EESTI KESKAJA UURIMINE 21. SAJANDIL
ESTONIAN MEDIEVAL RESEARCH IN THE TWENTY­-FIRST CENTURY

Summary/Abstract: Medieval research in Estonia before the 1990s concentrated mainly on the history of peasants and agriculture. The new generation of historians who generally studied at the University of Tartu in the 1980s and 1990s substantially changed this situation. The amount of medieval research increased significantly, and the scope of research topics became much wider. Over the last two decades, medieval research in Estonia has discovered several new ways of history writing, such as microhistory, gender studies, oral history, the history of animals, etc., which have undoubtedly brought richer and more diverse knowledge about medieval history. This also enabled historians to provide a more comprehensive picture of society and the social, cultural, etc., development of Livonia in the Middle Ages. Due to the active international cooperation, supported by the political changes in Europe at the end of the twentieth century, medieval Livonia increasingly became a topic of interest for scholars outside Estonia and Latvia. Over the last two decades the publication activity (including publications in foreign languages) of Estonian medievalists increased several times and certainly represents one of the most active and deeply internationally networked fields of the Estonian humanities. The central areas of medieval research in the 2000s and 2010s have been the Baltic Crusades, the history of the Teutonic Order, social history dominantly in the urban context, and the history of everyday culture. The outcome of interdisciplinary cooperation between historians, archaeologists and art historians has become important. A remarkable general tendency that can be observed is the more integrative presentation of medieval Livonian society compared to the traditional understanding. Research tends to stress interaction and mutual cultural impact between social and ethnic groups instead of conflict and isolation. The political history of medieval Livonia is dominated by examination of the activities of the Livonian Teutonic Order, and here it is remarkable that scholars have detailed account of the personal and political connections of individual actors outside Livonia, with the papal curia or emperor, for example. As the Tallinn City Archives are one of the bestpreserved medieval archives in the Hanse area, urban history and the history of Tallinn deserve closer attention. Scanty written sources make research into small towns a convoluted and sometimes even impossible task. Luckily, the absence of written records is sometimes compensated for by archaeological findings, which makes cooperation between historians and archaeologists in this research field necessary. Medieval research in Estonia has also focused on important ecclesiastical and religious processes, especially on the spread of the Lutheran Reformation in Livonia. Regarding both urban and rural populations, the themes of everyday life, such as food or festivals, became more important than traditional interest in international trade or agricultural productivity. The lack of personal and material resources has limited the work on medieval source publications. In this regard the digital age is without doubt a major new challenge to Estonian medievalists, and, furthermore, leads to innovative approaches to medieval history.

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