Paper short abstract:

The focus of this paper is on the life narratives of the members of Jakob Hurt's (1857-1934) folklore collecting network. I am going to look at the different devices they use to overcome the feeling of marginality and unworthiness, while trying to fit themselves into modern world.

Paper long abstract:

19th century was an era of modernization in Estonia. One part of this modernization was interest in the nation's past, which brought about widespread folklore collecting campaigns in the last decade of the century. As well as being sources for folklore studies, these materials also serve as excellent examples of vernacular literacy. This angle is supported by the fact that quite a large part of the collectors was poorly educated and had little experience in writing for a public cause. Participating in folklore collecting campaigns was a rare possibility for them to experiment with written word, to show their attitudes toward modernization.

In this paper I am going to focus on one special layer in these materials: life narratives of the members of Jakob Hurt's (1857-1934) folklore collecting network. These texts were sent to Hurt as answers to his call to get material for the book about the history of collecting campaigns. As only small part of the collectors (about 60 out of 1500) answered to his plea, the book did not come into being. But even this small sample of life-narratives is a fascinating representation of ordinary people speaking about their lives in public context. These are stories of people who are strongly affected by modernization, but who are not sure if they really belong in this new world. We can see different devices they use to overcome the feeling of marginality and unworthiness, but also concern about finding the right words and generic models.