Volkstum

The Volkstum (lit. folkdom or folklore, though the meaning is wider than the common usage of folklore) is the entire utterances of a Volk or ethnic minority over its lifetime, expressing a "Volkscharakter" this unit had in common. It was the defining idea of the Völkisch movement.

The term was coined by German nationalists in the context of Germany's "Freedom Wars", in marked and conscious opposition to the ideals of the French Revolution such as universal human rights. This sense of the word is now criticised in academia, though it is still in use in the protection of ethnic minorities and is a legal standard in Austria.

In the Age of Enlightenment the adjective volkstümlich usually meant the cultural achievements of uneducated Germans as well as popular culture. The "Volksdichtung" (People's Poetry) was 'high' literature, the culture of distinction, and partly devalued the elite education and partly idealised it. The concept was not yet tied to a certain nation, and attributed some of its characteristics to non-German culture.

Justus Möser (1720–1794), Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803), Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788) and other German Romantics gradually increased the concept by their actions into an unspoiled, organic, person liable closed and eternal "People's character" (Volkscharakter) and charged against the monarchies then dominating Germany. Möser already bordered on being the "Vater der Volkskunde" (Father of Ethnology) the Deutschtum against the cosmopolitanism of the Enlightenment and against the French Revolution.

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