Oskar Loorits: Byzantine Cultural Relations and Practical Application of Folklore Archives

Home , Estonian Literary Museum, Jakob Hurt, Paul Ariste, Raadi cemetery

Ergo-Hart Västrik∗

Introduction

Oskar Loorits played a significant role in Estonian folklore studies during the period before World War II as the initiator and the first director of the Estonian Folklore Archives, as well as the leading scholar in the field of Livonian and Estonian folk beliefs and mythology. Loorits is the author of 36 books and monographs, but also of ca. 200 scholarly articles on folklore, language and cultural history (Tedre 1995: 459). In addition, his bibliography includes 40 book reviews and more than 200 satirical articles and epigrams targeting a variety of shortcomings in public affairs (Luht 1966, Ribenis 2000). All in all, Loorits appeared to be an extremely energetic and prolific scientist whose scholarly work was closely connected to his activities in the field of cultural and social politics. Despite the fact that his most important monograph on Estonian folk belief Grundzüge des estnischen Volksglaubens I–III was published after World War II, when he had left Estonia and was working in Sweden, Loorits should be considered, with Walter Anderson, to be one of the most influential figures in Estonian folklore studies of the 1920s and 1930s. Oskar Loorits was born on November 9th 1900 in the rural Kõpu parish of Viljandi County (South Estonia), where his father worked as community clerk for the municipality. His philological talent was already evident at an early age in various literary experiments, personal diaries and initial endeavours to systematise his written production. In 1914 he entered a Gymnasium in the provincial centre and university town of Tartu, where he lived and worked up to the enforced emigration during World War II. During the Nazi occupation

 Research for this article was supported by the Estonian Science Foundation, Grant no. 5964. 204 Ergo-Hart Västrik Loorits was obliged to resign his positions at the Estonian Folklore Archives and the University of Tartu in 1942, and had to work for eighteen months in iso- lation in a rural area in western Estonia. In 1944, before the battle-front reached Estonia again, he escaped with his wife and three children to Sweden, where he worked as an archive assistant and grant-aided scholar at the Uppsala Dialect and Folklore Archives (Landsmåls- och folkminnesarkivet). Loorits died in Uppsala, Sweden on December 12th 1961, but was eventually reburied in the Tartu Raadi Cemetery in Estonia in the year 2000.

Studies in philology and Livonian folklore

Loorits enrolled at the University of Tartu in 1919 and studied Baltic-Finnish languages and comparative folklore under the guidance of Professors Lauri Kettunen and Walter Anderson. At first he concentrated mainly on the field of linguistics, participated enthusiastically in the activities of Akadeemiline Ema- keele Selts (Academic Society of Mother Tongue) and wrote intensively on a variety of topical language matters. By the summer of 1920 he had already participated in a lengthy fieldwork trip with Professor Kettunen to Livonian villages in Latvia where his lifetime interest in the language and folklore of this small Balto-Finnic ethnic group was kindled. In a couple of years Loorits amassed a bulky corpus of Livonian folklore — a manuscript collection (LF) of ca 10,000 items in Livonian that represented a variety of folklore genres. His personal research interests particularly focussed on folk narratives and folk beliefs; these made up about a half of the collection. Loorits’ first major publication on folklore was the catalogue of Livonian folktales and legends (Livische Märchen- und Sagenvarianten, FFC 66) published in 1926. In the same year he defended his doctoral dissertation on Livonian folk beliefs, based on a massive monograph published in three volumes in 1926–1928 (Liivi rahva usund I–III. Mit einem Referat: Der Volksglaube der Liven; second printing in 1998).2 Loorits’ first monograph revealed characteristic traits of his personal style of scholarly production. He would quote many texts in full and (probably due to his background in linguistics) provided a great number of etymologies explaining cultural contacts, and cultural history in general, with the help of folklore terminology (cf. Tedre 1995: 460). He approached the Livonian material within the framework of the Finno-Ugric ethnic religions (studied concurrently, for example, by Uno Holmberg-Harva) paying particular attention to the “lower mythology” (mythological beings) reflected in folk beliefs and legends. Loorits

2 Two additional volumes (Liivi rahva usund IV–V), compiled mostly during post- war period in Sweden, were published in 2000 by the Estonian Literary Museum. Ergo-Hart Västrik 205 also pointed out many Latvian and especially Estonian parallels to the beliefs and narrative plots under scrutiny, thus exemplifying the comparative method in the analysis of folklore texts. This approach was developed further in his later studies (for example, Loorits 1931; 1935), which included Livonian folklore as well as material from the other peoples of the Baltic Sea region. Loorits’ publications on Livonian folklore (and culture in general) reflected his warm empathy for the fate of this kindred ethnic group. It is evident that Loorits did not confine his activities to “pure” academic research but participated actively in the process of reviving and supporting Livonian ethnic and national self-consciousness. He compiled several Livonian textbooks, tirelessly produced articles on the past and present of Livonian culture for Estonian and international readers, organised local branches of national institutions and helped to formulate their claims for cultural autonomy. In this context it is understandable why his only academic source publication on Livonian folklore was a voluminous collection of folk songs, which was based on his conviction that it should serve the expectations of the Livonian audience, and not the ‘Pan- Finno-Ugrian’ researchers who have claimed that the Livonian repertoire had nothing to add to the comprehension of ancient alliterative (Kalevala metric) poetry (cf. Tedre 1995: 460). Volkslieder der Liven (1936) contained 645 Livonian song types, including original Livonian texts and their full translations into German. The collection also contained short articles about his best informants and a general overview of the assimilation processes among Livonians. This monumental publication was obviously shaped to support the nation-building of Livonians, and Loorits planned to continue the series with a collection of folk tales. Loorits’ published articles included also severe criticism of Latvian state institutions that were, in his view, too passive in supporting the attempts of Livonian national activists. His energy and uncompromising position was reflected in the fact that Latvian officials decreed Loorits to be persona non grata in 1935, and he was expelled from Latvia during the Baltic congress of history in 1937 (Blumberga 2004). 206 Ergo-Hart Västrik

Founding father of the Estonian Folklore Archives

Oskar Loorits’ exceptional capacities as an organiser and an administrator were vividly reflected in his employment in establishing the Estonian Folklore Archives (EFA). Loorits has been regarded as the initiator of the idea of the archives, which he formulated during his trip to Helsinki in 1924, where he got acquainted with the Finnish folklore collections under the guidance of Professor Kaarle Krohn (Loorits 1937: 57). The basic reason for the foundation of the archives was to house the folklore collection of Jakob Hurt, which was kept after his death at the Finnish Literature Society in Helsinki and supervised by Krohn. However, the leading folklorists involved in the process supported the idea of bringing together all private folklore collections (archives) and establishing a central national institution in order to make folklore materials available for comparative research (cf. the principles of the geographic-historical school). In designing the EFA, the examples of the Nordic and Baltic folklore archives were taken into consideration. After long discussions and several attempts to get official status, the EFA was established in 1927 as an autonomous subdivision of the Estonian National Museum, governed by a committee of representatives from the museum, the University of Tartu and the Ministry of Education (Berg 2002: 15–24).3 Oskar Loorits participated actively in the institutionalisation process of the EFA; he put together the preliminary budget of the archives (following the example of the Archives of Latvian Folklore in Riga), held negotiations with state officials, and also executed the practical task of moving the folklore collection of Jakob Hurt from Helsinki to Tartu. Therefore it was quite logical that Loorits was elected by the governing committee to be the first director of the archives. The staff of the archives soon consisted of five people and included, in addition to the director, assistants who all later became outstanding scholars: Paul Ariste, Richard Viidalepp, Herbert Tampere and Rudolf Põldmäe (for Viidalepp and Tampere, see the present reader pp. 243–258 and 275–287). From 1927 Loorits also worked as an assistant professor at the University of Tartu, where he took over the chair in 1939 after Professor Walter Anderson left for Germany. As we can read in the Loorits’ survey of the first five years of the EFA (Loorits 1932; English version Loorits 1936), the archives’ first and foremost task was to put the material in order and to make it easily accessible for 3 The archives were financed by the Ministry of Education. The governing committee had its first meeting on September 24th, 1927. Professor Walter Anderson acted as the spokesman of the committee 1927–1939 that guaranteed close cooperation between the archives and the university department. See photo on p. 164. Ergo-Hart Västrik 207 researchers. Loorits worked out the basic principles for arranging the materials in the archives using the know-how of other folklore archives but not copying any particular example. All the individual collections accumulated by the EFA maintained their original organisation but the new materials obtained by the archives were arranged according to the system of Jakob Hurt — manuscripts were arranged into series according to their format and the series chronologi- cally into volumes, etc. A current survey of the collections was undertaken by the general register and special card indexes for topographic distribution, folklore collectors and informants were put together. The archives initiated, with the help of students and the so-called relief workers,4 the compilation of various bibliographical lists and card indexes covering a wide range of folklore genres. In organising records of popular beliefs and customs Loorits’ original idea was to abandon the widely accepted “headword”5 catalogues and to set up a new system of copying the records of beliefs and customs word by word on separate cards, and to arrange them into a series of thematic card indexes containing the whole mass of variants and sub-motifs. He was not satisfied with earlier type- indexes of folktales and legends, and therefore worked for several years — regrettably without ultimate success — to put together a new index following more up-to-date principles of systematising the material. In addition to the endeavour of bringing together separate folklore collections, the archives’ folklore collecting strategies were also formulated and specified. New materials were obtained via a network of local correspondents, through collecting campaigns addressed mostly to the schoolchildren, and also with the help of grant-aided scholars and EFA employees. More attention was paid in archive-questionnaires to those genres (and topics) that were sparsely represented in earlier folklore collections (for example, folk beliefs and customs). Geographic distribution of the folklore collected up to then was taken into consideration, and the archive’s intention was to fill in the gaps in earlier collection-work. The scope of the collecting-activities broadened as the archives started to document the folklore of the ethnic minority groups of Estonia (Swedes, Finns, Russians, Latvians, Germans, Jews, Gypsies; cf. Loorits 1936: 45–47; Salve 2000). Loorits was convinced that the “true national character” of Estonians could be understood by comparing Estonian folklore with that of minority groups and neighbours. Particularly for these reasons close contacts were established with the folklore archives in Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden. The EFA was soon recognised by the international community of folklorists; this was clearly indicated in Loorits’ worldwide correspondence with

4 Unemployed intellectuals were offered a job with the help of grants from the Fund of National Economy (cf. Tedre 1995: 462). 5 Loorits’ term from 1936. 208 Ergo-Hart Västrik researchers and institutions dedicated to the study of folklore. It is evident that great endeavours in arranging and publishing the archive materials were made in order to bring Estonian folklore to the apparently international market of folk- loristics, which becomes evident in the reference to the Folklore Archives as “a bank of ancient treasures” whose “stock value persistently rises on the international Intellectual Exchange” (Loorits 2000: 94).

Methodological concerns and alternative cultural orientation

Sceptical about the geographic-historical method in folklore studies, and regarding it as too one-sided and self-contained, Loorits nevertheless followed the basic premises of the Finnish school while systematising the large quantities of material according to geographical origin and following the criterion of “authentic text” (cf. Tedre 1995: 463). But instead of careful textual comparison and search for Urform he developed a so-called historical-ethnological approach (cf. Berg 2002: 27) and intended to combine procedures from philology, cultural history, psychology, aesthetics, and sociology in the study of folklore (Loorits 1936: 48). He obviously preferred the vertical study of ideas and phenomena to the theory of borrowed motifs and so-called horizontal research (see the present reader on p. 232). Loorits systematically published his important reflexive programmatic statements, as well as many academic studies in foreign languages, in order to participate in international scholarly discussion and report on the achievements in Estonian folklore studies. Soon after accepting the position of archive director he outlined the earlier history of the discipline and the present situation in folklore scholarship, which was published in German a few years later (see Loorits 1930). In 1932 Loorits published a considerably longer German-language introduction to Estonian folklore and mythology (Loorits 1932), where he divided the research history of Estonian folklore into five clear-cut periods. Based on his relatively short but intensive occupation with archive materials, Loorits sketched the regions of Estonian folklore and stressed the importance of historical conditions, in combination with foreign influences, in moulding the local character of folklore (and mentality of the people) in different parts of Estonia. Besides the influences of neighbouring peoples (Latvians, Russians, Finns and Swedes), he drew attention to the large proportion of Germanic loans in Estonian folklore, particularly in folk belief and mythology. He differentiated between prehistoric Gothic traits and those Germanic elements that reached the country after Christianisation under the circumstances of “700 years of slavery”. Ergo-Hart Västrik 209 The topic of Germanic impact on the Estonian folk culture was discussed in Loorits’s many other articles, often in those addressed to the Estonian reader. Loorits presented in his essays an idealised portrait of the emblematic ancient Estonian, who followed the “democratic, tolerant and benevolent principle of an equal relationship between man and nature”, shared a “fellow-feeling of consan- guinity, germinating into the cult of ancestors” and an “ethics that was based on charity and virtuous purity” (Loorits 1932: 62–63; 1932b: 51). He claimed that this kind of world outlook started to degenerate after the Christian crusade in the 13th century. The clerical point of view fundamentally changed popular ideas about death, and the respectful attitude towards nature and one’s fellows was distorted as a result of medieval magic and sorcery. All this considered Loorits criticised the mainstream western orientation of the Estonian cultural and political elite in his scholarly works and public statements. By contrast, he represented another point of view, and emphasised the Eastern-inflected cultural relations in Estonian folklore.

Byzantine cultural relations and Setu folklore

Many of Loorits’ studies addressed to the international reader dealt with legends, folktale types or beliefs that were not typical of Western Europe and originated, according to his hypotheses, from the one-time cultural centre of Byzantine. These ideas were concisely presented in his article “Contributions to the Material Concerning Baltic–Byzantine Cultural Relations” (1934) where Loorits presented several examples of narratives of this kind. These included, for example, dualistic myths about the creation of the world, and the creation of the wolf by the devil, legends about St. George and the Prophet Elijah, narrative motifs related to the misuse of fire, as well as folk beliefs about the transformations of the biblical Pharaoh’s army into water animals or demonic beings. Loorits’ was convinced that Baltic countries had preserved many stories of oriental origin which had reached the region before the Christian crusade emanating from Western Europe. For that reason, he stressed the early influences of the Greek Catholic church, as reflected in the basic Christian terminology in the Estonian language (cf. Loorits 1934: 48). Many of the above-mentioned topics were analysed in more detail in his later studies. Two of his weightiest works “Das misshandelte und sich rächende Feuer I” and “Pharaos Heer in der Volksüberlieferung I”, both published in 1935, were based on the hypotheses that particular motifs originated from the Byzantine cultural centre, and were known in the Baltic and Scandinavian countries due to the contacts with the Slavic peoples and Greek Catholicism. In 210 Ergo-Hart Västrik fact, both studies were first parts of more comprehensive investigations sharing predominantly novel archive findings and recent fieldwork materials. Much space in these studies was devoted to texts from the Estonian Folklore Archives representing the Estonian and Setu tradition (see below). In addition, Loorits published many folklore texts obtained from neighbouring archives and fellow folklorists, covering a broad area from Iceland to Siberia and the Caucasus. As he stated in the initial chapters, his aim was to introduce fresh material and his own original ideas to the international community of researchers, and ventilate further scholarly discussion. For example, in his study of the legends about the dangers of fire, Loorits did not reach a final position but asked the researchers from the Balkans and the eastern part of Europe to share their material in order to support or oppose his hypothesis (see Loorits 1935a: 56–61). At the same time, looking for more distant parallels, and finding similar motifs and plots in the folklore of various Siberian ethnic groups, he moved some way from his earlier suppositions and indicated even more distant origins of the phenomena under scrutiny (ibid.: 77–78). Loorits’ wide field of interests is reflected, for instance, in the fact that while discussing beliefs about the Pharaoh’s army he also touched upon those plots (for instance, the story of Melusine) that reached Estonia via popular literature in the 19th century. On the other hand, in the case of these beliefs too, he laid great significance on the Russian variants; again he does not give a definite answer, but only refers to the possible role of the Byzan- tine cultural centre in mediating beliefs related to the biblical Pharaoh’s army (Loorits 1935b: 168–170). The majority of Loorits’ weightier studies in foreign languages concerned the folklore of the Setu, an ethnic subgroup sharing the Greek Catholic creed and living in Petserimaa in the southeastern corner of the Republic of Estonia. Obviously, Setu folklore bears a strong Russian imprint but also displays many archaic elements of traditional culture, due to its remote position in the sphere of the Greek Catholic church (see Kallas in the present reader on pp. 142–143). It provided Loorits with intriguing material for his scholarly hypotheses about Byzantine cultural impact on the folklore of Estonians and their neighbouring peoples. Setu folklore remained his life-long passion, which was vividly illustrated by Loorits’ research and fieldwork initiatives in the 1930s. He stressed the need to explore Setu folklore together with that of Russians and realised these endeavours partly in his own monograph Das sog. Weiberfest bei den Russen und Setukesen in Estland (1940). While studying Setu folklore, Loorits looked for those cultural elements that were absent from or sparsely represented in the Estonian tradition and that were intrinsic to a past way of life. For Loorits the carriers of this kind of life-style and knowledge were ordinary people, especially in peripheral regions, and Setus (as well as Livs) fitted this Ergo-Hart Västrik 211 idealised representation. For the same reason, he focussed on certain professio- nal groups, such as fishermen, whose conservative worldview was introduced in his study “Gedanken-, Tat- und Worttabu bei den estnischen Fischern” (1939).

Loorits in the middle of the Setu folklore collectors in 1933. Tampere on the far left with an initiator of the Setu collection Samuel Sommer on the right.

Many of Loorits’ novel hypotheses were built on recent field materials or archive findings from the EFA. On the other hand, he has been criticised for not checking the authenticity of his source material (see Tedre 1995: 465). Probably Loorits’ most notorious and criticised study in this respect was his only work focusing entirely on folktales “Das Märhen vom gestohlenen Donnerinstrument bei den Esten” (1932). It is evident that Loorits used a too simplified approach to the specific traits of folktales; he idealised and mystified “the folk” and underestimated the role of nineteenth-century intellectuals in shaping the form and content of folklore texts. Another example of this kind concerned Loorits’ attempts to discover vernacular versions of Faehlmann’s myth of Dawn and Dusk (see Loorits in the present reader pp. 232–234). As has been revealed by later scholars, his arguments — referring to former folk traditions and possible connections with the Orient — were based on texts that turned out to be popular versions of literary works penned by Faehlmann, which may be considered first- class examples of fakelore. 212 Ergo-Hart Västrik Practical application of folklore and publishing initiatives

In his Estonian language publications, Loorits intended to popularise the archives’ holdings on a local level and was thus interested mainly in the “practical application of folklore outside the purely scholarly work of investi- gation and university teaching” (1936: 50). According to ideals that he managed partly to put into practice, the folklore archives had to be used by writers, artists, composers and other cultural figures in order to enrich the Estonian national culture. Obviously, Loorits’ published and scholarly production was not addressed only to the narrow circle of fellow folklorists, but was aimed at the wider scene, and intended to affect both ordinary “folk” as well as cultural and political elite. He demonstrated outstanding expertise in Estonian folklore, focusing in his writings on a variety of topics and folklore genres, including folk beliefs and customs, mythology, historical and contemporary legends, songs, proverbs, etc. Loorits’ first study on Estonian folklore “Vägilase prototüüpe” (Hero prototypes, published in 1927) examined the non-traditional narratives of men of great strength (see Loorits 2000: 9–45). Instead of explaining these stories as loans and discussing their place of origin, Loorits presented an extensive corpus of recent field recordings and tried to consider general cultural and psycho- logical preconditions for the genesis of such narratives in the folk tradition. These stories dealt predominantly with a pre-modern peasant milieu, and the hero characters were ordinary village people with some extraordinary qualities. Yet six years later he published an essay (Loorits 2000: 108–121) detailing the birth of legends about a modern hero, the distinguished political figure Jaan Tõnisson (Koodi-Jaan), which testify to his excellent understanding of contemporary political affairs, his critical spirit and strong sense of humour. In 1932 Loorits published in a popular series of scholarly papers a monograph Eesti rahvausundi maailmavaade (World-view of the Estonian folk religion) where he introduced to the Estonian reader besides animism and animatism different concepts of soul, including various metamorphoses, as these were described in the collections of the EFA. This intriguing study, casting light into many unexplored topics from new perspectives, is probably one of the most well-known and cited studies of Loorits (second print in 1948, third print in 1990). As is typical of his works addressed to the Estonian reader, the final chapter of the study made didactic statements on how contemporary readers should take the knowledge available in folklore into consideration when evaluating and shaping Estonian cultural history. It is evident that Loorits intended to put folklore to use and introduce through his works “scripts for the Ergo-Hart Västrik 213 future.” He was convinced that “folklore is the key to unravelling and understanding the labyrinths of the spiritual, social and cultural development of the Estonian people” (Loorits 1990: 77). Use of folklore in a contemporary cultural context is also touched on in Loorits’ study “Mulgimaa ohvrikohad” (The sacrificial sites of the Mulgimaa region, published in 1935). In this work he discussed great changes in evaluating former sacrificial sites of his home region. A large quantity of folklore texts was presented in the study, which was illustrated with photographs depicting sacrifice-rituals among Finno-Ugric kindred peoples, the Maris and Udmurts. Loorits drew parallels with analogous rites of kindred peoples in order to explain the historical meaning and context of sacrifice in the Estonian tradition. At the same time, he stressed the social dimension of these rituals in consolidating fellow-feeling between the members of a kin group. According to his obser- vations, modern Estonian society lacked such collective feelings and again Loorits demonstrated how folklore indicated opposite tendencies. In order to re-introduce folkways and local knowledge to the modern reader, Loorits initiated the series Endis-eesti elu-olu (Lifeways in Old Estonia) to publish two anthologies of the readings (that is, folklore texts) on the life of fishermen and seafarers (1935) and that of forest life and hunting (1941).6 He was also the compiler of the anthology of folktales Vanarahva pärimusi (Traditions of old folk) which served as a basis for the German edition Estnische Volkserzählungen (1959), the most comprehensive anthology of Estonian folktales for an international audience up to the present. It is evident that scholarly conceptions of Loorits were strongly influenced by his personal ideas about “the national character” of Estonians and those discourses of the 1920s and 1930s based on the affinity of languages and kinship relations of Finno-Ugric peoples, as well as on the opposition to the former cultural domination of the Baltic-German nobility and overall western orientation of the Estonian cultural elite. Loorits manifested his oppositional statements in many programmatic writings published in periodicals, public lectures and radio broadcasts. One of the most elaborated essays of this kind was “Eesti kultuuri struktuurist, orientatsioonist ja ideoloogiast” (On the structure, orientation and ideology of the Estonian culture, published in 1938) where he touched upon the question of the alienation of the elite, and tried to re-evaluate current cultural ideology (Loorits 2000: 208–259). Despite his systematic efforts, his appeals were often rejected by public opinion and Loorits faced problems in publishing his essays in Estonian periodicals. Evidently this was due to his contradictory character; he often lacked a positive programme, but pointed out

6 Loorits managed to compile also anthologies of the readings on agriculture and cattle breeding which were published in 2000 and 2001. 214 Ergo-Hart Västrik and vigorously criticised defects in public policy. He also made personal attacks on his opponents’ words and deeds (cf. Tedre 1995: 495). The article “Some Notes on the Repertoire of the Estonian Folk-Tale” was published as the sixth issue of the series Commentationes Archivi Traditionum Popularium Estoniae, initiated by the EFA two years earlier in 1935. For financial reasons, the first issues of the archive’s series contained reprints of the studies published in other scholarly periodicals addressed to the international reader (cf. Loorits 1936: 52). Therefore, this paper was issued simultaneously in the series Verhandlungen der Gelehrten Estnischen Gesellschaft zu Dorpat (Vol. 30: 1). In all probability, it is based on Loorits’ paper delivered at the international congress of folk narrative researchers, held in Lund in November 1935. On the one hand, this article is somewhat exceptional, as it concerns folktales, a genre that did not belong among Loorits’ main fields of study. On the other hand, the article illustrates graphically his research interests, method and style of scholarly writing. Characteristic traits of Loorits’ academic production include abundance of long sample texts and short commentaries sharing his favourite scholarly hypotheses (for example, that of the eastern orientation of Estonian folklore, and of Byzantine cultural connections). While doing so, Loorits, in fact, only referred to possible solutions as he was constantly looking for more material (both local and international) that would allow movement towards a final synthesis. Paradoxically, he was fully convinced that arranging and sifting the material was more valuable than building up brilliant scientific theories that may fall into ruin. Despite the fact that he stressed the need for “cleaning away the pseudo-folklore” (1936: 48), many of his sample texts, and also those presented in the following article, have proved to be popular adapta- tions of texts from literature, and not the original basic folk creations so admired by Loorits himself.

References

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