Eesti etnograafia ja eesti rahvuslus
Estonian ethnography and Estonian nationalism

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses the relations between Estonian ethnography and Estonian nationalism ever since the discipline was born until the present day. Although Estonians had already been of ethnographic interest to some Baltic-German and Russian intellectuals since the late 18th century, Estonian ethnography proper, which has always been mainly concentrated on the material aspect of Estonian folk culture, was not born until the turn of the 20th century, hand in hand with Estonian nationalism. As Estonians belonged to the so-called peoples without history, the intellectuals who started to build a modern Estonian nation did not have much to go on but the traditional peasant culture. Thus, in the framework of the nationalist discourse, that culture acquired a new positive meaning and some of its elements came to be valued as a foundation of the national culture under construction. The traditional peasant culture became essential for the Estonian national identity, due to which ethnography became a science supporting it. In the 1920s and 1930s, when Estonia was a sovereign nation, ethnography was one of the national sciences contributing to the enhancement of Estonian national identity and the people’s sense of unity. In the Soviet period, Estonian ethnography was part of Soviet ethnography and as such it was expected to follow its Marxist-Leninist theory. In fact, since the late 1950s it was largely practised as a national science, which was rather conservative both in research material and method. A big change took place in the 1990s. Estonian ethnography merged with European ethnology. This was a different discipline addressing a considerably wider range of research problems. A change in the role of nationalism in the Estonian society brought along a change in the relation between nationalism and ethnology. In short, ethnography, which once used to be a contributor to Estonian nation-building, has become ethnology, a critical observer of nationalism.

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