Götterdämmerung: cultural appropriation and manipulation in Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen.

The study examines the formation of German collective cultural identity from the late 18th to the early 20th century, focusing on the manipulative appropriation of Nordic cultural elements in the absence of accessible historical records. Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen exemplifies this phenomenon as both product and subject of ideological cultural appropriation aimed at defining the German Geist. Wagner sought to represent the German Spirit and to promote a pure cultural society based on an idealized community. In this context, the medieval Nibelungenlied served as a bridgehead legitimising claims over ancient Norse sources such as the two Eddas and the Völsunga Saga. These texts, thought to portray a prosperous Germanic past, were contrasted with a present perceived as decadent and corrupted by foreign influence, hence reinterpreted within a modern German cultural framework that dissolved their original substance into the German Volksgeist. After Wagner's death, his works were manipulatively reinterpreted through a völkisch lens, transforming his cultural program into racial ideology claiming a cultural and genetic German superiority. This study investigates the process of manipulation of the Nordic sources within Wagner’s work with a traditional-qualitative as well as a computational-quantitative approach.