This article discusses the terminology and representations concerning the older Estonian oral song tradition specialists in Estonian folkloristic literature from the late 19th century to the second ...half of the 20th century. The folk singers' relationships with their family, community, and folklorists from the perspective of diachronic and synchronic intersubjectivity is also considered. At the heart of the documentation and study of runo songs (regilaulud) are folk singers who actively embody the song culture. They are specialists who, in addition to having knowledge of the lyrics, tunes and performing practices, also have a need to perform in public, learn from other (older) singers, and share their skills with the next generations. At the height of the documentation of folklore at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, runo songs had receded to the periphery of cultural life and lost their importance in musical self-expression. So, too, the runo singer became the embodiment of the margins of society – someone old and poor. As folklore studies developed, the representation of the folk singer gained agency – the singer was not only a reservoir of knowledge or a repeater of rituals, but also a specialist in communication. In the 1960s, a wedding singer – an improviser who actively used poetic means – took over as the collective image of a folk singer. However, the song tradition is also carried on by people of a different nature, who know a lot of songs and the context in which they are used, but do not wish to perform in public. In this article, I focused on the inactive, modest singers. The main subjects of this article are the folk singers recorded in the 1960s, during the last great wave of runo song documentation. All those studied were „of singers' blood": their immediate family were wellknown singers. In order to become proficient in performing the runo songs, they had to have grown up in a close relationship with their grandmother. It was the modest singers, in particular, who continued to express themselves by means of the runo songs in the form of autocommunication. The relationship of the modest singers with the collectors of folklore may even have been more positive than that of the active ones; they developed a closer bond with the collectors, were more patient and more accommodating.
Artikli eesmärk on jälgida regilaulu kui Eesti folkloristika paraadžanri käekäiku Eesti sovetiseerimise ajajärgul 1940.–1950. aastatel ja selle kaudu eesti folkloristide kohandumisi muutuva ...teaduspoliitikaga. Kuna sõjajärgset Eestit võib lugeda koloniseerituks Nõukogude Liidu poolt, tuvastatakse sotskolonialismi tunnuseid Eesti sõjajärgses folkloristikas. Vaatluse alla võetakse regilaulu muutuv positsioon ametlikus retseptsioonis ning folkloristlikel välitöödel. Kuna nõukogude ajajärku esitatakse sageli eesti rahvakultuuri õitseajana, vaadeldakse lähemalt rahvaloomingu viljelemist harrastajate ja professionaalsete kunstnike tasemel, rahvusliku vormi sotsialistliku sisuga täitmist. The purpose of the paper is to follow how Estonian folklorists adapted changing science policy in the 1940s and 1950s, and how an elite genre of the Estonian folklore – regilaul – was treated in the course of the Sovietization of Estonian humanities and cultural life.There are several distinctive features of the Soviet colonization in the post-war Estonian folkloristics. First, an extensive reform of the organization of the academic institutions took place in annexed Estonia, following the example of organizational structures in Soviet Russia’s Academy of Sciences.The most specific feature of the Soviet colonialism was the extremely strong dependence of the peripheries on the colonial centre. Academic life in Estonia was guided by the resolutions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which were observed and monitored closely by local authorities at the plenary meetings of the Estonian Communist Party and further discussed at the meetings of local academic institutions. These discussions were followed by waves of reassessments, (self) criticism and repressions. Folklorists from the Baltic republics were supervised and “assisted” by Russian folklorists in terms of the methods of the Soviet folkloristics at the union-wide conferences held in Moscow, the Soviet colonial centre. Direct models were taken over to reorganize folkloristic fieldwork and research in the spirit of the new ideology.The third specific feature of the Soviet colonialism was the adaption of Soviet pidgin, colonial discourse, which proliferated especially during the last years of the Stalinist era, from 1948 to 1953. Research in any discipline was limited by the Marxist method; any deflection in it was considered renegade and therefore punishable. In Estonian folkloristics, however, the mastering of the Marxist method comprised largely of clever usage of the colonists’ slogans and formulae, such as “bourgeois-nationalist”, “formalism”, “cosmopolitanism” versus “internationalism”, “objectivism”, and “anti-patriotic” etc. Oft-repeated labels carried no actual meaning; far from any rationale, they were rather formulaic weapons of fighting with enemies, tools of revaluing and (self) criticism. In the end of the 1950s, the use of most grievous lexis declined, but in general, the Soviet discourse was adapted.The altering position of regilaul in the folkloristic writings and fieldwork is discussed in the paper. The last years of the Stalinism, the hierarchy of the folklore genres was turned upside down and classical folklore genres were marginalized because mainstream Soviet folkloristics were focused on contemporary “Soviet folklore” and amateur cultural activities. Estonian folklorists adapted the new reality expeditiously, implementing a sort of mimicry. Fieldwork was carried on in areas with vivid traditional culture, such as Setumaa and Kihnu Island, using the collection of Soviet folklore as pretext. Folklorists did not change their collecting methods and continued to collect traditional folklore genres. Examples of contemporary “folk creations” were documented randomly and unsystematically; all the more were these findings proudly brought before the public at the union-wide forums and in the local press. In these years, curiosa like eulogies to the Lenin and Stalin, collective farms and the Soviet Army in the form of regilaul were documented.After the death of Stalin, Estonian folklorists returned to the classical folklore genres, though overemphasizing the motifs of “class struggle” and “heroism of the working crowds” in the old oral poetry.Due to the existing stereotypes regarding favouring ethnic minorities and folk culture under the Soviet regime, the paper takes a closer look to the use of folklore or/and folk creations at both the amateur and professional level of cultural activities. Although Soviet propaganda hailed the blossoming of the folk cultural activities, not all branches of the folk culture were allowed to blossom. Certainly, “folk” and “national” cannot be seen as synonyms. The concept of folklore was blurred because of the parallel concept of folk creations, which included non-traditional cultural activities. Folklorists were forced to deal with amateur cultural activities. In the professional level, the slogan of “socialist content in national form” marked deterioration, simplification and impoverishment regarding means of artistic expression. Instead of folklore pieces, the national epic “Kalevipoeg” was used as an exemplary to the professional artistic creations. Because of sophisticated stylistic features and lyricist mood of regilaul, conflicting to the Soviet aesthetics, becoming inspired by the regilaul tradition was out of the question for artists of the Stalinist era. Enforced simplicity and conservatism caused innovation in literary and musical creations in 1960s, broadening the use of regilaul in professional culture.
The Estonian Folklore Archives (EFA) has intertwined with the basis of reasoning about folk and nation in many ways. The article discusses opposing concepts that affected the foundation of the ...institution and the development of its collections while altering according to prevailing ideologies. Traditionality and modernity, and unification and segregation were interlaced while constructing the Estonian nation during the period of national awakening (starting in the 1850s). In this modernist process the history of Estonians had to be (re)created. Country-wide folklore collection campaigns were organised, during which young people were gathering material from old people about culturally outdated genres and obsolete knowledge. These large collections became the basis of the EFA in independent Estonia and, according to erstwhile principles, the collection of folklore and filling in the white spots on the Estonian map continued. However, since there was no longer any threat to nationality, folklorists also began to experiment with new methods and study the genres, or social/national groups, which so far had been regarded as marginal or insignificant. The Soviet occupation was accompanied by major ideological changes. As a result of constant external pressure, folklorists enclosed themselves into ethno-centrist conservatism – folklore of Estonians and kindred peoples, archaic genres of peasants’ tradition – were preferred to be recorded and studied once again. Authenticity – the set of qualities of texts such as archaic, traditional, oral, or reliable – became the supreme principle for collecting and publishing. Interest in ethnic minorities and contemporary topics arose only at the end of the Soviet era, experiencing an explosive success in the re-independent Estonia.
In the first post-war decade, Estonian folklore studies were, like the rest of the Estonian humanities, subjected to certain impacts of Sovietisation, which brought along not only institutional ...reforms but also changes in the research paradigm. As a result, the folklorists had to perform some tricky maneuvers with the words rahvalik ‘popular’ and rahvuslik ‘national; ethnic’, and to withdraw, for a period, from collecting and studying archaic folklore, which used to be the core of Estonian national folkloristics. Estonian folklorists adapted to the changes so that without bringing practically anything new to the field, just by changing the discourse, they managed to leave an impression of having acquired a new “Marxist method”, while the novel tasks of fieldwork addressing contemporary Soviet folklore and the tradition reflecting Russian-Estonian ethnic relations were taken rather lightly. Actually, Estonian folklore of the time was extremely poor in the material anticipated, because the political and economic changes had taken place only recently. The few findings matching the new paradigm, however, were publicised with great zeal. As the possibility of connecting both folklore and hobby culture under popular creative activities seemed strange to Estonian folklorists, hobby folklore was never included among research objects. The unsolicited and hypocritical Russian studies were abandoned first chance. Total absence of relevant publications can be seen as evidence of the failure of the new tasks. Hence the conclusion that Sovietisation acted as a preservative for Estonian folkloristics. Although Estonian folklorists had already studied contemporary folklore as well as the folklore of ethnic minorities in the pre-war period, as soon as Stalinism showed signs of moving to the close they immediately returned to the collection and studying of the old “classical” genres of national folklore. It was actually Kreutzwald’s Kalevipoeg, fitting into the theme of heroic epics that happened to be prestigious in Soviet folkloristics, which provided the researchers an escape back to the rescue collecting and publication of runic songs and old legends. So the archaic genres of folklore remained in the foreground of research up to the final decades of the 20th century, while more recent folklore failed to attract research attention until the 1980s.
The article is dedicated to the history of the monumental regilaul publication Vana Kannel and examines the changing position of regilaul in the research politics of Soviet Estonia in the 1950s. The ...changing form of fieldwork expeditions is dealt with, as the collection of regilaul was seen as a part of the preparation process of the publication. Concentrating on the series of fieldtrips to Alutaguse region in the second half of the 1950s, objectives and details of fieldwork are scrutinized to pinpoint the reasons for the failure of the endeavour. The fundamental question the article examines is the interaction between the dominating ideologies of research politics and the individual interests of folklore collectors.
From 1875-1886, Jakob Hurt, who was the initiator of the first major campaign of collecting Estonian folklore, managed to publish only the first two volumes of the Vana Kannel („The Old Kannel”) ...series (songs of Põlva and Kolga-Jaani). Hurt’s next publication was Setukeste laulud („The Songs of the Seto People”) (I-III, 1904-1907). Hurt’s scientific principle has remained basic for the later publishers of Estonian folk songs. Herbert Tampere brought out „The Songs of Kuusalu” (1935) and „The Songs of Karksi” (1941). In the 1960s and 1970s the publication of the series ceased to be an effort of lone enthusiasts, becoming topical for the cultural public sphere at large. Joint efforts were undertaken to solve the relevant theoretical and practical problems. Nevertheless, for different reasons the publication of Estonian runo songs was delayed for decades. The fifth volume (Mustjala) was issued in 1985, followed by the songs of Haljala (1989), Kihnu (1997 and 2003), Jõhvi and Iisaku (1999), Lüganuse (2009), and now Paide and Anna (2012). Research policy has never really favored monumental text publications. Once again we have to decide what next. Electronic databases of folklore have deprived Vana Kannel of its major function as a research source. Vana Kannel has remained a publication that supports local identity by integrating traditional culture, the person carrying the tradition, and the locality. What matters is the number of people interested. Maybe Vana Kannel had better prospects if it were designed for a slightly different audience?
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