Mall Hiiemäe, Der estnische Volkskalender. Folklore Fellows’ Communications No. 268. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia (Academia Scientiarum Fennica), 1998. 325 pp.
Hard (ISBN 951-41-0836-1), FIM 175,-
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Many works written by Estonian folklorists have passed unnoticed by their colleagues in other countries. The number of people who read Estonian is limited, and this used to be the prevailing language of publishing for about half a century when the Soviet state did not favour publications in foreign languages (except Russian). However, folklore studies in Estonia continued and the collections of the Estonian Folklore Archives in Tartu grew from year to year. Estonian folklorists maintained their noble and somewhat romantic task of studying the folk culture of their nation and thus opposed themselves to the Communist ideology that aimed at erasing ethnic borders and creating a new Socialist people. Constructing and supporting national identity through folklore preserved its vital importance in Estonia throughout the 20th century, especially during the period of Soviet occupation and the restoration of independence. Ideological pressure had its impact on folkloristics in Soviet Estonia; there were tabooed topics that were overlooked and not studied in spite of their popularity and the amount of text that had been recorded. It was impossible, of course, to publish works on political anecdotes, but even folk religion was considered to be an uncomfortable topic. On the official level, religion, just like national feelings, was regarded as an obstacle to building up the new Socialist culture.
Mall Hiiemäe’s monograph on the Estonian folk calendar started out at this problematic time when the state ideology, supported by the powerful mass media, did not acknowledge Christian holidays and expressed its hostility towards the religious aspects of everyday culture. However, the first volume of the “Estonian Folk Calendar” series was published in 1970 already, compiled by Selma Lätt. But the author passed away and the work was carried on by Mall Hiiemäe, who has so far given the Estonian reader six more volumes on the topic. There is a card index of folk calendar in the Estonian Folklore Archives that contains about 25,000 items. About one fifth of these texts have been published in the Estonian edition; Der estnische Volkskalender is a compendium of this as yet unfinished series.
In 1969 Kustaa Vilkuna’s Finnisches Brauchtum im Jahreslauf was published in FFC (No. 206). Mall Hiiemäe’s book has a similar structure. It gives an overview of 102 feasts and holiday periods in the Estonian folk calendar, starting with January and finishing with the Christmas period. About one third of these days were unimportant, they were known only in some parishes and there is very little information about them. Annunciation Day (March 25), Easter, St. George’s Day (Apr. 23), St. John’s Day (June 24), St. Michael’s Day (Sept. 29), Martinmas (Nov. 10), St. Catherine’s Day (Nov. 25) and Christmas are among the best known and most widely celebrated holidays in Estonia, just as in many other European countries. There are plenty of customs, beliefs and other folklore connected with them.
In the introduction the author points out the parallels between the traditions of the Estonians and other Finno-Ugric peoples. However, according to Hiiemäe, the later influences coming from the Germanic and Eastern-Slavonic peoples are even more significant than the historical Finno-Ugric relations. The bibliography contains about 250 references in eleven languages, which makes the range of the comparative approach remarkable. The Estonian folk calendar is seen as a part of European folk culture, it is interpreted against the background of the traditions of many other peoples. In the relationship between pre-Christian and Christian traits, the latter started to dominate in the folk calendar and many old customs merged with Christian holidays and acquired new interpretations in folklore. The printed calendars that started to spread in the 18th and especially in the 19th century influenced the Estonian folk traditions, too. Some archaic traits of Baltic-Finnic origin have been better preserved in the eastern part of the country.
The chapters on different feasts are of similar construction and usually cover the following sub-topics: popular names for the day and their etymology, phrases and proverbs about the feast, customs and beliefs related to it, their Estonian and international distribution, the earliest data about the feast, its possible origin and historical changes in folk traditions. The author shows how belief and magic were often transformed into entertainment and customs that had practical and social functions. Thus the symbolic beginning of ploughing on April 14 that once had a magical meaning later turned into the custom of checking whether the tools are in good order and ready for the spring work. The bonfire made on the eve of May 1 lost its magical function, too, and became a get-together party for summer workers employed on the farms. The monograph offers new data about Estonian customs and beliefs, presenting colourful details that have not been described and explained before. The author has been careful with the sources. Any texts by unreliable folklore collectors who describe fantastical customs and beliefs that are not substantiated by other variants in folklore have been omitted.
Most of the sources of Mall Hiiemäe’s study come from the Estonian Folklore Archives and the earlier literature. But the author is one of the greatest Estonian folklore collectors and has done fieldwork in many parishes. This has given her a good opportunity to study the changes in the Estonian folk calendar during the second half of the 20th century. Although urbanisation and other social changes have altered the traditional peasant culture, the Estonian folk calendar can still be generally characterised as an agrarian calendar of farmers. It is connected with most of the important aspects of agrarian life and everyday work, which changed with the seasons. The distinction between summer and winter has been primary here, the division of the year into twelve months coming later and being of secondary importance.
Descriptions of folk customs and accounts of beliefs are the most important source material for studying the Estonian folk calendar. Other genres, such as proverbs, phrases, folk songs and incan tations related to the topic, have not been excluded, however. Memorates and several types of belief legends are discussed as well: e.g. didactic stories about breaking the taboo of picking berries and doing other work on Sundays, the flight of the witches to their nocturnal feasts, the flower of the fern that blooms on St. John’s night, foretelling the future in a sauna on New Year’s Eve and other stories connected with the calendar.
Thus the monograph is based on all folklore genres relevant to the study of folk religion. Hiiemäe’s book is a major contribution to the study of Estonian folk religion since “Estonian Mythology” by Matthias Johann Eisen, Grundzüge des estnischen Volksglaubens by Oskar Loorits and “Old Estonian Folk Religion” by Ivar Paulson. Eisen’s point of departure was the classification of mythological beings, Loorits relied upon the psychology of Wilhelm Wundt and the relationship between the living and the dead, and Paulson presented folk religion in connection with the ecological realms of nature and the cultural landscape. Hiiemäe has given a broad picture of the annual cycle in the customs and beliefs of Estonian peasants. The focus is on the sacred and “marked” time of holidays but the unmarked everyday time which is much harder to describe is not forgotten either. With this “encyclopaedia” of the folk calendar Hiiemäe has established herself as one of the greatest researchers of Estonian folk religion, and paradoxically, she began her work during the years of ideological pressure that did not favour such studies. Now, thanks to FFC, the fruits of her labour have reached an international readership.
Ülo Valk
University of Tartu
FF Network No. 17
(June 1999): 25-27