Voices of ambiguity – The GDR folk music revival movement (1976-1990): exploring lived musical experience and post-war German folk music discourses

Following the ideological co-option of German folk music by the Nazi regime during the Third Reich (1933-1945), the genre’s performative practice was highly marginalized. Revivalists in both German post-war states initially recast German folk music in a recourse to the soundscape and song themes of Irish vernacular music, before reconnecting with a 19th century oppositional German folk song repertoire. In the GDR, songs of the 1848 Revolution were curated as the state’s ‘democratic’ cultural heritage and could not be readily censored. This allowed artists to perform historical folk songs to metaphorically critique circumstances existing in East Germany. Drawing upon fieldwork conducted among former GDR folk musicians, this paper explores their encounters in relation to established post-war German folk music discourses on the relationship between artists and state authorities. Concrete analysis of a 19th century emigration song uncovers how folk musicians could subversively pass comment on state-imposed travel restrictions to the West.