The Archive for Eastern European Music was founded in 1996 by the Romanian composer Violeta Dinescu at the University of Oldenburg. It collects music and music literature from the whole of Eastern Europe.
In view of two world wars and the resulting isolation of the countries of the former Warsaw Pact, 20th century music in particular is scarce in Western European libraries. This is precisely where the archive's work comes in: collecting scores, recordings, books, journals, electronic media, concert programmes and documents. Western European publications also play an important role, for example for comparative studies.
The archive's constantly growing collection (currently around 1,500 items) can be searched via the online catalogue of the Oldenburg University Library and is thus also listed in the Göttingen Union Catalogue (GBV).
A special focus of the archive is the collection of Romanian music. The holdings include the entire published works of George Enescu (1881-1955) in scores and recordings, as well as almost all the works of Anatol Vieru (1926-1998), Pascal Bentoiu (*1927), Stefan Niculescu (1927-2008), Tiberiu Olah (*1928), Myriam Marbe (1931-1997) and Aurel Stroe (*1932-2008).
Romania, the only Eastern European country whose national language belongs to the Romance language family, has a long tradition in comparative musicology and ethnology, a field of research that covers the whole of Eastern Europe. Publications by Romanian musicologists from the 19th century to the present day round off the focus of the collection.

Traditional music

Eastern Europe has one of the oldest and richest folk music traditions in the world. Songs and music-making practices, whose origins often go back to prehistoric times, laid the foundations for a musical tradition that spread orally through travelling musicians over large areas, but was often regionally concentrated and found local expression long before national borders were established. The mutual influence of Eastern European folk music is great, and its offshoots can be traced far into the countries of Asia, Southern and Western Europe.

Religious music

The liturgies of Catholicism and the forms of Orthodoxy in Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine have produced great musical treasures over the course of many centuries, and non-liturgical church music also has a long tradition in Eastern Europe. Added to this is the influence of Byzantine culture, which plays a central role in the development of European music.

Concert music

In many Eastern European countries, the beginning of a more than sporadic musical history coincides with the formation of nations. The influence of the k.u.k. The influence of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, the relationship to Western art music and their own folk music and the defiling power structures are decisive factors that characterise the history of concert music in these countries in very different ways. Within this category, the focus of the archive is on the music of the 20th century and the immediate present. The lively contact with the Romanian music scene in particular has left its mark here.