On the History of the Term “Ethnomusicology”

Abstract

It is generally accepted that the fundamental term “ethnomusicology,” as universally accepted in contemporary scholarship, first appeared in 1950 and was invented by the Dutchman Jaap Kunst. In reality, the birthplace of this term is Ukraine where it was proposed and defined in detail in 1928 by Klyment Kvitka. Before World War II the term “ethnomusicology” migrated to Poland, thence to Western Europe and the USA, and from there to all the world.