ABSTRACT
All beginnings are difficult, and in a field as wide-ranging as folklore and/or ethnology one must even begin with a clarification of the name of the discipline. In German two terms have been used in the past for studies devoted to the folk: Volkskunde, commonly understood to mean folklore, and Volkerkunde, usually rendered in English with ethnology. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book looks around nineteenth century Europe which reveals a few of the Wegbereiter to the study of Volkskunde in Austria. The precursors came from several countries and left a heritage of racial inferences, including racial superiority of the Aryans, secret insights into the past, and the political nature of Volkskunde. The Balto-German and Viennese Indologist Leopold von Schroeder was the first of the progenitors to play a specific role in Austrian Volkskunde, particularly for some members of the Viennese Mythological School.
