Welcome!
You are visiting the Estonian folklorists' server Haldjas (fairy, guardian spirit), which was set up in 1995 by the folk belief research group of the Institute of the Estonian Language. Presently, the group and the server have been incorporated under the Estonian Literary Museum. The majority of electronic publications and data corpora in the server are in the Estonian language, which belongs to the Finno-Ugric language family. Estonia is a small country with ca one million people, who speak the Estonian language as their mother tongue.
The server offers a wide range of information on oral heritage, folklore and folk belief, on the institutions actively engaged in folkloristic research in Estonia as well as researchers and research projects. The covered aspects of folklore also include the heritage of other peoples of the Uralic language group. The server features two journals that have been published online and in print since 1996: Mäetagused and Folklore: An electronic Journal of Folklore.
Only parts of the material are currently available in English and/or German; in time the proportion of material in foreign language will grow.
Our news!
New book about cultural communication
Liisi Laineste, Dorota Brzozowska & Władysław Chłopicki just published a new book about cultural communication.
A set of comparative articles about creativity and tradition in cultural communication in Estonia and Poland has been published by ELM Scolarly Press. The set consists of two volumes, Volume 1 concentrating on jokes and humour, and Volume 2 on identity creation.
Web Shop: http://www.kriso.ee/estonia-poland-creativity-tradition-cultural-communication-db-9789949490202i.html(Volume 1)
http://www.kriso.ee/estonia-poland-creativity-tradition-cultural-communication-db-9789949490776i.html (Volume 2)
Estonia and Poland. Creativity and tradition in cultural communication.
Volume 2: Perspectives on national and regional identity ISBN 978-9949-490-77-6 (Vol. 2, printed version)
ISBN 978-9949-490-78-3 (Vol. 2, web version)
Key words: identity, narratives, media, folklore, cultural studies
Paperback: 248 pages
Language: English
Editors: Liisi Laineste, Dorota Brzozowska & Władysław Chłopicki Tartu:
ELM Scholarly Press
Published: May 2013
Tuesday seminar in the Estonian Literary Museum
A seminar will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 3 PM in the Estonian Literary Museum (room 304). Our guest is a researcher of Viatkan Estonians - Irina Trushkova. She will give an overview of plans for studying the Russian Estonian and Latvian diaspora.
Everyone is welcome to join us!
Academic Folklore Society presents
Academic Folklore Society presents on Wednesday, January 30, 2013: Anu Korb "How to represent a Siberian village? About filmmaking truthiness and ethics". In the spring of 2012, Vahur Laiapea took part in an expedition to Siberia, which provided the raw material for the documentary "Expecting the Victory Day in Haida village, Siberia“ (director Vahur Laiapea, film editor Urmas Sepp, music by Jaak Lutsoja, Ikoon 2013, 36´). The documentary is used as an example for discussing thruth and ethics in making movies.
Tuesday seminar in the Estonian Literary Museum
January 8, 12 noon, in Estonian Literary Museum (room 304): "Publishing in the digital modernist setting“. New trends in scientific publishing are brought to you by Mare Kalda.
Issue 52 of the journal “Mäetagused” came out
Issue 52 of the journal “Mäetagused” is now available to readers.
Under the guidance of guest editor Liisi Laineste this issue features articles from Estonian and Polish humour researchers (http://www.folklore.ee/tagused/nr52/). The articles are in Estonian, each with a summary in English. This issue includes an exclusive interview with the Hungarian researcher Mihaly Hoppal. The journal also provides an overview of recent conferences, publications and significant events. The peer reviewed journal “Mäetagused” has been continuously published since 1996 and is available full-text online http://www.folklore.ee/tagused
Nikolay Kuznetsov defends his doctoral thesis
Nikolay Kuznetsov defends his doctoral thesis on Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012.
The work is titled “Spatial semantics of Komi locative cases (cognitive analysis).” Supervisor Tõnu Seilenthal, opponent Galina Nekrasova (Russian Academy of Sciences, Uralic department, Institute of Komi Language, Literature and History). The manuscript is accessible: http://hdl.handle.net/10062/28247
In memoriam Artem Kozmin (March 15, 1976 – February 1, 2013)
On February 1, 2013, at the age of 36, Artem Kozmin, young Russian folklorist and anthropologist, researcher of the Centre of Folklore Typology and Semiotics at the Russian State University for the Humanities, died in Ulan-Bator. Artem Kozmin was a disciple and colleague of the famous Russian folklorist Sergey Neklyudov, a researcher of a wide range of interests and competences. During his short life time, he managed to write about the structure and semantics of narrative folkloric texts, genre systematics and geographic spread of folklore, metrics of poetic texts, and Polynesian languages and tradition, as well as carry out fieldwork in Mongolia and North Caucasus. Artem Kozmin’s contribution to the creation of digital databases and registers, including software, for folklore and myth texts, as well as the development of digital analysis methodology and its practical use in folklore is especially weighty. His candidate’s dissertation entitled Структурно-семантический указатель фольклорных сюжетов компьютерная модель установления связей между текстом и единицами его описания (Structural-Semantic Index of Folklore Plots: A Computer Model for Establishing Text-Index Unit References) was also dedicated to the same topic.
Quite a few Estonian folklorists knew Artem Kozmin personally – either from summer schools of folkloristics at the Russian State University for the Humanities or other science forums. We will remember him with gratitude for his writings, the registers and databases created by him, his numerous invaluable digital gifts to us, as well as his humane empathy and cheerfulness.
Folklore: EJF 52. Borders and Life-Stories
The theme issue Borders and Life-Stories (Guest editors: Tuulikki Kurki, Kirsi Laurén) (address http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol52/ focuses on geographic, cultural and micro-level borders which are examined through written life-stories and narratives.
The articles examine published and unpublished memoirs and life-stories, as well as poetry, in which national borders, borderlands and crossing borders are central themes. The life-stories and memoirs are individual accounts, yet they reflect the collective, culturally shared narratives and meanings of borders that are maintained in literature, media, art and politics. Therefore, the analysed texts open viewpoints to larger cultural and collective narratives about borders and make visible their multi-layered character.
The articles stress two themes in the analysed texts: The first is the narra¬tive construction of the narrator’s identity in relation to the national border, and in relation to ‘we’ and ‘other’ on the different sides of the Finnish-Russian, Estonian-Russian, or the Finnish-Swedish national borders. The identity for¬mation process in relation to the national border is often emotional and trau¬matic. In these cases, the border appears as a dividing line or a boundary that has a permanent influence on an individual’s life.
The second theme is the construction of various symbolic and metaphoric borders contained within the narratives. The time, place, and space of the narration influence how the narrators make the border understand¬able and meaningful to themselves.
In addition, the readers of the new issue can obtain a brief coverage of the more relevant events and enjoy a book reviews.
Narrated Worlds of Belief
You are warmly welcome to participate in the symposium Narrated Worlds of Belief" dedicated to the 70th birthday of Hungarian folklorist and ethnologist Mihály Hoppál, eminent scholar of Eurasian shamanism, to be held on Friday, November 16th in the Estonian Literary Museum (Tartu, Vanemuise 42).
Programme of the symposium
11.00
Mihály Hoppál - The Eurasia Concept: Myth and Reality
Ülo Valk - The Land of Dismembered Goddess: Notes on Place-Lore in Assam
Merili Metsvahi - Relationships between the brother and sister in Estonian and Karelian folk tales
Hasso Krull - Sister's Metamorphoses: Shamanism with Animism
Lunch break
15.00
Ergo-Hart Västrik - How to portrait Votian nature spirits?
Judit Kis-Halas - Inherited objects - hereditary power. Persistence and change of a divinatory healing ritual
Liivo Niglas, Eva Toulouze - Studying religion through an individual: reflections on Yuri Vella's spiritual practice
Mare Kõiva - The Witch of Äksi - Portrait of a Witch from Local Impressions
Symposium will be followed by the reception.
Organizers: Estonian Literary Museum and University of Tartu in cooperation with Estonian Society for the Study of Religions and Academic Folklore Society.
More information: Mare Kõiva, Estonian Literary Museum, phone +372 7377 740, e-mail mare@folklore.ee
Meeting of the Academic Folklore Society on September 27, 2012
The meeting of the Academic Folklore Society will take place on Thursday, September 27, 2012 at 16.15 in the Estonian Literary Museum (Vanemuise 42).
Two Indian scholars will present papers on the following themes:
Dr. Rabindranath Sarma (Jharkhand, India): Folklore Studies in North-East India
Purabi Baruah (doctoral student, North-Eastern Hill University, India): Ritual performance of Goddess Manasa: A case study from Assam. Baruah's research at the University of Tartu is supported by ESF DoRa program.
The presentations will be in English.
Everybody is welcome!
Board of the Academic Folklore Society
