Nature and Culture in the Rituals, Narratives and Beliefs



 Programme (in PDF)

International Conference,
September 18 – 22, 2022
Tartu, Estonia



Center of Exellence in Estonian Studies
Department of Folkloristics Estonian Literary Museum
Estonian Academy of Sciences

Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

International Society of Balcan and Baltic Studies

  • Programme
  • Main page

    • Plenary speakers and lectures



      Download the information about plenary lectures in one PDF here.

      Krzysztof Duda (Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow)

      September 19th 2022, Monday, 11:30 – 12:30
      Estonian Literary Museum, Tartu, Estonia

      "Highlanders of the Eastern and Western Carpathians: nature–people–culture"




      Krzysztof Duda is a researcher in the field of cultural science. He works at Ignatianum Jesuit University in Krakow, where he is head of the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Tourism at the Institute of Cultural Studies. He has been a member of the American Anthropological Association since 2018, a member of the history of science section of the Polish Academy of Sciences since 2020, and director of the Institute of Zootechnics in Kracow, also since 2020. He is a member of the Carpathian society, Res Carphatica and other societies. Dr Duda is also a Member of the Scientific Policy Committee affiliated with the Minister of Education and Science. He is the author of national and international publications in the field of cultural anthropology, the history of science, and culture.

      Tõnno Jonuks (Estonian Literary Museum)

      September 19 2022 , Monday, 10.00 – 11.00
      Estonian Literary Museum, Tartu, Estonia

      "Nature, nation and religion – the appearance of nature-religion in Estonia"




      Tõnno Jonuks is an archaeologist, specialised on materiality of religion and on the history of Estonian religions. He has conducted a number of case studies to see how religion has been expressed in material form since the Early Mesolithic to the Modern Ages. Studies of prehistoric materiality of religion has guided him to modern reception of past beliefs and thus the nature religions and contemporary paganism have both been a genuine continuity of previous subjects.

      More about Tõnno Jonuks research activity on Estonian Research Information System

      Marju Kõivupuu (Tallinn University, Institute of Humanities, Center for Landscape and Culture)

      September 21st 2022 , Wednesday 14:30 – 15:30
      Estonian Literary Museum, Tartu, Estonia

      "Neopaganism and nature protection in the 21st century"




      Marju Kõivupuu is a folklorist and cultural historian. Her research interests at the Centre for Landscape and Culture are related to the relationship between humans and nature/landscape and the topic of cultural heritage. She also researches the culture of death and folk medicine. She has successfully supervised doctoral and masters students. Several of her monographs have received recognition at both the Tallinn University and national levels. She teaches Estonian and comparative folklore, as well as several special courses (worldviews and religions, landscape heritage and everyday culture, and others).

      Yuri Berezkin (Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera))

      September 22nd 2022, Thursday, 10:00 – 11:00
      Estonian Literary Museum, Tartu, Estonia

      "Prehistory in the looking glass of oral traditions (following traces of ancient mythologies in post 1500 folklore)"




      Yuri Berezkin, professor of the faculty of anthropology, European University at Saint Petersburg, and head of the American department of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. Professor Berezkin’s main research areas are the history of cultural anthropology, political anthropology, folklore databases, comparative mythology and non- classical mythology, the peopling of America, prehistoric migrations and interactions spheres, and archaeology.

      Selected publications
      • 2022. Electronic Analytical Catalogue of Folklore and Mythological Motifs: Thematic Classification and Areal Distribution (ca. 70,000 text abstracts). Co-authored with Evgeny Duvakin http://www.ruthenia.ru/folklore/berezkin.
      • 2021. “Big history and big data in mythology and folklore” [Makro-istoria i bol’shiye dannye v mifilogii i fol’klore], Steps. The Journal of the School of Advanced Studies in the Humanities 7(2): 28-52. (In Russian).
      • 2019. “Athabaskan – Siberian folklore links: in search of Na-Dene origins,” Folklore 130(1): 31-47.
      • 2018. A large-scale study of world myths. Trames: Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 22(72/67), 4: 407–424.
      • 2017. How Did the First Humans Perceive the Starry Night? On the Pleiades. - The Retrospective Methods Network Newsletter, 12-13: 100-122.


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