"Forgotten" folk heritage in the sound archives of Berlin

The article deals with the folk heritage of the First World War which was collected at POW camps in Germany. It were German researches who initiated the recording process, and the project was realized by the Prussian Royal Phonographic Commission which united representatives of different scientific fields and employees of the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv. Due to their efforts languages and music of inmates from different countries were documented on phonograph cylinders and shellac records. The voices of the inmates from the Russian Empire were recorded too. Now recordings they are kept in the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv and Lautarchiv of the Humboldt University. Among the prisoners were natives of Tambov, Saratov, Kostroma, Orel, Simbirsk and Tomsk provinces. They also give an idea about the genre diversity of Russian folklore, written in German camps during the First World War.