Enesepositsioneerimine Oina veski möldri Märt Siipseni päevaraamatus
The diary of Märt Siipsen as a means of self-positioning

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on the diary of miller Märt Siipsen (1846-1916), written in the years 1896-1897. Siipsen only had the minimal three-year schooling, which makes him a great example of a vernacular writer (not connected to institutions dedicated to the spread of literacy). The diary is part of Siipsen’s personal archive, which is kept in the Cultural History Archives of Estonian Literary Museum. Besides the diary there are notebooks filled with poems, short stories, religious contemplations etc. The document analysed here (EKM EKLA, f 169, m 133: 5) stands out in this collection for being the only notebook labelled ‘diary’ (though there are diary-like writings in his other notebooks as well). This prompts the question: What does this generic label mean to Märt Siipsen? I am especially interested in the ways he used his take on the diary genre to position himself. I will consider positioning with reference to the main tenets of New Literacy Studies: Whenever someone writes, he/she makes it from a social position, but these positions are always in flux; people constantly try to take positions that are not open to them or widen the scope of the ones that are. Diary as a private genre allows people the space to experiment with positions they want to take. The article approaches the question of self-positioning from three aspects. First I look at the aspect of time. We can see that there are two types of entries – those which document past events and those which help to spend time; the former are usually written after the event, while the latter are born in the moment of writing. Secondly I consider the different frames Siipsen applies to interpret the diary-genre. I am especially interested how he grapples with the notion that diary-keeping is something done by educated people and how he plays with the boundary between reality and fiction in his entries. Thirdly I assess the relationship between Siipsen and the general public – though the diary was a private text, it has several entries that mimic genres used in newspapers, which are suggestive of the author’s ambition to address wider audiences on certain issues.

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