CHANGES IN FOLK CULTURE AND FOLKLORE ENSEMBLES
Kristin Kuutma
The human need for the knowledge of history has increased in our contemporary
world, and it is generally accompanied by the nostalgic feeling of historical
continuity with past generations (Frykman-Löfgren 1987: 33-35). On the
other hand, the past is usually idealized as an unsophisticated, simple
"counterworld" (Bausinger 1990: 145) that is opposed to the neurotic
and chaotic present day. Folklore traditions are perceived as the impersonation
of that unaltered, stable and desirable "lost world" that are
documented and deposited in archives in their authentic original form. The
following article reflects on how this archived heritage is reanimated in the
modern age and developed into a tradition in its own right. First, a few
aspects elaborating the concepts of 'tradition' and 'folk song'.
The modern academic discourse on tradition argues that it is not a cultural
given but a cultural construct (see Hobsbawm-Ranger 1983), invented at a
certain period of time under certain circumstances. It is not relevant to
judge whether a tradition phenomenon (for example, a folklore ensemble) is
genuine or spurious. Tradition is neither genuine nor spurious because it is
not handed down from the past as a thing or collection of things, but it is
symbolically reinvented in an ongoing present (see Handler-Linnekin 1984).
Tradition is not passed on from generation to generation in language, art, and
music as a time-honoured body of knowledge and values, but it is rather in a
constant stage of disorder and confusion, about to disintegrate under the
pressure of change. And members of the society strive to restore and maintain
tradition in new rituals, displays, and in diverse forms of entertainment
(which are constructed, and if necessary invented), or in the revival of old
ones. (Bausinger 1990: 127).
The term 'folk song' appears to convey a somewhat rigid connotation, as it
embraces the idea of relating to all the people comprising a 'folk'. Folk
songs have never functioned the same way for everybody in a community, they
have never been current among all people, but only in particular groups of
internal interactive communication, whose structure may vary considerably. In
different age, people sing different songs with different companions. In its
primary function, folk song is a serving object in manifestation of community
life. In its secondary function folk song is experienced as a triumphant
object and a spectator experience is developed (see Klusen 1986). In the
contemporary society the use of the song as a tool in life-shaping experiences
has been replaced in many cases by a spectator experience.
It is difficult to define the exact time when the serving object of community
life of Estonian peasants developed into a triumphant object of performance
culture, but surely this change is inseparably connected with the urbanisation
process occurring in the industrial society. The cultivation of older forms of
folk culture became an organized activity in the 1920s, its main agents being
nationally-oriented museum associations, women's voluntary associations
organizing handicraft courses, and youth organizations, among whom the leading
position belonged to the National Estonian Youth Organization,
Ülemaaline Eesti Noorsoo Ühendus or ÜENÜ
(Viires 1986: 596). The Tallinn department of the latter founded a special
branch for cultivating folk dance and folk rituals in 1925, and they manifested
their activities as promoting "the development of omakultuur",
i.e. genuine [Estonian) culture. Folk cultural festivals with grand outdoor
spectacles were arranged under such national romantic titles as
Voorepidu (drumlin festival), Hiiepüha (sacred grove
celebration), Ilopüha (celebration of joy) (Viires 1986: 598). By
1939, ÜENÜ included 176 folk dance clubs all over Estonia with 3000
dancers (Viires 1986: 601).
An outstanding activist in promoting folk music was August Pulst. He arranged
two festivals of the Tallinn Estonian Museum as early as the beginning of the
1920s. In 1927-28 he took the troupe of the Estonian Open-Air Museum Society
to five tours covering the territory of Estonia. The troupe gave all in all 244
concerts, the performers were traditional musicians (e.g. Juhan Maaker alias
Torupilli (=bagpipe) Juss from Hiiumaa Island) and traditional singers (Mari
Kilu from Jõelähtme parish, a Votic singer Darja Lehti), and the
dancers from ÜENÜ Tallinn department. In 1932-36 the Music Museum
Society continued with a similar tour, covering a more extensive area, as
there were 570 performances presenting mainly ancient rituals and folk games.
(Viires 1986: 599).
In the course of the past seventy years, choral singing had been developed by
that time into a collective culture of Estonians, song festivals were arranged
all over the country from Harjumaa county in the north to Setumaa in the south,
and from the town of Narva in the east to Kuressaare in the west. The tradition
to wear folk costume in a performance situation and during festivals
disseminated extensively particularly through choir groups. The ideal to be
achieved was to copy the costumes deposited in museums up to details, and to
manifest the native region of the singer. The interchange of the inherited and
the borrowed cultural elements resulted in the creation of a new version of
the national culture model (Dégh 1978:43).
The cultivation of folk culture in amateur groups became popular both in urban
and in rural areas, and when the cultural expression of Estonians was submitted
to the guidance of Soviet cultural policy, the established system was subjected
to centralized supervision. And "the cultural workers" set
energetically to the development of Soviet folk culture, socialist in content
and ethnic in form.
The aesthetic standard of public performance became considerably altered during
the 1950s in particular. Under the supervision of professional cultural workers
(animators) amateur activities were shaped into a more modest form of
professional art, while the latter was copied both in aesthetics and in
techniques. Folk dances performed for an audience followed the standard of
ballet, folk song performance departed from the classical vocal technique of
chamber music, the ideal of a folk instrumentalist was expected to be
music-making in a symphony orchestra. The repertoire performed was primarily
humorous and gleeful, depicting the frisky and playful entertainment of the
simple village folk, or the energetic workmanship achievements of the
kolkhoz members.
However, parallel to the organized and institutionalized amateur activities in
cultural houses, factory clubs or schools, there continued to exist the
spontaneous music making, village dances and small town social dances, wedding
celebrations and feasts as a constant element of communal life. The
predominating repertoire, the songs and dances at these occasions did not
attract the attention of cultural researchers as they remained outside the
scope of ideological education, nor were they specially deposited in archives.
The research objective of folklorists was targeted to a distant past, searching
for "genuine" folklore heritage. Informants were not expected to
perform songs and stories dominating their current repertoire, but to recall
those from their childhood or early youth. For a century, the collecting of
folklore in Estonia has denoted the documentation of vanavara 'the old
heritage', digging up information about previous rituals and recreations from
the memories of people - the more aged the better - while discarding material
with a modern label as something worthless.
By the end of the 1960s the attitude towards the folk heritage paradigm
changed. This phenomenon was not unique occurring in Estonia, it concurred
with similar shifts of import in several European countries, e.g. in Hungary,
Finland, Sweden, and Ireland. In Estonia this process was directly influenced
by the massive interest in village traditions and the collective performance
of unarranged folk music rising among Lithuanians, particularly among their
academic youth. On the other hand, the situation in Lithuania was considerably
influenced by the fact that the agrarian village community preserved its
ancient features up to a more recent period. One significant landmark in
Estonia in reintroducing the ancient musical heritage, runosongs, was the
publishing of the five volumes of Eesti rahvalaule viisidega (Estonian
folk songs with notations) in 1956-65. This publication of texts and melodies
included a most thorough introduction in each volume, and the collection was
edited by Herbert Tampere. In 1969 was published the first book of the
anthology of Estonian folk songs (Eesti rahvalaulud), edited by
Ülo Tedre. It is a comprehensive collection of folk song texts, and in
1974 was issued the last, eighth book of the series. In 1967 was released the
first record anthology Eesti rahvalaule ja pillilugusid (Estonian folk
songs and instrumental music), in 1970 followed the second LP collection. By
the end of the 60s started also a radio programme introducing Estonian musical
folklore, and again Herbert Tampere's name should be mentioned. And it was
once more Tampere who organized a series of folk music concerts with
commentaries at the Theatre and Music Museum in Tallinn (Kippar 1979).
The impact on the wider public's interest became, in turn, from the
representatives of the so-called professional culture, who began manifesting
respect towards the earlier layers of Estonian folklore. One should mention
here the works by composer Veljo Tormis whose first folk song arrangements
date from 1959, and in 1969 his choral cycle Eesti kalendrilaulud
(Estonian calendar songs) was performed before an audience for the first time.
An important impression made the literary works and articles by writer Jaan
Kaplinski (it has been particularly stressed by those who later became active
in folklore performance; see Tõnurist 1971, Smidchens 1996, Kaplinski
1969) and theatre programmes (for example, Külavahelaulud 'village
songs', and dramas directed by Jaan Tooming). While discussing films, one
reaches another expressive landmark (though from a more recent period) in
evaluating the so-called genuine folk culture - the reinvention of the
Finno-Ugric identity of Estonians: as a small nation we need a wider
background in order to increase our self-esteem and find our place in global
culture. Veelinnu rahvas (Waterbird people) by Lennart Meri in 1970 and
especially his Linnutee tuuled (Winds of the Milky Way) in 1979 drew a
clear image of our Finno-Ugric identity. Also Veljo Tormis has composed several
choral works based on Finno-Ugric music heritage, as has the figurative artist
Kaljo Põllu in his graphical works. Starting from the end of the 70s,
the latter initiated also fieldwork trips of art students to study the material
art of Finno-Ugric peoples.
The genuine traditional heritage was developed into a counterculture to ignore
and oppose the officially dominating Soviet folk art. In the 1960s the first
folklore ensembles were founded, though at the time they were called
ethnographic ensembles or folk art ensembles. A parallel process took place in
Lithuania and Latvia where, as in Estonia, the first ensembles formed were
ethnographic ensembles organized by a cultural institution in a rural area.
Among the first was Setu leelo choir Leiko in Värska
(south-eastern Estonia), formed in 1964. On the other hand, this trend
concurred with the guidelines to cultural organizers produced by a
corresponding Moscow institution to be distributed all over the Soviet Union.
Those guidelines provided that the genuine and living folk traditions must be
introduced to the wider audience, in order to convince Soviet citizens that
the Soviet cultural policy is aimed at satisfying the cultural needs of the
wide masses. In 1969 was established the ensemble Leigarid, in 1971
Leegajus, 1972 Hellero, 1973 Sõsarõ, 1975
Lahemaa rahvamuusikud 'folk musicians from Lahemaa'. The official
impulse for founding Leigarid was the intention to demonstrate the
songs and dances of ancient Estonians to foreign tourists visiting the
Open-Air Museum in Tallinn, as the number of foreign guests visiting the
capital was growing remarkably. But the significant change in mentality was
actually reflected by the urge of the leader of the ensemble, Kristjan Torop,
to educate himself and the dancers in traditional dance, which resulted in
ignoring the current established performance canon for "folk dance",
and that in turn caused disparagement among the merited dance activists.
Leegajus (leader Igor Tõnurist) and Hellero (lead by
brothers Sarv, Paul Hagu and Viktor Danilov) represented the vogue among the
urbanized youth to admire and idealize the peasant culture. The performance
style of Leegajus was closer to a theatrical presentation, more so
directed to an audience; Hellero functioned actually like a club for a
circle of friends. The members of these urban ensembles regarded runosong to
be "the most natural song" (Sarv 1982), though the general repertoire
of Estonians had changed quite radically starting from the beginning of the
present century. That was the case also in Kihnu Island and in Setumaa, which
were officially regarded as the last resorts for the masters of the ancient
singing style, but where even the direct tradition bearers gathered as a
registered ensemble at the village cultural house in order to perform the
runosong heritage. The local youth already entertained themselves generally
with a different kind of song repertoire.
The establishing of such recontextualized folklore ensembles, however, did not
become a massive movement in Estonia until the second half of the 1980s. One
major factor in this respect was the opposition between the so-called official
culture and the folklore movement. It should be mentioned, that academic
folklorists did not particularly appreciate the activities of folklore
ensembles either, the only stage performances recognized were those by Kihnu
or Setu folk tradition ensembles. The youth of urban descent were regarded
simply as copycats of a fine art, excluding completely the possibility to see
them as tradition bearers. To the cultural administrators, the evolved
alteration in the aesthetic paradigm was largely incomprehensible and
unacceptable. They perceived the ignoring of the established concert
performance canon above all as a technical inaptitude and a lack of the
obligatory stage training. Thus the official cultural policy did not support
such folklore activities. But those folklore ensembles presented to the
audience a new semantic system in interpreting traditional culture, and
gradually a resonance was created. Organized and collective recreational
events, and the growing popularity of celebrating folk calendar festivals
together with one's colleagues in a factory, kolkhoz or office created
a demand for competent performers in the entertainment programme. And therefore
folklore ensembles offering a stage programme of the ancient peasant traditions
were popular entertainers both in cities and in villages.
In the 80s a change of attitude becomes gradually apparent. The runosong
heritage reached the widest cultural masses in the choral compositions by
Veljo Tormis, the popularity of which grew rapidly. Since the late 70s folk
music days were arranged in different parts of Estonia, which included also a
competition for musicians that assisted in bringing forth again the village
instrumentalists. In 1976 was started a regular series of international folk
music conferences, the programme of which included concerts presenting various
folklore ensembles of different Finno-Ugric peoples.
In the middle of the 80s there occurred also a major shift in the principles
of the cultural administrators, though it did not happen completely overnight.
The Moscow officials picked Estonia as the most suitable place for arranging
the 1985 general assembly of the world organization of folklore festivals
(CIOFF, Conseil International des Organisations de Festivals de Folklore et
d'Arts Traditionelles). This event testified to the development of new trends
in Soviet cultural policy, primarily the aspiration to demonstrate themselves
as appreciating and promoting the genuine traditional culture. In 1986 in
Estonia was arranged the first event under the title "folklore
festival", Viru säru in Palmse (northern Estonia). The next
year took place the first international folklore festival Baltica in
Lithuania, the next year that touring festival was arranged in Latvia, and in
1989 it was Estonia's turn. The emergence of such an arena brought about an
expansion of the folklore movement, and the integration of manifested folklore
programmes in the repertoire of a large number of dance and music collectives
that previously had presented only arrangements or authorized repertoire.
In 1990 in Viljandi Cultural College was established a department of folk
music, which can be regarded as the outset of new trends and a new quality in
Estonian folk music activities. Today the number of folklore ensembles, their
place in the cultural landscape and their membership has undergone several
changes.
References
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by Elke Dettmer. Bloomington, Indiana.
Dégh, L. 1978. The Study of Ethnicity in Modern European Ethnology.
Folklore, Nationalism and Politics. Ed. by Felix Oinas. Columbus, Ohio.
Frykman, J., Löfgren, O. 1987. Culture Builders: A Historical
Anthropology of Middle-Class Life. Translated by Alan Crozier. New
Brunswick.
Handler, R., Linnekin, J. 1984. Tradition, Genuine or Spurious. Journal of
American Folklore no. 97, 273-290.
Hobsbawm, E., Ranger, T. (eds.) 1983. The Invention of Tradition.
Cambridge.
Kaplinski, J. 1969. Pärandus ja pärijad. Sirp ja Vasar 1969, 9
(28 February).
Kippar, P. 1979. Osalemisrõõmust. Sirp ja Vasar 1979, 7
(28 September).
Klusen, E. 1986. The Group Song as Object. German Volkskunde.
Bloomington, Ind.
Smidchens, G. 1996. A Baltic Music: The Folklore Movement in Lithuania,
Latvia, and Estonia, 1968-1991. UMI Dissertation Services. Ann Arbor,
Michigan.
Sarv, T. 1982. Hellero. Sirp ja Vasar 1982, 12 (4 June).
Tõnurist, I. 1971. Laaliku minu isädä... Sirp ja Vasar
1971, 6 (13 August).
Viires, A. 1986. Folklorismi sünd Eestis. Keel ja Kirjandus
1986/10: 595-602.