At the turn of the 20th c., many European intellectuals, especially representatives of “small nations”, began to pay considerable attention to spoken languages and to the folklore and culture of their native speakers. In their research they attempted to find something authentic in the cultures of people and elevated their languages from folk status to national or even a state language. For example, the famous Hungarian composer Bela Bartok (Bartók Béla; 1881-1945) and his Norwegian counterpart Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) collected folklore. The latter also discussed which dialect and which language should become the language of modern Norwegian nation with his fellow countryman and playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). Jewish intellectuals of Eastern and Central Europe also discussed which language – Yiddish or Hebrew – should become the language of the modern Jewish nation. At the same time, the necessity to preserve the symbols,language and artefacts of Yiddish culture was understood, because all of that had begun to disappear in the presence of modernisation and secularisation. One of the first to call for preservation of Yiddish heritage was the historian Simon Dubnow (1860-1941).