraków, Beskid Pogórze, Podhale, Silesia, Kalisz, Płock, Radom, Kielce, Lublin, Sandomierz, Ziemia Dobzhynska, Łomża, Holm and Podolia. In 1861 he abandoned his full-time job. The main goal of Kolberg then was to gather materials pertaining to all directions of folk culture in the territory that Poland occupied before its partitions, and to create a new field of science - ethnography. He realized his dream with the help of the series of publications "People, their customs, way of life, language, legends, sayings, rites, divinations, games, songs, music and dances". A separate book is dedicated to each region.



Oskar Kolberg collected and studied very rich materials on folk poetry, culture and mode of life of Poles. He is the author of piano arrangements of folk tunes and dances. He published the following collections: "Folk Songs Arranged for Voice and piano" (parts 1—2, 1842) and "Songs of the Polish People" (1857). Kolberg's multivolume series "People, their customs, way of life, language, legends, sayings, rites, divinations, games, songs, music and dances" (series 1—23, 1865—90) and "Ethnographic Pictures" (1882; 11 volumes were published during Kolberg's life) have great scientific value. He wrote music for theater ("Janek from around Ojcow" and "Shepherds' King"), dances, fantasies and studies for piano, romances and arrangements of folk songs. He published several articles about Polish folk music, folk instruments, and Slav music in Polish printed media and in the "General Encyclopedia".



In addition, Oskar Kolberg wrote many new pages in the Ukrainian ethnology. The ethnography of Ukrainian customs and rites is described in his four-volume book "Pokucie", two-volume "Chełmskie", monographs "Przemyskie" and "Wołyń". In particular, Kolberg collected not only folk songs of Poles and Ukrainians, but also information about the folk medicine. Publication of handwritten legacy of the scientist introduces new materials and extends the basis of research of various aspects of the folk culture in the borderland.