Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the strategies Jakob Hurt (1839-1907) used to resolve the moral dilemmas and uncertainties that worried his folklore correspondences.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of this paper is to touch upon some uncertainties surrounding the folklore collecting campaigns of Jakob Hurt (1839-1907). Hurt is one of the most prominent figures in the history of Estonian folkloristics and the materials collected during his public folklore collecting campaign in the years of 1888-1907 are considered an important part of Estonian national heritage. The campaigns were organised with the help of calls and reports published in newspapers and about a thousand people got involved.

In the public discourse folklore collecting was closely linked with other national and modern phenomena. In newspapers it was often said that Estonians should catch up with the civilised nations and folklore collecting was presented as one aim to gain it. From the letters the folklore collectors sent to Jakob Hurt we can see that for them the link with modernity was often very important – for the lowly-educated collectors it was a rare possibility to show one's modern-mindedness publicly. But from those same letters we can also learn that collecting was often poorly understood by local people. Those people also saw the link between folklore collecting and other new phenomena (newspapers, societies) but they considered them all negatively, as part of moral degradation of the times. Folklore collectors often heard accusations that collecting threatens one’s soul. In my paper I analyse the letters of the collectors where they touch upon the moral uncertainties of their activities, and analyse how Hurt (who was working as a parson) answered to these letters.