Soldier, Structure and the Other

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Soldier, Structure and the Other CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Helsingin yliopiston digitaalinen arkisto SOLDIER, STRUCTURE AND THE OTHER SOCIAL RELATIONS AND CULTURAL CATEGORISATION IN THE MEMOIRS OF FINNISH GUARDSMEN TAKING PART IN THE RUSSO- TURKISH WAR, 1877-1878 Teuvo Laitila Dissertation in Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki, Finland, 2001 1 ISSN 1458-3186 ISBN (nid.) 952-10-0104-6 ISBN (pdf) 952-10-105-4 Teuvo Laitila 2 ABSTRACT SOLDIER, STRUCTURE AND THE OTHER:SOCIAL RELATIONS AND CULTURAL CATEGORISATION IN THE MEMOIRS OF FINNISH GUARDSMEN TAKING PART IN THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR, 1877-1878 Teuvo Laitila University of Helsinki, Finland I examine the influence of Finnish tradition (public memory) about the ’correct’ behaviour in war and relative to the other or not-us on the ways the Finnish guardsmen described their experiences in the Russo-Turkish war, 1877-1878. Further, I analyse how the men’s peacetime identity was transformed into a wartime military one due to their battle experiences and encounters with the other (the enemy, the Balkans and its civilian population) and how public memory both shaped this process and was reinterpreted during it. Methodologically I combine Victor Turner’s study of rituals as processes with Maurice Halbwachs’s sociologial insights about what he termed mémoire collective and what I have called public memory, and Eric Dardel’s geographical view about the meaning of space in remembering. My sources are the written recollections of the Finnish guardsmen, both volunteers and professionals. I have broken each recollection (nine together) down into themes (military ideals, views of the enemy, battle, the civilians or Bulgarians, etc.) and analysed them separately, letting every author tell his story about each thema. My conclusions suggest that the identity and public memory, which the men had internalised before the war did not as a rule essentially change. The reason is that the peacetime Finnish structure contained elements that facilitated the adoption of a wartime military identity. These may be summarised by the concept ’honour’, which became manifest in the men’s different social relations. These included loyalty to the Russian emperor, the fatherland and the Finnish Guard, hatred of the enemy and the men’s mutual relations. Briefly, ’honour’ was linked with the men’s social status and identity; and what war experiences and encounters with the other taught the guardsmen was either to firmly stick to the pre-war strategies in establishing honour-increasing relations or to develop new ones to improve one’s social status. 3 4 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS THIS STUDY examines accounts of ordinary people’s experiences in an extraordinary situation, in this case, wartime. The war studied is the Russo-Turkish one of 1877-8, and the people are the Finnish guardsmen who participated in that war as members of the Russian army (Finland being part of Russia from 1809 to 1917). Applying Victor Turner’s terminology, I see the guardsmen’s wartime experiences as a process which affected their social relations and caused these to be reinterpreted. When speaking of social relations I have in mind especially the men’s mutual relations and their attitudes towards the army institution as well as those vis-à-vis the foreign or other (the enemy, Bulgarian civilians, the Balkan space and Islam). My point of departure is that certain aspects of the men’s peacetime culture, or, more exactly, what I have termed ‘public memory’ (roughly customs, conventions, clichés and patterns of behaviour and thinking pertinent to a given institution, for example, the army), formed the context within which the guardsmen interpreted their wartime relations and actions to make them coincide with what was considered socially or culturally ‘normal’ by the army, the Russian emperor or the Finnish public at home. This approach is hardly a new one. Related work in anthropology has been carried out by Ruth Benedict, Mary Douglas, Clifford Geertz, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Marshall Sahlins, Victor Turner and others. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and his concept of ‘habitus’ notwithstanding, I feel that not enough has been done to take individual, superficially ‘trivial’, narratives and events and render them meaningful by seeking to understand them in relation to, and as a reflection of, an institution’s or group’s public memory. I mean that, as Turner partly showed, the concept of ‘process’ (he spoke of ritual process) covers not only short ‘sacred’ or ‘off-structure’ rituals or phases in human life (for example, marriages and funerals) but also prolonged, structurally initiated or supported series of events (such as wars, imprisonment or hospitalisation, or periods in monasteries or concentration camps) and, in fact, the whole course of a society. Prolonged periods have been studied by various scholars (for example, Michel Foucault and Tzvetan Todorov), but not so often as processes which, on the one hand, reshape one’s identity and relation to structure and, on the other, create means and strategies to cope with the whole process of human life. Saying this is tantamount to stating that wars (or periods in monasteries or hospitals, for example) are not deviations from ‘normal’ structure; nor are they merely politics continued by other means or forms of social life outside society. To apply what Turner suggested in his Ritual process (1969): for individuals, periods of war, imprisonment or illness are occasions for re-reflecting on institutional and structural values, whereas for institutions they are ways of making ‘normal’ what is usually regarded as ‘extraordinary’, ‘abnormal’ or, at best, differing from the ‘ordinary’. Accordingly, processes within or between institutions are discourses and social practices in negotiating social relations among and between individuals and institutions, and, as such, phases in the struggle for power, social position and authority. Rather than studying it as a process bearing some similarity to ritual process, those emphasising the power struggle element in war have tended to trace its historical or political development over time or its effect upon individual persons from a psychological point of view. My approach has been somewhat different. In keeping with my institutional view I have attempted to combine anthropological and historical insights in order to see some eight months in the wartime Balkans as an effort to cope with a process (that is, changes in social relations) and to understand the Finnish guardsmen’s wartime experiences by interpreting their narratives of that time as signs of their structural ethos and social position and as means of upholding, improving or changing these both. 5 Although I speak of change, my opinion is that war seldom changes military institutions or structure at large in any total manner. Rather, it dramatises and highlights certain aspects of a society’s cultural logic. Hence, depending on one’s social position, previous experiences, recollections and internalised public memory, some of one’s structural values and notions are strengthened by war whilst others are challenged or ignored. Historians of the annalist persuasion may call this long durée and social scientists perhaps social inertia. Naming notwithstanding, this is, crudely, what Turner, in my opinion, meant when he talked about ritual process: continuity and change are intertwined. Accordingly, I have tried to show how different traditions of military heroism, structural authority, Finnish patriotism and attitudes towards Russians and other ‘foreigners’ in ‘our’ society were processed in the guardsmen’s encounter with the Turkish enemy, the Bulgarian ‘brethren’ and space, and Islam. Although nothing special seemed to happen relative to these during the war, most of the men became more conscious of the existence of, and differences between, these relations and their opportunities to use them in negotiating their military and social position. Thus, what is seen as conventionalism or a strengthening of the status quo is, in fact, often an individual’s ability or strategy to make concessions in return for institutional or social acceptance or awards. The guardsmen, for example, tended to despise the Balkans, not so much because it was somehow an awful region but because this was expected by the army, the emperor and the Finnish public, which took for granted that the enemy and his territory were ‘by nature’ dreadful (just as the Finns were ‘by nature’ heroic). To take another example, though not all were professional soldiers, the men did not question the waging of war, despite the fact that fighting, particularly against Turks, or for Bulgarian liberation, was almost certainly of no special importance for them. One main reason was that participating in the war was understood to enhance the men’s social prestige, or ‘honour’ as they put it, and waging war as such was generally considered a ‘noble’ rather than a ‘mean’ act. For the same reason, the men were willing to serve the Russian emperor, whether or not they wholeheartedly supported him, because imperial loyalty was esteemed as ‘ordinary’ (and also beneficial or profitable) social behaviour. Only after the emperor refused, in the late 1890s, to grant the Finns niches of personal and social reputation in return for their formal public loyalty did they revolt. AS REGARDS the ‘life history’ of my study, the idea was ignited by the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the subsequent Balkan wars. At that time I was an assistant lecturer at the Department of Orthodoxy and East European Church Studies at the University of Helsinki. By chance, I was asked to lecture, and later to write as well, on the background of what was going on in the western Balkans. I found the theme interesting, especially because I had written my licenciate thesis (in comparative religion) on the position of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the Ottoman empire in 1453-1571. The realisation, however, that ‘on-line history’ was far too complicated for a dissertation prompted me to turn to earlier events in the Balkans.
Recommended publications
  • Federal Research Division Country Profile: Bulgaria, October 2006
    Library of Congress – Federal Research Division Country Profile: Bulgaria, October 2006 COUNTRY PROFILE: BULGARIA October 2006 COUNTRY Formal Name: Republic of Bulgaria (Republika Bŭlgariya). Short Form: Bulgaria. Term for Citizens(s): Bulgarian(s). Capital: Sofia. Click to Enlarge Image Other Major Cities (in order of population): Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas, Ruse, Stara Zagora, Pleven, and Sliven. Independence: Bulgaria recognizes its independence day as September 22, 1908, when the Kingdom of Bulgaria declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire. Public Holidays: Bulgaria celebrates the following national holidays: New Year’s (January 1); National Day (March 3); Orthodox Easter (variable date in April or early May); Labor Day (May 1); St. George’s Day or Army Day (May 6); Education Day (May 24); Unification Day (September 6); Independence Day (September 22); Leaders of the Bulgarian Revival Day (November 1); and Christmas (December 24–26). Flag: The flag of Bulgaria has three equal horizontal stripes of white (top), green, and red. Click to Enlarge Image HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Early Settlement and Empire: According to archaeologists, present-day Bulgaria first attracted human settlement as early as the Neolithic Age, about 5000 B.C. The first known civilization in the region was that of the Thracians, whose culture reached a peak in the sixth century B.C. Because of disunity, in the ensuing centuries Thracian territory was occupied successively by the Greeks, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans. A Thracian kingdom still existed under the Roman Empire until the first century A.D., when Thrace was incorporated into the empire, and Serditsa was established as a trading center on the site of the modern Bulgarian capital, Sofia.
    [Show full text]
  • Luftwaffe Airfields 1935-45 Bulgaria
    Luftwaffe Airfields 1935-45 Luftwaffe Airfields 1935-45 Bulgaria By Henry L. deZeng IV General Map Edition: November 2014 Luftwaffe Airfields 1935-45 Copyright © by Henry L. deZeng IV (Work in Progress). (1st Draft 2014) Blanket permission is granted by the author to researchers to extract information from this publication for their personal use in accordance with the generally accepted definition of fair use laws. Otherwise, the following applies: All rights reserved. No part of this publication, an original work by the authors, may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the author. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. This information is provided on an "as is" basis without condition apart from making an acknowledgement of authorship. Luftwaffe Airfields 1935-45 Airfields Bulgaria Introduction Conventions 1. For the purpose of this reference work, “Bulgaria” generally means the territory belonging to the country on 6 April 1941, the date of the German invasion and occupation of Yugoslavia and Greece. The territory occupied and acquired by Bulgaria after that date is not included. 2. All spellings are as they appear in wartime German documents with the addition of alternate spellings where known. Place names in the Cyrillic alphabet as used in the Bulgarian language have been transliterated into the English equivalent as they appear on Google Earth. 3. It is strongly recommended that researchers use the search function because each airfield and place name has alternate spellings, sometimes 3 or 4.
    [Show full text]
  • Russian History: a Brief Chronology (998-2000)
    Russian History: A Brief Chronology (998-2000) 1721 Sweden cedes the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea to Russia (Treaty of Nystad). In celebration, Peter’s title Kievan Russia is changed from tsar to Emperor of All Russia Abolition of the Patrarchate of Moscow. Religious authority passes to the Holy Synod and its Ober- prokuror, appointed by the tsar. 988 Conversion to Christianity 1722 Table of Ranks 1237-1240 Mongol Invasion 1723-25 The Persian Campaign. Persia cedes western and southern shores of the Caspian to Russia Muscovite Russia 1724 Russia’s Academy of Sciences is established 1725 Peter I dies on February 8 1380 The Battle of Kulikovo 1725-1727 Catherine I 1480 End of Mongol Rule 1727-1730 Peter II 1462-1505 Ivan III 1730-1740 Anne 1505-1533 Basil III 1740-1741 Ivan VI 1533-1584 Ivan the Terrible 1741-1762 Elizabeth 1584-98 Theodore 1744 Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst arrives in Russia and assumes the name of Grand Duchess 1598-1613 The Time of Troubles Catherine Alekseevna after her marriage to Grand Duke Peter (future Peter III) 1613-45 Michael Romanoff 1762 Peter III 1645-76 Alexis 1762 Following a successful coup d’etat in St. Petersburg 1672-82 Theodore during which Peter III is assassinated, Catherine is proclaimed Emress of All Russia Imperial Russia 1762-1796 Catherine the Great 1767 Nakaz (The Instruction) 1772-1795 Partitions of Poland 1682-1725 Peter I 1773-1774 Pugachev Rebellion 1689 The Streltsy Revolt and Suppression; End of Sophia’s Regency 1785 Charter to the Nobility 1695-96 The Azov Campaigns 1791 Establishment fo the Pale of Settlement (residential restrictions on Jews) in the parts of Poland with large 1697-98 Peter’s travels abroad (The Grand Embassy) Jewish populations, annexed to Russia in the partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, and 1795) and in the 1698 The revolt and the final suppression of the Streltsy Black Sea liitoral annexed from Turkey.
    [Show full text]
  • This Document Has Been Downloaded from Tampub – the Institutional Repository of University of Tampere
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Trepo - Institutional Repository of Tampere University This document has been downloaded from Tampub – The Institutional Repository of University of Tampere Post-print Authors: Häkli Jouni Cultures of demarcation : territory and national identity in Name of article: Finland Name of work: Nested identities : identity, territory, and scale Editors of work: Herb Guntram H., Kaplan David H. Year of 1999 publication: ISBN: 0-8476-8466-0 Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Pages: 123-149 Discipline: Social sciences / Social and economic geography Language: en URN: http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:uta-3-959 All material supplied via TamPub is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, and duplication or sale of all part of any of the repository collections is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for your research use or educational purposes in electronic or print form. You must obtain permission for any other use. Electronic or print copies may not be offered, whether for sale or otherwise to anyone who is not an authorized user. Author’s copy. Originally published in Guntram H. Herb & D. H. Kaplan (eds.). Nested identities: Identity, Territory, and Scale. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield (1999), 123-149. Cultures of Demarcation: Territory and National Identity in Finland JOUNI HÄKLI Introduction This chapter explores the significance of geographical scale in the negotiation of spatial identities, and especially attempts to understand the processes of nation- building in Finland, which stands out as an exceptional case among the several "successor states" born out of the European geopolitical turmoil in the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
    [Show full text]
  • An Analysis of the British Invasion of Egypt (1882) Through the Lens of Victorian Party Politics
    Tarih Dergisi, Sayı 69 (2019/1), İstanbul 2019, s. 113-134 AN ANALYSIS OF THE BRITISH INVASION OF EGYPT (1882) THROUGH THE LENS OF VICTORIAN PARTY POLITICS Begüm Yıldızeli Dr. Öğr. Üyesi, Bilecik Şeyh Edebali Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü, Bilecik, Türkiye Abstract The British occupation of Egypt in 1882 meant a breakaway from the Anglo-French entente’s control over Ottoman financial system and the end of the Liberal Government’s ‘reluctant’ imperialism. When the Liberal ministry began in 1880, the cabinet immediately focused on foreign policies towards the Ottoman Empire subsequent to Gladstone’s campaign during the Bulgarian Agitation which had already turned out to be a party question. The protection of the Suez Canal as well as the interests of the British bondholders and the prestige of the British Empire was vital, which united the Liberal ministry and the Conservatives under the same purpose. Despite late Ottoman approval, the occupation signified the edge of Anglo-Ottoman alliance during the nineteenth century. This study will analyse why the Egyptian question is important for British party politics and to what extend the Anglo-Ottoman relations was affected with these circumstances. Keywords: Suez Canal, British Party Politics, Egypt, Urabi Pasha Öz VİKTORYA DÖNEMİ PARTİ SİYASETİ PERSPEKTİFİNDEN İNGİLİZLER’İN MISIR’I İŞGALİ (1882) ÜZERİNE BİR ANALİZ 1882 yılında İngilizler ’in Mısır’ı işgali gerek İngiliz Hükümeti’nin ‘gönülsüz’ emperyaliz- minin gerekse de Osmanlı ekonomisindeki
    [Show full text]
  • Arctic and North
    Arctic and North. 2012. № 6 1 ISSN 2221-2698 Arctic and North Arkhangelsk: Northern (Arctic) Federal University Named after М. V. Lomonosov 2011. № 4 (November) Arctic and North. 2012. № 6 2 ISSN 2221-2698 Arctic and North. 2011. № 4 (November) Electronic periodical edition © Northern (Arctic ) Federal University named after M. V. Lomonosov, 2011 © Editorial Board of the journal «Arctic and North», 2011 Published 4 times a year The journal is registered like electronic periodical edition on Russian and English languages. The testimony of the Federal service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technologies and communications (№ FC77-42809 from the 26 of November 2010.) The journal is registered in the system of the Russian Index of the scientific quotations (RINZ), where should be placed all the regular issues of the journal. A license agreement is № 96- 04/2011R on April 12, 2011.12. The journal is registered in the Depository in the electronic editions FSUE STC «Informreg- istr» (registration certificate № 543 от 13 October 2011) and it was also given a number of state registrations 0421200166. Founder: The federal state autonomous institution of higher education «The Northern (Arc- tic) Federal University» named after M.V. Lomonosov. The chef editor − Lukin Urii Fedorovich, Doctor of History, Professor. Editorial council Editorial board Vostryakov Lev Evgenievich Vertishin Aleksey Nikolaevich Glazichev Vyacheslav Leonidovich Dregalo Aleksandr Alekseevich Dergachev Vladimir Aleksandrovich Zalivskii Nikolai Pavlovich Kefeli
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 31 Notes: Societies at Crossroads
    Chapter 31 Notes: Societies at Crossroads Chapter Outline I. Introduction: Ottoman empire, Russia, China, and Japan A. Common problems 1. Military weakness, vulnerability to foreign threats 2. Internal weakness due to economic problems, financial difficulties, and corruption B. Reform efforts 1. Attempts at political and educational reform and at industrialization 2. Turned to western models C. Different results of reforms 1. Ottoman empire, Russia, and China unsuccessful; societies on the verge of collapse 2. Reform in Japan was more thorough; Japan emerged as an industrial power II. The Ottoman empire in decline A. The nature of decline 1. Military decline since the late seventeenth century a. Ottoman forces behind European armies in strategy, tactics, weaponry, training b. Janissary corps politically corrupt, undisciplined c. Provincial governors gained power, private armies 2. Extensive territorial losses in nineteenth century a. Lost Caucasus and central Asia to Russia; western frontiers to Austria; Balkan provinces to Greece and Serbia b. Egypt gained autonomy after Napoleon's failed campaign in 1798 (a) Egyptian general Muhammad Ali built a powerful, modern army (b) Ali's army threatened Ottomans, made Egypt an autonomous province 3. Economic difficulties began in seventeenth century a. Less trade through empire as Europeans shifted to the Atlantic Ocean basin b. Exported raw materials, imported European manufactured goods c. Heavily depended on foreign loans, half of the revenues paid to loan interest d. Foreigners began to administer the debts of the Ottoman state by 1882 4. The "capitulations": European domination of Ottoman economy a. Extraterritoriality: Europeans exempt from Ottoman law within the empire b.
    [Show full text]
  • Download a Plovdiv Guide
    Map Sightseeing Culture Restaurants Cafés Nightlife Shopping Hotels Plovdiv №01, Autumn 2017 Contents Arriving & Getting Around 3 Plovdiv Basics 5 ESSENTIAL CITY GUIDES History 6 Feature 7 National Revival Architecture GET THE IN YOUR POCKET APP What’s on 8 In Your Pocket City Essentials is available for Android and iOS from Google Play Store and the App Store. Restaurants 10 Featuring more than 45 cities across Europe, In Your Pocket City Essentials is an invaluable resource telling Cafes 14 you about our favourite places, carefully picked by our local editors. All venues are mapped and work offline Nightlife 16 to help you avoid roaming charges while you enjoy the best our cities have to offer. Download In Your Pocket Sightseeing 18 City Essentials now. Shopping 25 Directory 27 Leisure 28 Hotels 30 Map 32 facebook.com/PlovdivInYourPocket 2017 1 Foreword Bulgaria’s second largest city is home to the country’s most impressive man-made sight: the incredibly well preserved Ancient Тheatre sitting in the saddle between two of the 6 (originally 7) hills the city is famed for and providing a breath- taking view of the city and the Rhodope mountain range. Plovdiv boasts plentiful Roman ruins and an enchanting Old Publisher Town of cobbled streets and timber-framed 19th century Inside & out Ltd. painted houses with overhanging oriel windows. There is no better place for a relaxing, meandering day of sightseeing. Plovdiv is considered one of the oldest cities in Europe, its Published in printed mini guide format once per year. history going back to a Neolithic settlement dated at roughly Print run 10,000 copies 6000 B.C.
    [Show full text]
  • 1768-1830S a Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate
    A PLAGUE ON BOTH HOUSES?: POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND THE SPREAD OF DISEASE ACROSS THE OTTOMAN-RUSSIAN BLACK SEA FRONTIER, 1768-1830S A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History By Andrew Robarts, M.S.F.S. Washington, DC December 17, 2010 Copyright 2010 by Andrew Robarts All Rights Reserved ii A PLAGUE ON BOTH HOUSES?: POPULATION MOVEMENTS AND THE SPREAD OF DISEASE ACROSS THE OTTOMAN-RUSSIAN BLACK SEA FRONTIER, 1768-1830S Andrew Robarts, M.S.F.S. Dissertation Advisor: Catherine Evtuhov, Ph. D. ABSTRACT Based upon a reading of Ottoman, Russian, and Bulgarian archival documents, this dissertation examines the response by the Ottoman and Russian states to the accelerated pace of migration and spread of disease in the Black Sea region from the outbreak of the Russo-Ottoman War of 1768-1774 to the signing of the Treaty of Hünkar Iskelesi in 1833. Building upon introductory chapters on the Russian-Ottoman Black Sea frontier and a case study of Bulgarian population movements between the Russian and Ottoman Empires, this dissertation analyzes Russian and Ottoman migration and settlement policies, the spread of epidemic diseases (plague and cholera) in the Black Sea region, the construction of quarantines and the implementation of travel document regimes. The role and position of the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia as the “middle ground” between the Ottoman and Russian Empires
    [Show full text]
  • Russian Military Thinking and Threat Perception: a Finnish View
    CERI STRATEGY PAPERS N° 5 – Séminaire Stratégique du 13 novembre 2009 Russian Military Thinking and Threat Perception: A Finnish View Dr. Stefan FORSS The author is a Finnish physicist working as Senior Researcher at the Unit of Policy Planning and Research at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and as Adjunct Professor at the Department of Strategic and Defence Studies at the National Defence University in Helsinki. The views expressed are his own. Introduction “The three main security challenges for Finland today are Russia, Russia and Russia. And not only for Finland, but for all of us.”1 This quote is from a speech by Finnish Minister of Defence Jyri Häkämies in Washington in September 2007. His remarks were immediately strongly criticised as inappropriate and it was pointed out that his view didn’t represent the official position of the Finnish Government. Mr. Häkämies seemed, however, to gain in credibility a month later, when a senior Russian diplomat gave a strongly worded presentation about the security threats in the Baltic Sea area in a seminar organised by the Finnish National Defence University and later appeared several times on Finnish television.2 The message sent was that Finnish membership in NATO would be perceived as a military threat to Russia. This peculiar episode caused cold shivers, as it reminded us of unpleasant experiences during the post-war period. The Russian military force build-up and the war in Georgia in August 2008 was the ultimate confirmation for all of Russia’s neighbours, that the Soviet-style mindset is not a thing of the past.
    [Show full text]
  • Laura Stark Peasants, Pilgrims, and Sacred Promises Ritual and the Supernatural in Orthodox Karelian Folk Religion
    laura stark Peasants, Pilgrims, and Sacred Promises Ritual and the Supernatural in Orthodox Karelian Folk Religion Studia Fennica Folkloristica The Finnish Literature Society (SKS) was founded in 1831 and has, from the very beginning, engaged in publishing operations. It nowadays publishes literature in the fields of ethnology and folkloristics, linguistics, literary research and cultural history. The first volume of the Studia Fennica series appeared in 1933. Since 1992, the series has been divided into three thematic subseries: Ethnologica, Folkloristica and Linguistica. Two additional subseries were formed in 2002, Historica and Litteraria. The subseries Anthropologica was formed in 2007. In addition to its publishing activities, the Finnish Literature Society maintains research activities and infrastructures, an archive containing folklore and literary collections, a research library and promotes Finnish literature abroad. Studia fennica editorial board Anna-Leena Siikala Rauno Endén Teppo Korhonen Pentti Leino Auli Viikari Kristiina Näyhö Editorial Office SKS P.O. Box 259 FI-00171 Helsinki www.finlit.fi Laura Stark Peasants, Pilgrims, and Sacred Promises Ritual and the Supernatural in Orthodox Karelian Folk Religion Finnish Literature Society • Helsinki 3 Studia Fennica Folkloristica 11 The publication has undergone a peer review. The open access publication of this volume has received part funding via Helsinki University Library. © 2002 Laura Stark and SKS License CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International. A digital edition of a printed book first published in 2002 by the Finnish Literature Society. Cover Design: Timo Numminen EPUB: eLibris Media Oy ISBN 978-951-746-366-9 (Print) ISBN 978-951-746-578-6 (PDF) ISBN 978-952-222-766-9 (EPUB) ISSN 0085-6835 (Studia Fennica) ISSN 1235-1946 (Studia Fennica Folkloristica) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21435/sff.11 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License.
    [Show full text]
  • Collectiones Museorum Manuscripta Castreniana Realia II, Ethnographica 1 Travaux Ethnographiques De La Société Finno-Ougrienne XXII
    Matthias Alexander Castrén Matthias Alexander Matt hias Alexander Castrén (1813–1852) was by far the most signifi cant Finn- ish linguist of the 19th century. In addition to being a linguist he was also a multidisciplinary scholar, equally versatile in the fi elds of ethnography, folklore, mythology, archaeology, history, and human geography. He left behind a huge corpus of fi eld data, collected by himself during prolonged expeditions to Kare- lia, Lapland, Arctic Russia, and Siberia between 1838 and 1849. In the short peri- ods of time Castrén spent in an academic environment, he had litt le opportunity to synthesize his collections, a situation aggravated by his rapidly progressing and ultimately fatal illness. Th erefore, a major part of his scholarly heritage re- mained unpublished when he died. Castrén was appointed Docent of Finnish and Ancient Nordic Languages and Tribes at the Imperial Alexander University in Helsinki in 1841, and ten years later he became the fi rst Professor of the Finnish Language. M.A. Castrén considered ethnology as a historical science and an instru- ment for describing the early periods of Finnish history. On his expeditions, he carried out ethnographic observations and took notes of the dwellings, cos- tumes, way of life, and customs of indigenous Siberian peoples. According to the programme draft ed by the Imperial Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Collectiones museorum Castrén collected ethnological artifacts for the Ethnographic Museum in Saint Petersburg, and some items for the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Helsinki. Th e present work concentrates on the collections which describe Castrén’s merits in ethnological studies and museology.
    [Show full text]