Paper short abstract:

Last year Karelian activists accused the project Laments in Contemporary Finland of cultural appropriation. The case of this lament tradition is more complex than it first looks. I discuss the lines of the continuum of Karelian lament tradition and the frames where laments are seen.

Paper long abstract:

Last year young Karelian activists accused a project that study laments in contemporary Finland of cultural appropriation. The lament tradition known in contemporary Finnish society comes from the Karelian and Ingrian lament traditions, which both have a ritual background. In contemporary Finland, laments are performed by professional musicians in concerts, lamenting is taught in courses and applied for various purposes. The language of laments in contemporary Finland is often based in Finnish - not Karelian. There is no definite evidence that Finns (Finnish speaking people) have lamented in the past. However, from the point of cultural appropriation the situation is not as simple as it looks here.

The questions of appropriation are political and about the harms that the appropriation may cause in this case to Karelians. But: 1) The question of who is Karelian is not either-or. Many of Finnish speaking Finns have Karelian speaking Karelian ancestry, and one's identity can include these both. 2) The lines of the development of the lament tradition vary. In general, the tradition has changed along with changing sociocultural contexts. During the last century, the meanings laments have assigned and frames they are set, have varied.

In this paper, I present the continuum from the ritual Karelian lamenting to the various contemporary lament performances in Finland and ask, who are allowed to lament or study laments, who are the authority to rule it - and are there answers to these questions.