Cabinet of Folksongs or Cabinet of Dainas ( lv, Dainu skapis) is a cabinet tall, wide, and deep, in which all Latvian folksongs (''dainas'') collected by Latvian folklorist

Krišjānis Barons Krišjānis Barons (October 31, 1835 – March 8, 1923) was a Latvian writer who is known as the "father of the dainas" ( lv, "Dainu Tēvs") thanks largely to his systematization of the Latvian folk songs and his labour in preparing their te ...

are stored. The cabinet itself was made in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

in 1880 after Barons' draft. In 2001, the Cabinet of Folksongs was included in the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

Memory of the World Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...

History

Barons started acquiring folksongs in 1868 (or 1878) with the purpose of demonstrating "that Latvian culture in its oldest part is of equal value as the culture of other nations". The cabinet was built in Moscow in 1880 and was based on Barons' draft. Due to the number of folksongs that were sent to Barons, the cabinet was deemed necessary. Prior to the completion of the cabinet, the folksongs were stored in cigarette-paper boxes. When the amount of texts approached 150,000 in 1893, Barons and his work returned to Latvia from Moscow. After the author's death, the cabinet was kept in a bank vault. It was moved to the Archives of Latvian Folklore in 1940, to the Literature, Folklore, and Art Institute of The Latvian Academy of Sciences in 1945, to the Literature, Folklore, and Art Institute of the

University of Latvia University of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Universitāte, shortened ''LU'') is a state-run university located in Riga, Latvia established in 1919. The ''QS World University Rankings'' places the university between 801st and 1000th globally, seventh ...

in 1999, and to the new building of the

National Library of Latvia The National Library of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Nacionālā bibliotēka) is a national cultural institution under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture of Latvia. Its current main building is known as the Castle of Light ( lv, Gaismas pils ...

in 2014. Before the relocation to the National Library and it being placed on public display, the Cabinet of Folksongs was insured for one million euros. The Cabinet of Folksongs had a copy in the Krišjānis Barons Memorial Museum and another one within the Stankevich manor in Russia, where Barons started working with dainas. In 1998, the contents of the Cabinet began to be digitised and its contents are completely available online since 2006. In 2001, The Cabinet of Folksongs was included in the

Description

The cabinet has 73 drawers of differing sizes that are filled with papers measuring . The cabinet's three large drawers at the bottom store archive materials. The Cabinet of Folksongs houses 268,815 pages with 4-line to 8-line folksongs, as well as other texts such as

riddle A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that requ ...

s and adages.

References

External links

Digitised contents of The Cabinet of Folksongs
{{Authority control Folklore Latvian culture Memory of the World Register 1880 works