The Importance of the Collection of Oskar Kolberg for Contemporary Choreological Studies

The mainstream fields of Polish dance research were defined in 1818–1847 by Józef Elsner, Kazimierz Brodziński, Łukasz Gołębiowski and Karol Czerniawski, who broadly characterized some elements of the dances considered as national (the polonaise, mazur, krakowiak and kozak). Oskar Kolberg knew very well the works of all these authors and referred to them many times. However, he was unique in his extensive documentation of dance melodies, information about their geographic origin, and local terminology. He also characterized the dances with regard to their sequence in the traditional context and described the dance technique in an instructive manner.

Oskar Kolberg’s documentation for quite a long time remained outside the scope of mainstream research and publications about dance in Poland. In the 1930s Polish representatives of the newly defined field of ethnochoreology were the first to include examples from Kolberg in their works on the ritual dances, regional dances and characteristic dance behaviour types and forms. Kolberg’s works increased in popularity after the World War II. Today the materials left by Oskar Kolberg allow us to establish to a large extent the geographic range and perspective on the changes of dance repertoire, both with regard to choreographic technique and dance types, or a more detailed and critical perspective on the problems of folk terminology in dance phenomena. It may also serve as the point of departure for wider retrospective or comparative studies – which may not be very fashionable today, but which have never been adequately conducted in Poland.