In the digital collection before you we present the ethnographic material from the manuscript legacy of Karel Štrekelj, slavicist, linguist, and ethnologist from the times of Austria-Hungary, who was also active as collector of folk songs and tales. In 1887, Štrekelj – then lecturer of Slavic philology at the Vienna University – published a Petition for folk material in the Ljubljanski zvon, Slovenski narod, and Slovan newspapers. In his petition, he called on all his compatriots who “wanted the Slovenian people to show to the world the richness of their oral traditions”, and especially on teachers active both “in Church and in school”, to begin writing down the oral folk material. With this very successful action, Štrekelj stepped on a path that over the 19th century had been walked by his predecessors with strong national awareness, like Janez Primic, Andrej Smole, Urban Jarnik, Stanko Vraz, Fran Miklošič, and Davorin Terstenjak. Among Slovenian people, the Petition for folk material was accepted surprisingly well. This made it possible for Štrekelj to include in his collection of Slovenian folk songs, which was later to be followed by a collection of Slovenian folk tales, texts coming from all regions inhabited by Slovenians.

The material that was sent to Štrekelj by many from all across Slovenia and was preserved in his manuscript legacy has been digitized in cooperation between the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) and the National and University Library.