Paper short abstract:

The paper introduces the practices connected to the creation of Soviet folklore in occupied Estonia during the Stalin Era. The focus is on various textual representations of the process of creation, performance and collecting of political songs and the personal experiences of the participants.

Paper long abstract:

During the Stalin Era the folklorists in occupied Estonia had to adapt the concept of Soviet folklore, developed in Soviet folkloristics in the 1930s, and acquire the practices of producing it in cooperation with the representatives of local oral traditions or non-professional authors. The most successful direction in this field was the creation of political songs glorifying the Soviet regime and its leaders, and addressing topical political issues.

My presentation focuses on the different written documents reflecting the processes of creation, performance and collecting of political songs - the articles in the press, the fieldwork diaries of folklorists, the personal letters and the memories. I will analyse the influence of the ideologically controlled "normative" Soviet public discourse and self-censorship on the texts belonging to the different levels of publicity, and try to unveil the reality beyond them: which was the meaning and function of the political songs in the local communities, where and why were these songs performed. In addition to the tracking of the common social processes connected to the production of Soviet folklore, the unpublished, more intimate writings help to point out the individual aspects of the cooperation of folklorists and singers, their motivation of satisfying the ideological commission, as well as the singularity of their individual experiences.