Stories of hidden treasure are different from other folkloric forms as in the Estonian folk tradition the motif of money is present in all genres. Monetary relations are discussed in proverbs and ...riddles. The problems of poverty and wealth are present in fairy tales. Opinions and dreams concerning money are verbalised in poetic forms in folk songs. People know and still practice various methods, partly based on traditional beliefs, that are known to bring good luck in money. The techniques of old magic meet modern recommendations of various kinds. In this article, the focus is on tradition relating to stories of hidden treasure. The legends and other stories (about 5,000 archive texts and recordings) are kept in the Estonian Folklore Archives and date back to the 19th and 20th centuries, although there are more recent materials. We can find three main fields in this tradition, depending on their connection with reality: 1) stories based in fact and on a real event, as evidenced by for example an archaeological find; 2) narratives that are part of local historical and toponymic traditions representing mental geography; 3) unlocalised stories that do not represent folk beliefs or legends and instead deal with more general questions such as what the real price of economic growth is, what consequences humans can face when luck smiles on them, what dangers – including supernatural sanctions – threaten people, and what consequences can be expected when they come into contact with treasures of unknown origin.
The Internet and its social media platforms offer opportunities to make visible grassroots creative products and activities, which would not otherwise receive wider attention.
In November 2018, as ...Facebook enables to create online meeting spaces for various events, a series of fake events was initiated on this social media platform by Estonian-speaking users. The “actions” were announced exactly like any other Facebook event, yet were not actually intended to be performed. It is reasonable to consider the event-organising game as a special vernacular practice that deserves to be observed from a folkloristic perspective.
The analysis focuses on various aspects of fake events – the genre of these actions, the seriality of events, the dialogue between the participants and those interested in the comments sections, but also the peculiarities of the co-created content. The article attempts to frame the groups of internet users that temporarily gathered around the events within the concept of event community, and traces which stages of the formation and operation of an event community occur in the fake events.
In a broader context, the author discusses the similarities between the parodies that lie at the forefront of the fake events initiated by social media users’ communities and the Renaissance carnivals in a public city square.
Virumaa kohajutud Kalda, Mare
Mäetagused,
04/2017, Letnik:
66, Številka:
66
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The diverse natural conditions and spheres of human activity in Virumaa as a region are reflected in folklore which is just as diverse. Traditional place narratives constitute a significant and ...remarkable part of this. Each place has its own narratives related to local water bodies, hillocks, structures, roads, boulders, forests, and mires, as well as relationships, lines of power, and spheres of influence. Even if legends mediate the same content, concrete places and people make up a unique complex of local idiosyncrasy, narratives, and reality, which in turn creates and influences local identity. Supported by the materials in the Estonian Folklore Archives, the article about Virumaa place narratives gives an overview of the places adorned with place lore and their stories: Kalevipoeg’s grave in Kivinõmme, Kunda hillfort, Ebavere hill, Vaivara hills, Lüganuse stronghold, Vasavere village graveyard, and Jõuga heath, Kuremäe, Sarapuu hill in Rakvere, Tarumaa iron-melting site, St Mary’s chapel in Viru-Nigula, churches at Jõhvi, Haljala, Simuna, and elsewhere, as well as Luussaare bog, Äntu and Kurtna lakes, Uljaste and Tudu lakes, Hoard hill at Tammiku, and Purtse stronghold.
Internet memes represent a new vernacular genre, items of which are created and also distributed digitally. Every day, ever new information keeps flowing through the feeds of social media sites. ...Internet memes, unlike traditional folklore, are not meant to be conveyed from generation to generation, and rarely would one expect a recurrence of a meme that has already been seen and passed forward. New memes are being created constantly, representing every conceivable aspect of physical as well as virtual reality. The external world is represented through a seemingly anything-goes game of combining shapes and forms. Already in the current stage of development of the genre, we can notice that memes correspond to their users’ subcultural and other group-related preferences. Age-group specific meme use is also discernible.
This paper focuses on the meme repertoire of schoolchildren in the Tartu region, which is published on special Facebook or Instagram pages. The empirical work consisted in observing the meme sites and interviewing those generating the memes. School memes are presented as depiction of the life in a particular school and used for generating a feeling of belonging within that school.
By memeing, schoolchildren apply a certain kind of cultural knowledge, a memetic code, which is not necessarily accessible to adults – indeed, they might not even have encountered it. William Corsaro characterises peer group culture with keywords such as autonomy, control, conflict, and differentiation; the challenge is to make fun of the authority of adults. In school memes, we are witnessing not only a peer group counterculture, but also an endeavour by the group to create a certain distinct world of its own. The novel and youthful memetic form suits well for this project.
The conference organized by the Department of Folkloristics under the heading Interpretation, Truth, and Feelings: Legends and Rumors in Culture, focusing on the study of modern traditions, was held ...at the Estonian Literary Museum in Tartu. Eda Kalmre’s main area of research is legends and rumors and their functioning in society. She is equally familiar with traditional legends and contemporary folklore.
The conference organized by the Department of Folkloristics under the heading Interpretation, Truth, and Feelings: Legends and Rumors in Culture, focusing on the study of modern traditions, was held ...at the Estonian Literary Museum in Tartu. This one-day conference was dedicated to the 65th birthday of Eda Kalmre, the most recognized expert in contemporary folklore research in Estonia.
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