Welcome!
You are visiting the Estonian folklorists' server Haldjas (fairy, guardian spirit), which was set up in 1995 by the folk belief research group of the Institute of the Estonian Language. Presently, the group and the server have been incorporated under the Estonian Literary Museum. The majority of electronic publications and data corpora in the server are in the Estonian language, which belongs to the Finno-Ugric language family. Estonia is a small country with ca one million people, who speak the Estonian language as their mother tongue.
The server offers a wide range of information on oral heritage, folklore and folk belief, on the institutions actively engaged in folkloristic research in Estonia as well as researchers and research projects. The covered aspects of folklore also include the heritage of other peoples of the Uralic language group. The server features two journals that have been published online and in print since 1996: Mäetagused and Folklore: An electronic Journal of Folklore.
Only parts of the material are currently available in English and/or German; in time the proportion of material in foreign language will grow.
Our news!
CIFU XIV Special Panel “Finno-Ugric Language and Culture in the Research and Archival Field of the Estonian Literary Museum”
We invite you on Thursday, 21 August 2025 at 16:00–18:00 to the Estonian Literary Museum to discover historically meaningful hidden corners and open archives.
The museum houses the world’s largest archives of Estonian folklore, cultural history and book science, as well as older and more recent collections of Finno-Ugric folklore and religion.
This special event “Finno-Ugric Language and Culture in the Research and Archival Field of the Estonian Literary Museum” is part of the 14th International Congress for Finno-Ugric Studies (CIFU XIV, 18–23 August 2025, University of Tartu) and offers a unique opportunity to explore Finno-Ugric heritage and contemporary creativity.
Programme:
Exhibition “Sometimes… Between…” – unique works by the Udmurt artist Zoia Lebedeva, created specially for CIFU-14.
Exhibition “The Beauty of Life – Life of Beauty” – a tribute to Mari folk art by the designer Natalia Lill.
Experimental Translation Café SUKK – Krista Ojasaar and Natalia Ermakov perform Estonian poetry classics in Estonian and Erzya.
Short lecture in English – an introduction to the research of Finno-Ugric languages and cultures at the Estonian Literary Museum.
Finno-Ugric publications – browse folklore and religion books; some will be available for purchase, and with good luck you may get a signed copy from the editor.
Contacts: Mare Kõiva mare.koiva@folklore.ee
Astrid Tuisk astrid.tuisk@folklore.ee
Folklore 96 Special Issue: Agency of the Dead
Volume 96 of Folklore is a Special Issue with the title "Agency of the Dead", guest-edited by Mirjam Mencej and consisting of nine articles from prominent scholars in death studies.
As Mirjam Mencej explains in her introduction, the special issue is an outcome of the international interdisciplinary conference organised by the ERC project The Roles of the Agency of the Dead in the Lives of Individuals in Contemporary Society (DEAGENCY, № 101095729; 2023-2028), the aim of which is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the role of the dead in the lives of individuals in contemporary Western society, with a particular focus on post-socialist countries.
The first article in the issue, by Kaarina Koski, uses archived written reminiscence narratives to address theories of intentionality in the relation of the living and the dead, as well as the conceptualisation of their power relations as they avail themselves in the everyday life of 21st century Finnish people.
Based on her fieldwork among the Hungarian minority in Romania, Éva Pócs gives an overview of diverse forms of communication between the living and the dead within the framework of vernacular Christianity.
The doctrine of Purgatory, integral to Catholic Christianity, is the framework for Vito Carrassi’s paper, which examines two practices aimed at Purgatory souls in southern Italy and shows how an old practice can be revitalized and reassessed.
Centering on the views and conceptualisation of the dead of a particular individual living in a rural Hungarian community, Ágnes Hesz aims at addressing broader questions regarding the role of the dead in contemporary society.
Ikhlas Abdul Hadi discusses the experience of a Malay Muslim woman, haunted by the spirit of a woman who died in childbirth, within the framework of Malay rituals and broader traditional vernacular notions about spirits.
Tatiana Bužeková’s and Tina Ivnik’s papers study continued ties between the living and the dead within new spiritual interpretative frameworks. While Bužeková focuses on the communication space between the living and the dead in shamanic circles in Slovakia and on the moral dimension manifested through spatiality, Ivnik examines the ties of spiritual people in Bosnia with the dead in dreams, putting them in relation with their ideas about afterlife.
Continuing bonds with the dead are also in the centre of Simona Kuntarič Zupanc’s paper, which focuses on plants acting as “living bridges” between the living and the dead.
The special issue concludes with Mirjam Mencej’s paper, in which she discusses the transformation of the dead as moral agents in Muslim oral narratives into vehicles of the ethnonationalist agenda when appropriated by the media.
Three additional articles are included in this volume of Folklore. On the example of the storytelling and performances of Teyo Pehlivan and Cumhur Seval, Mehmet Fikret Arargüç and Özge Özgun’s article offers a new genre profile and definition of the Turkish tall tale. Richita Sulagna Pradhan and Arpita Goswami’s article examines the rich folkloric heritage of Odisha, with a particular focus on the spirituality inherent in a variety of ceremonies, festivals and folk narratives in the region, using both written literature and field interviews. Adam Grydehǿj and Qi Pan’s article uses an occupational folklore approach to study ritual service providers in a temple in a demolished village in the area of Guangzhou, Guangdong province, south China.
In the discussion section of the issue, Tatiana Korobova contributes an overview of the work of the respected Udmurt folklorist Galina Glukhova on the occasion of her anniversary. Mahendra Kumar Mishra commemorates the renowned folklore scholar Jawaharlal Handoo with a retrospective of his contributions and legacy. A eulogy to distinguished folklorist, ethnologist and anthropologist Kristin Kuutma follows.
The issue is concluded by a news article on the last few years of activity of the Finno-Ugric Language Café in Tartu.
Tiina Kirss, Estonian Literary Museum
The journal "Mäetagused", issue 92
The journal "Mäetagused", 92 addresses themes of fears, beliefs, and rituals in various cultural and historical contexts. The articles explore:
• fear discourse in media opposing conspiracy theories, by Andreas Ventsel & Mariliis Madisson. The authors define fear discourse as language use related to fear, including expressing fear, discussing one's own or others' fear.
• folkloric metamorphoses of the biblical mythological creatures Behemoth and Leviathan by Jaan Lahe. The article explores their depiction in the Bible, Jewish pseudepigraphic and rabbinic literature, early Christian theology, and Gnostic tradition, seeking to understand how their portrayal influenced texts beyond the Bible and how their roles evolved in different religious contexts. These creatures were not merely adopted from the Bible but began to "live their own lives" in these traditions, undergoing numerous transformations and becoming associated with various folkloric plots and motifs.
• challenges in translating historical texts by Sirje Kupp- Sazonov explores the writing style of article titled “How Would Ivan the Terrible Have Written in Estonian?”,
• Mahendra Kumar Mishra speaks about the life’s work of Indian folkloristics figure Jawaharlal Handoo and the development of Indian folkloristics.
• the functions of Narva’s main street in the 1920s by Olga Burdakova and Jelena Nõmm;
• rituals in the Chuvash Recruit tradition by Igor Petrov.
• healing practices among South Ural Russians, where illnesses were transferred to other objects by Farida Galieva;
Additionally, the journal includes reports on professional events, conferences, and book presentations. Mäetagused (in Estonian) is printed and online academic peer-review journal with open access.
Welcome to read: https://www.folklore.ee/tagused
The Ritual Year Seasonal Webinar #16 Summer 2025: flower festivals in the Philippines and Japan
The next seasonal webinar, #16, will take place on Monday, 4th of August 2025, 14.00 Tallinn.
Click here to connect and join the webinar via Teams.
The meeting is the first one of a new mini-series dedicated to the various continents.
This week we will start with Southeastern and Eastern Asia.
Our two speakers will be presenting on flower festivals in the Philippines and Japan:
1. Levy Achanaz-Labor, Flores de Mayo and heritage conservation.
2. Archna, The Chrysanthemum flower festival and memory making in a Shinto shrine
Information sent by Irina Stahl, Co-Chair, The Ritual Year Working Group (SIEF)
15th seasonal webinar of SIEF Working Group "The Ritual Year"
In July 14, the 15th International webinar titled "An Examination of Ritual Space took place", dedicated to Terry A. Gunnell.
Following the SIEF Congress of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore in Aberdeen, it was a pleasure to hold the webinar of the Ritual Year Working Group on July 14, 2025.
Giants in the study of folklore and mythology presented to an audience of over forty listeners.
Program included:
Emily Lyle (University of Edinburgh, School of Celtic and Scottish Studies): Boys' Chants at Oidhche Challainn (New Year’s Eve) on Berneray in the Outer Hebride
Louise S. Milne (University of Edinburgh & Edinburgh Napier University): The Incubus, The Elves and the Fallen Angels: Nature-Spirits and Nightmare
Terry A. Gunnell (University of Iceland): Masks and Space
An open forum followed, featuring questions and recollections. The session was moderated by Irina Sedakova, with technical support by Maris Kuperjanov.
The working group has been active for over twenty years. In the new period, the Ritual Year activities are led by Mare Kõiva (Estonia, President), Irina Stahl (Romania, Vice-President), Athanasios Barmpalexis (Greece), Jenny Butler (Ireland), Lina Gergova (Bulgaria), Jack Santino (USA), Maris Kuperjanov (Estonia), Jurij Fikfak (Slovenia), Tuting Hernandez (Philippines).
Webinars and online outputs are organized and prepared by the Department of Folkloristics at the Estonian Literary Museum.
In memoriam. Ekaterina Anastasova 1962–2025
Dr. Ekaterina Anastasova (1962–2025) was a distinguished ethnologist and folklorist whose work forged meaningful connections between the Balkans and the Baltics.
Her research interests ranged from migration and identity to ritual and oral tradition, always approached with intellectual depth and human sensitivity. She was a dedicated lecturer at Sofia University and a longtime researcher at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. She headed key departments, mentored dozens of students, and led research teams with clarity, humor, and care. Many consider her guidance the foundation of a scholarly school in its own right. Studies and editor of the Yearbook of Balkan and Baltic Studies she leaves behind a lasting legacy.
Her voice, presence, and kindness will be profoundly missed.
The 95th issue of Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore is available
The April 2025 issue of Folklore (Folklore 95) presents a diversity of approaches to the study of world cultures, from customs related to birth and weddings to factors impinging on the teaching and performance of traditional music; classification of proverbs in dictionaries; diasporic rituals welcoming the spring; and the mythology of waterwomen.
Of particular interest is Inna Lisniak and Tetiana Cherneta’s article on the historical development of Ukrainian folk dumy, late-stage heroic epics dating back to the 15th-17th centuries. The article also focuses carriers of the tradition, kobzar-playing brotherhoods that performed, preserved and transmitted the epics prior to the 20th century. Recent revivals of the kobzar tsekh in the late 1960s and early 1970s have seen to the transmission of the dumy traditions to the younger generation in the 1980s and beyond. The article discusses the implications of the current performance practices of the kobzars. The cover photo of this issue of Folklore depicts Ukrainian kobzars in the early 20th century.
Louise S. Milne’s article addresses the rich and variegated mythological and folkloric material on waterwomen – e.g river-spirits, seawomen, swan-maidens and Sirens with a focus on visual representations across cultures and eras. With a particular focus on the Sirens, she articulates connections between the Siren figura and a western discourse of desire. Lauren Sébastien Fournier and Lia Giancristofaro’s article on the Slavic (Balkan) historic migrations to the Abruzzi focuses on the cultural dissemination of two rituals brought by the Slavic settlers, the Verge Giorgio (Green George) rites marking the spring and the Orthodox cult of the Madonna Odigitria, which is of Byzantine descent. Matej Meterc’s article is devoted to distinguishing between proverbs and sayings according to Joseph Mlacek’s definition, the criteria of which are used to classify paremiological expressions in two Slovenian dictionaries.
The current issue contains two complementary examinations of Kazakh wedding traditions, both based on written sources and fieldwork. Tattigul Kartaeva and Saltanat Ashimova consider the blending of ancestral and Islamic rituals in the Kazakh traditional wedding, with a detailed account of the „wedding water“ (Neke Sui). Aktoty Mukhan, Kenzhekan Matyzhanov, Zhanna Bugybayeva and Akedil Toishanuly focused on a broader range of Kazakh wedding rituals and analyzed current problems of their transformation.
Emine Atmaca, Reshide Gözdaş and Atila Kartal analyse birth rituals among Karaite Turks drawing upon fieldwork with Karaite source persons in Lithuania. The focus of He Cao, Qian Xu and Yang Li’s article is the enhancing influence of integrating teaching of traditional Chinese music into music education at middle schools. Pinqi Zhang and Jin Gao choose Chinese national motifs in the folk song „ Mo LI Hua“ in its ramifying influences in modern Chinese music.
The issue is concluded by Vadim Nikolenko’s analysis of food security/insecurity issues in recent Ukrainian society along with culinary adaptations.
News in Brief includes an hommage to Irina Sedakova on the occasion of her 70th jubilee and an account of the Nordic and Baltic Digital Humanities Conference in March 2025.
Tiina Ann Kirss, editor and translator
Preservation of Folklore in Modern Archives: Field Research and Documentation Issues in the Context of European Practices
Friday, April 25, 2025, 09:15 – 15:00 (Tallinn time), an online seminar Preservation of Folklore in Modern Archives: Field Research and Documentation Issues in the Context of European Practices
Estonian Folklore Archives, Estonian Literary Museum, Tartu, Estonia
Departments of Ukrainian and Foreign Folkloristics, of Musicology and Ethnomusicology, of Archival Scientific Funds of Manuscripts and Audio-Recordings, and Ukrainian Ethnological Center of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the NAS of Ukraine
Department of Folklore Studies, Educational and Scientific Institute of Philology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine
A collaborative online seminar, organised in conjunction with Estonian and Ukrainian research institutions, will focus on the preservation of folklore in modern archives. The role of archival sources – and the current state of their preservation, research, and processing – is of paramount importance for cultural identification, understanding the past, and interpreting it in the present, as well for building and sustaining a shared national heritage. The issue of preserving archival materials has become particularly urgent in Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. The purpose of this seminar is to discuss the problems and strategies related to safeguarding archival heritage, especially folklore sources, by Ukrainian researchers during wartime. The seminar will also explore the newly discovered or little-known materials in the archival collections of participating institutions, shedding light on cultural ties between Estonia and Ukraine, which are under-researched and largely unknown to the wider public. In addition, the seminar will serve as a platform for sharing information between Estonian and Ukrainian colleagues on best practices of archival preservation, field research, documentation, and modern digital processing. The speakers of the proposed webinar will be researchers from the above-mentioned institutions. The seminar forms part of a collaborative initiative between the Estonian Literary Museum and the M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the NAS of Ukraine, launched in 2024.
We warmly invite you to follow this online seminar.
The working language of the seminar will be English
Contact address: inna.lisniak@folklore.ee
Doctoral defence: Lona Päll "Bridging the disconnections: an ecosemiotic approach to place-lore in environmental conflict communication"
On 31 March at 10:15 in Senate Hall (Ülikooli 18-204) Lona Päll will defend her doctoral thesis "Bridging the disconnections: an ecosemiotic approach to place-lore in environmental conflict communication" for obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in Semiotics and Culture Studies).
Supervisors:
Professor Timo Maran, University of Tartu
Lecturer Ergo-Hart Västrik, University of Tartu
Opponents:
Professor Tema Milstein, University of New South Wales (Australia)
Associate Professor Renata Sõukand, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia (Italy)
The dissertation analyses the role of place-lore in environmental conflicts, drawing on recent case studies from Estonia on disputes over sacred natural sites, forestry management, and protecting trees in urban spaces.
Place-lore expresses semiotic engagement with specific environments and diverse forms of ecological knowledge. These kinds of contextual and local narratives are often rooted in interpretations of environmental meanings, such as ecological conditions, temporal changes, etc. and as such, are complementary to the environment they represent. At the same time, place-lore represents identities, knowledge, and ideological perspectives related to cultural heritage and the environment, often playing a role in environmental debates. The semiotic potential of place-lore is inherently ambivalent: it can escalate conflicts by emphasizing opposing perspectives or, conversely, help ground them by integrating ecological and cultural knowledge to foster diverse environmental engagement.
The dissertation critically investigates how place-lore has been used in conflicts and how the characteristics of conflict communication and new presentation contexts (public discussions, protests, legal disputes, and media coverage) influence these stories. In conflict communication, the connections between place-lore and the specific environment it represents tend to be ignored and as a result, the multivocality and environmental meanings originally embedded in the stories are often suppressed. Place-lore is frequently used selectively to create opposition and escalate conflict, which can have tangible ecological consequences.
To respond to these challenges, the dissertation introduces strategies for reintroducing into conflict disputes the multivocality and important ecological knowledge embedded in place-lore for the purpose of making the debates more productive and inclusive. To contribute to the scholarly and practical discourse, the thesis presents a new theoretical framework for the study of place-lore, develops ecosemiotic models, and proposes practical solutions for managing environmental conflicts. In doing so, it lays the groundwork for further research on the role of local, contextual narratives in addressing environmental crises and navigating urgently needed changes in the context of environmental crisis.
Defence can be also followed in Zoom (meeting ID: 962 3899 0293, passcode: 018742).
Meeting of Academic Folklore Society
Meeting of Academic Folklore Society
27th of February at 4:15 p.m in Estonian Literary Museum (Vanemuise 42, Tartu).
Program:
1) Piret Paal: Meditsiiniantroploogiline ja lingvistiline uuring elu lõpu ja surmaga seotud teadmiste tõstmiseks ehk milleks ARS MORIENDI? (in Estonian)
2) Daniel Sävborg speaks about his book ‘Events from the Un-History of Sweden: A Lost Age(Händelser ur Sveriges ohistoria. En försvunnen tid) (in English)
More information about the presentations
Everybody is welcome to join!
