Promoting Heritage Language in Northwest Russia
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Promoting Heritage Language in Northwest Russia This volume illustrates how language revival movements in Russia and else- where have often followed a specific pattern of literacy bias in the promotion of a minority’s heritage language, partly neglecting the social and relational aspects of orality. Using the Vepsian Renaissance as an example, this volume brings to the surface a literacy-orality dualism new to the discussion around revival movements. In addition to the more- theoretically oriented scopes, this book addresses all the actors involved in revival movements including activists, scholars, and policy makers, and opens a discussion on literacy and orality, and power and agency in the multiple relational aspects of written and oral practices. This study addresses issues common to language revival movements worldwide and will appeal to researchers of linguistic anthro- pology, sociolinguistics, education and language policy, and culture studies. Laura Siragusa is a linguistic anthropologist working within a program on Indigenous Studies at the University of Helsinki. She has co-edited a special issue on language sustainability for the journal Anthropologica and pub- lished miscellaneous articles on Vepsian matters in Sibirica, JEFUL , and Folklore. Routledge Studies in Linguistic Anthropology 1 Promoting Heritage Language in Northwest Russia Laura Siragusa Promoting Heritage Language in Northwest Russia Laura Siragusa First published 2018 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Taylor & Francis The right of Laura Siragusa to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978- 1- 138- 08256- 4 (hbk) ISBN: 978- 1- 315- 11245- 9 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC To my own “sebr” Contents List of Figures ix Gloss xi Vepsian Toponymy xv Maps xvii A Note on Transliteration xix Acknowledgments xxi A Note on Anonymity xxv 1 Introduction: Revival of a Heritage Language. A Question of Literacy and Orality 1 1.1 The Research: Vepsian Revival Movement 6 1.2 Language Revival Programs: Literacy Versus Orality or Literacy and Orality? 15 1.3 Language Revitalization: Pros and Cons of Literacy Chauvinism 18 1.4 Vepsian Language: Power and Agency in the Spoken Word 20 2 Vepsian Representations and Language in History 25 2.1 Representing a Natsional’nost’ 26 2.2 Villages: Sebr and Khozyaystvo 28 2.3 Vepsän ma: A Borderland Between Sweden and Russia 33 2.4 Veps and the Soviet Regime 35 2.5 Perestroika and Glasnost: Efforts in Unifying the Land 44 2.6 Contemporary Karelia: Veps in a Multiethnic Territory 46 Maps 57 3 Multilingual Russia: Superdiversity Meets Language Revival 61 3.1 Superdiversity Meets Language Revival in Russia 61 3.2 International Cooperation and New Directions in Language Revival 65 3.3 Why “Saving?” And Saving What? 68 Map 71 viii Contents 4 Revaluation of Language: Fieldwork as a Give- and- Take Phenomenon 73 4.1 Fieldwork in Social Research and Language Studies 75 4.2 Fieldwork as a Give- and- Take Phenomenon: Re- becoming an Italian Svoya 79 4.3 Social Research: A Matter of Preparation, Flexibility, and Improvisation 90 5 Metaphors of Language: Independent Entity Versus Experience of Life 99 5.1 Life Cycle of a Language in Academic and Political Discourse 100 5.2 Vepsian Language and “Optimism” 104 5.3 Speaking in Villages: An Experience of Life 106 6 A Way to Make Sense of the World Using Dialects in Villages 123 6.1 Speaking Differently: Dialects 124 6.2 Dialectal Variations in Phonology 125 6.3 Dialectal Variations in Morphology 126 6.4 Dialectal Variations in Lexicon and on the Discourse Level 127 7 Vepsän kel’ and the City 131 7.1 Literacy in Russia 132 7.2 Literacy and Feeling “Not Inferior to Anyone on any Level” 134 7.3 Language Policy to Support Heritage Language Revival 142 7.4 Multiple Experiences of Writing 148 8 Education and the Babushka 163 8.1 Education and Revitalization in History. Current Issues in Language Planning 164 8.2 Contemporary Vepsian Education in Cities and Villages 165 8.3 The Babushka and Her Social and Language Role 185 Conclusion: Revitalizing a Heritage Language. Toward Multimodality and “Multispatiality” 195 Appendix A 203 Archival Sources 221 Bibliography 223 Index 245 Figures I took most of the pictures displayed in the present volume during my field- work between 2009 and 2015. In case I use a picture from another source, I will state it in the text. 1.1 Pondal, a Vepsian village in the Vologda Oblast 2 1.2 Two journalists (center and right) from Petrozavodsk on their way to work in Pondal 2 1.3 Veps taking part in the festival Drevo Zhizni in Vidl in 2010 7 1.4 Paginklub (V. Speaking club) at the Centre for National Cultures in Petrozavodsk 13 1.5 Street sign indicating the Vepsian village Kalag’ in Russian and in Vepsian 17 2.1 Mäggärv’, Leningrad Oblast 26 2.2 Päč (V. Stove) in a house in Pondal 30 2.3 Jumalčoga at the Vepsian ethnographic museum in Pondal 33 2.4 The cannon industry around which Petrozavodsk was built 34 2.5 On the left side one of the buildings of the kolkhoz in Pondal, Vologda Oblast, as the few left cows graze the grass 38 2.6 Suburban district Kukkovka in Petrozavodsk 49 2.7 Vepsian ethnographic museum in Šoutjärv’, Republic of Karelia 52 3.1 Participants of the VII International Congress of the Finno- Ugric Peoples in Lahti (Finland) in 2016 62 4.1 Gathering cranberries in a swamp near Pondal in 2013 86 4.2 Slobod, a sub district ( ag’ in Vepsian) of Pondal in the Vologda Oblast 87 4.3 During an expedition to Vepsian villages in 1974, the researcher Lepp Lembit took this picture of a woman with her magpie friend (ERM FK 1729: 47) 89 4.4 Main road in Kalag’, Republic of Karelia 92 4.5 Dom Kul’tury (R. House of Culture) in Vil’häl, Leningrad Oblast 95 x Figures 4.6 Master class at the school in Kuja, Vologda Oblast 95 5.1 Vepsian ethnographic museum in Kurb, Leningrad Oblast 106 5.2 Soviet gramophone in the administration office of the Vepsian ethnographic museum in Kurb 108 7.1 School in Šoutjärv’, Republic of Karelia 144 7.2 A Russian/Finnish sign outside the actors’ area at the State National Theatre, Petrozavodsk 154 7.3 A plate in Russian and Finnish, which is situated outside the building of the Government of the Republic of Karelia 155 7.4 Shop in Petrozavodsk. The board sign is written in Finnish , ruokatavaraa , which literally means food stuff 155 7.5 Vepsian primer, which won the best book of the year 2009 in the Vepsian, Karelian, and Finnish languages 158 8.1 The Finno- Ugric school E. Lönnrot in Petrozavodsk 167 8.2 The school plate of the Finno- Ugric school E. Lönnrot is written in Russian, Finnish, Karelian, and Vepsian 168 8.3 Vepsian classroom at the Finno- Ugric school E. Lönnrot . The sign on the door is in Russian and Finnish 168 8.4 Baltic- Finnish and Finno- Ugric Faculty of Petrozavodsk State University 173 8.5 Vepsian classroom at the Baltic- Finnish and Finno- Ugric Faculty of Petrozavodsk State University 174 8.6 Details of the Vepsian classroom at the nursery in Šoutjärv’ 180 8.7 Vepsian class in the secondary school in Šoutjärv’ 181 8.8 Competition Vepsian families in Šoutjärv’ in May 2010 186 8.9 Children playing along the river in Vil’häl, Leningrad Oblast 187 Gloss As I began my research in 2009, I spoke mostly Russian, and only on occa- sion I also spoke Vepsian until my language skills failed me. As I progressed with my work, I pushed myself to engage in Vepsian ways of speaking more often, trying not to be discouraged by my recurrent inaccuracies. When pos- sible, I embrace dialectal variations not only to better integrate in the vil- lages where I work but also because this is how the villagers teach me to speak. In this volume, I regularly employ those Vepsian and Russian words and phrases, which Veps repeatedly use and which I identified as crucial when discussing Vepsian revival movement. I indicate Vepsian words and phrases with “V.” (“R.” for Russian) and provide a translation in brackets. I denote Karelian and Finnish words by “K.” and “F.,” respectively. The fol- lowing list of words and phrases together with a brief description also serve the purpose to avoid repetition throughout this volume. Besides, just like King (2011) who omits the article “the” when discussing Koryaks, I decided to drop the definite article when discussing Veps as not to bind them in a restricted category that does not allow change. Vepsian Words and Phrases Word, phrase Brief description or translation Kül’bet’ Sauna. It is a Finnic word. In Finnish the word külpeä means bathing. The architectural structure of the kül’bet’, its social symbolism and use do not differ from the Russian banya. Paginklub Speaking club.