From the history of phonographic and gramophone recordings
of representatives of Finno-Ugric peoples in Austria-Hungary and in Germany
during the World War I

The paper is devoted to the history of the recordings of war prisoners, representatives of Finno-Ugric peoples from the Russian Empire taken prisoners in Austria-Hungary and in Germany in 1915–1918. This humanitarian project was organized on the initiative of the Austrian, Hungarian and German Academies of Sciences in the prison camps at the hard wartime. To carry out the recordings use was made of the technical capabilities of the Berlin Phonogram-archive
and the Phonogram-archive of the Austrian Academy of Sciences which possessed the most uptodate sound recording equipment for that period – phonographs and gramophones. Envited as scientific consultants to the project were the best experts of the time: anthropologists, ethnographers, musicologists and linguists. Thanks to these recordings our contemporaries have an opportunity
not only to see the written materials, but also to hear the voices recorded at the beginning of the 20th century.