Baltic Heritage Network Newsletter 2021, No.1
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BALTIC HERITAGE NETWORK Newsletter no. 1 (34) 2021 issn: 228-3390 High Recognition for Anu Korb Dear BaltHerNet members and • friends! • RIP William R. Schmalstieg These unprecedented times continue. Some of • Fact and Fiction us can occasionally go to work in the archives, • Book “Breaking Through the museum or office, but most of us are still forced Iron Curtain” to find new solutions for how to get everything done in our home offices or online. New times • VEMU Translation Competition call for new coping strategies in both our • Democracy - One Defining personal and work lives. Moment - a New Virtual The Baltic Heritage Network is also forced Exhibition by the Lithuanian to set plans according to how the battle Museum Archives of Canada with COVID-19 continues to go. 2021 is a • Recent VEMU Online Events conference and new board election year for our organization. The Martynas Mažvydas Photo: Kerly Ilves • A Virtual Exhibition on National Library of Lithuania in Vilnius was supposed to Lithuanian Press in the be the venue for this year’s conference, but considering both the social and travel Diaspora Post-1990 Is Now restrictions, as well as the overarching sense of uncertainty, it does not seem likely Available in English that our global family will meet in Vilnius this summer. The Corona crisis has also Ilme – searching through reduced the financial resources of our institutions. For these reasons, the NGO • board has decided that the 2021 BaltHerNet conference will take place online on historical photographs by face 15-16 September. Save the dates! The topic and call for papers will be announced at the beginning of April. Editor-in-Chief: Piret Noorhani Challenging times have also hit the Baltic Heritage Network. This is related to Editor: Kristina Lupp a number of memory institutions in Baltic countries not being able to legally be Designer: Kristina Lupp institutional members and many individuals who had become members early on TheBaltic Heritage Newsletter is distributed have decided to no longer be members. This has led to BaltHerNet losing members quarterly, on-line. The next deadline for is 15 May 2021. Please send all as well as income from membership fees. There are also members who still have submissions related enquiries and submissions to Piret membership fees owing. Unfortunately, we have not been able to organize our Noorhani: [email protected] usual profitable lotteries and finally, year after year the supportrom f the Estonian The Non-Profit Association Baltic Heritage Government has also decreased. In this way, the savings we had in our bank account Network was founded in Tartu on January has reached a critical limit. 11, 2008. NPA BaltHerNet was established to foster cooperation between national and BaltHerNet needs your help now! How can you help? private archives, museums, libraries, and # If you are our member, please make sure that your membership fees are paid institutions of research, public associations on time! and organizations collecting and studying the cultural heritage of the Baltic diaspora. # If you participate in our events and read or contribute to our newsletter, but It aims to facilitate the preservation and haven’t become a member yet, now is the best time to do so! research of the historically valuable cultural property of the Baltic diaspora, as well as to # If you have colleagues or friends who may be interested in our activities, invite ensure accessibility of these materials to the them to join! public. # If you have already done all of the above, then consider making a special one- NPA BaltHerNet is also committed to the organising of conferences, seminars time donation, which will soon be possible at www.balther.net and workshops, and to developing and We are grateful from the bottoms of our hearts to everyone who has contributed to administrating the electronic information BaltHerNet’s activities! We have grown into a large and friendly global family that website Baltic Heritage Network, a multilingual electronic gateway for shares the same values and works together toward common goals. If you think that information on the cultural heritage of the BaltHerNet should continue fulfilling our mission in the future, please find a way to Baltic diaspora. show your support. www.balther.net Stay healthy and keep up the good spirit! ISSN 2228-3390 Piret Noorhani - President 2021 NO . 1 (34) Baltic heritage network 2 High Recognition for Anu Korb Lilliküla, Estonka in the region of Estonian Oral Histories to Omsk, Jurievka, Koidula in the region The President of the Republic of be inscribed on Australian of Kemerovo, and many others. She Estonia, Kersti Kaljulaid, bestowed has gone to almost all the remaining Memory of the World Anu Korb, Estonian Literary Museum Estonian communities (there are about Register senior researcher in Estonian folklore 40) and gathered diverse oral heritage and long-time collector of Siberian and historical village material. In fall Estonian heritage and compiler of the 2003, Anu Korb started gathering publication series “Eesti asundused heritage from Estonians born in Russia I-VII” (Estonian Settlements I-VII), (primarily Siberia) who had returned with the Order of the White Star Class to Estonia (including in Põlva and V. Ahead of the Republic of Estonia’s Võru counties). The heritage that Independence Day, 152 people whose has been recorded, written, filmed dedication to their work and community and photographed is archived at the have improved life in Estonia were Estonian Folklore Archives and is bestowed honourable decorations. accessible to all researchers and those Anu Korb graduated from the University interested. The heritage that has been of Tartu as an Estonian philologist in gathered from both Siberian Estonians 1974 and has worked as a researcher in Siberia and those who have returned at the Estonian Literary Museum in to Estonia has also been published in the the Estonian Folklore Archives since popular 7-part series “Eesti asundused” 1975. From 1991-1998 as the archives (Estonian Settlements). director and starting in 2007 focusing In 2003, Anu Korb initiated a series more on research as a senior researcher. of family days “Venemaale veerenud” Anu Korb is a member of the Academic (Rolled to Russia), where the gathered The Memory of the World Register is Folklore Society and the Eastern material on Russian settlements maintained by UNESCO as a record of Estonians’ Cultural Society. During the is introduced to a wider group of documents, books and other records years 2004-2010, she was the president interested people. Similarly, she has of enduring worth for the world. It is a of the latter. compiled photo exhibits, the largest parallel register to the World Heritage Anu Korb’s first contact with Siberian of which is “Siberian Estonians” Register of Places. The Australian Estonians took place in August 1991 in completed at the end of 2008 in section of the Register includes records Verkhnii Suetuk village (Ülem-Suetuk collaboration with the Estonian such as the convict records held in the in Estonian) in Krasnoyarsk Krai. Since Academy of Arts. NSW, West Australian and Tasmanian then, Anu Korb has organized regular Anu Korb is a member of the Baltic Archives, the Endeavour journal of heritage collection trips to Siberian Heritage Network and a long-time Captain James Cook, and the First Fleet Estonian settlements, including to a member of the BaltHerNet Estonian journals. number of villages of Siberian Estonians working group. Her work with A major entry on the Register is who had emigrated out of Southern preserving the heritage of Siberian ‘Migration Voices’, recognising migrant Estonian: Zolotaya Niva, Semjonovka, Estonians has significantly expanded oral histories held in archives and research on Estonians abroad by libraries such as the Victorian State demonstrating that Estonians abroad are Library, the Mitchell Library in NSW not only in the West but also in the East. and the Migration Museum, South We wish Anu hearty congratulations and Australia. The Estonian Archives in good luck and inspiration for her future Australia was invited to submit its oral undertakings! history collection for consideration as an addition to ‘Migration Voices’. Diaspora radio on Estonian The collection has now been accepted Public Broadcasting becoming the first ethnic community As of the beginning of this year, Estonian oral history collection held outside a Public Broadcasting’s most popular major national library or archive added radio station Vikerraadio is hosting a to the Australian Register. The Estonian weekly show “Hajala ringvaade” dedicated oral history collection will be formally to the activities of Estonians abroad. The inscribed on the Register at a ceremony host is BaltHerNet long time board member at 3.00 pm, Friday, 26 February 2021. and historian Maarja Merivoo-Parro and This will be a virtual ceremony held via she welcomes hints for topics. She can be ZOOM. reached at [email protected] 2021 NO . 1 (34) Baltic heritage network 3 Viewers can access the ceremony shared a video of his, Prof. Pietro Dini’s via the link https://us02web.zoom. and Prof. Phillip Baldi’s visit at William us/j/81586806400. R. Schmalstieg’s home in Pennsylvania The Estonian Archives in Australia is in 2004: https://vimeo.com/50391673 currently investigating the digitisation 4?fbclid=IwAR1K_0WKHW-62cjlh1 pTWjRoXHJWrv9DVuUsglEDjhPgf of its oral history collection. C3JMsTNNrLfX10 RIP William R. Schmalstieg Fact and Fiction It is with great sadness that we share I am a researcher and therefore well the news of the passing of William R. familiar with the joys and tribulations of Schmalstieg, Sparks Professor Emeritus archival research. When at the end of of Slavic and Baltic Linguistics, Penn the day I feel I have gained a tiny piece State University, on January 22, 2021, of something new, I feel elated, however at the age of 91.