Mäetagused vol. 84

Summary


Political ecologies and the Anthropocene within landscapes of urbanity tension fields

Tarmo Pikner
Senior Research Fellow
Centre for Landscape and Culture
School of Humanities, Tallinn University
tpikner@tlu.ee

Keywords: Anthropocene, landscape, Paljassaare, political ecology, post-socialist city, Tallinn, urbanity

This article approaches complex relationships between disturbance-based ecologies and processes of urbanisation by focusing on urban fringes and valuation of life-forms within landscapes. The thematic discussion is inspired by changes of the Paljassaare Peninsula in Tallinn, which motivated the author to analytically assemble historical layers, ecological imaginations, and stories of planetary affects. The fieldwork related to the article’s argumentation is mainly based on the ethnographic method bringing together observations, interviews, and thematic narratives. The study indicates that disturbances and non-humans/birds become part of the landscape as intertwined materiality and perceiving-with, which involve tensions between presence and absence, and also tensions between past and future. The environment is not a passive “stage” in the process, but appears through emotional landscapes by creating relations between humans and non-humans. Transboundary flight trajectories of birds widen the perspective on earth-bound connections in urban space and make to rethink ways of co-existing.
Urban landscapes linked to the sea accumulate diverse disturbances and ruptures, and their effects can be conflicting and interpretations change in time. The current study reveals tension fields and partial continuity of processes in which the Soviet-era legacy forms just one part in the complex assemblage. The border zone and the closed military-industrial complex in Tallinn coastal terrain generated conditions for disturbance-based ecologies, which have significantly influenced urban landscapes. Interim usages and valued ecologies slowed down effects of urbanisation and gave “voice” to particular characteristics of urban nature through which the Paljassaare Peninsula and migratory corridors of birds became part of a wider urban change. The desired (urban) nature appears as an expression of good and bad ecologies influenced by imaginations about landscapes and infrastructure.
The evolvement of green areas and waterfront spaces in post-socialist cities is approached as part of Europeanisation, in which practices of European Union states are smoothly and uncritically adapted. The example of Paljassaare reveals entangled multi-dimensional connections between history, civil-society initiatives, and ideas of spatial planning, which were based on care and enabled the bordering of Natura 2000 bird protection area despite urbanisation pressure. Therefore, urban nature and urban landscapes as contested links between the (post)Soviet heritage and Europeanisation require in-depth analysis for revealing a more complex process than linear transformation. The following of disturbance-based ecologies and longer durations make it possible to problematise the Soviet-era homogenous legacy.





Imaginary tramlines in urban landscape: Atmosphere-related art projects in Turku and Tallinn

Tauri Tuvikene
Professor of Urban Studies
School of Humanities, Tallinn University
tauri.tuvikene@tlu.ee

Aleksandra Ianchenko
Junior Research Fellow
Centre for Landscape and Culture, Tallinn University
sasha201@tlu.ee

Keywords: art, atmosphere, landscape, tram, urban studies

The article brings together public transport, art, landscape, and atmosphere. The article aims to demonstrate landscape thinking, a way to attend to the multi-faceted nature of landscape, using two artistic interventions in the urban landscape as case studies: Invisible Tramline in Tallinn and Tram Chalk Walk in Turku, created by one of the co-authors of the paper (researcher and artist Aleksandra Ianchenko). Here, we look at atmosphere as a concept that can be used to bring the material and the sensory aspects of landscape together. In both artworks, atmosphere emerged in the metaphorical (re)creation of infrastructure through material interventions: in one case, the tram was made to appear as tracks skied in the snow, in the other as chalk lines. Lasnamäe tram is a case of planned but unfinished tramline whereas Turku had an active tram service for almost a century before it was discontinued in 1972. Yet, as in the case of Lasnamäe, sentiments echoing a desire to have the tram in active function are present. These artworks resonated with these sentiments although they did not have a desire to make a political statement. Instead, they artfully played with the ephemeral nature of landscape by generating atmospheres of tramlines.
The article shows how atmosphere can emerge in the interaction between material aspects and being present in this environment, more specifically in the activities that metaphorically animate infrastructures in the landscape. Although the tram itself was not present in either intervention, the holistic landscape experience brought present an idea of the tram created by the interventions.



Cooperation and competition in industrial heritage tourism in northeast Estonia

Saara Mildeberg
Junior research fellow
Centre for Landscape and Culture at the School of Humanities, Tallinn University
saarah@tlu.ee

Anu Printsmann
Research fellow
Centre for Landscape and Culture at the School of Humanities, Tallinn University
anu.printsmann.@tlu.ee

Keywords: heritage, Ida-Viru County, industrial tourism, Kreenholm, landscape, oil shale, stakeholder engagement

The Ida-Viru County in northeast Estonia possesses a range of tangible and intangible heritage from the 19th and 20th centuries. Especially noteworthy are the textile and oil shale industries as they have used vast amounts of resources and space for their production in the past one hundred years. The new century has witnessed the textile industry being closed down and in the wake of the European green transition, the oil shale industry is facing a significant reduction as well. For economic diversification purposes, Ida-Viru has begun to promote itself since 2017 as an adventure tourism region, combining its sandy beaches and vast forests and mires with post-industrial entertainment.
Studies on a local and national scale have emphasised the potential of industrial heritage tourism in Ida-Viru County, which can only be realised in collaboration and through proper mapping, assessment and promotion of industrial heritage by relevant specialists in consultation with local stakeholders. At the same time, policy documents and strategies still rarely feature industrial heritage tourism. Rather, buildings and architecture have been referred to as cultural and historical heritage, and post-industrial landscapes have been considered as adventure tourism objects.
This article examines the practical implications that the existing heritage-led initiatives are facing while working towards the reanimation of post-industrial spaces, with a special focus on large sites. Interviews conducted with the directors, CEOs and PR managers of such initiatives reveal that it is generally agreed that domestic tourism alone cannot support industrial tourism in Estonia and it is necessary to increase both regional thematic collaboration and develop international networks and visibility. However, the potential of industrial tourism is still often latent or in development, hindered by differences in the agendas and funding of the initiatives, lack of trust and interest in industrial tourism from investors and the active industry, community scepticism and hope for re-industrialisation – those are the issues which are here further exemplified and analysed.



Mobility in the countryside: Through crises towards a hybrid network space

Raili Nugin
Senior Research Fellow
School of Humanities, Tallinn University
raili.nugin@tlu.ee

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, mobility, rurality, Ukrainian refugee crisis, urban-rural relations

Silence and tranquillity form an integral part of rural life and contribute to our understanding of rurality. Thus, it is generally held that time passes slowly in the countryside, far from the nervous city life. Therefore, it is not surprising that mobility and movement (which are associated with speed and being busy) are associated with urbanity and stillness with rurality. Peace and quiet and the absence of hustle are highlighted even by those who live in the countryside and spend long hours in the car commuting between work and home. Such an image affects people’s daily life decisions, movement patterns, local development and infrastructure, as well as national policy of shaping rural life. What is often overlooked is that rural areas are connected to cities in hybrid and extensive ways that affect the development of society as a whole. This article analyses the networks between the country and the city in two recent crises – the COVID-19 pandemic and Ukrainian refugee crisis. It is argued that these relational connections surface vividly in situations of crisis and show that urban-rural networks constitute a kind of hybrid socio-spatial form. Although the boundaries between them are blurred, the image of both rurality and urbanity is powerfully created in discourses and in everyday debates, justifying daily decisions, thus ignoring the intertwined character of these urban-rural relations.
Both crises referred to the importance of motility – in both cases, who could move, where and with what timing was of critical importance. In the case of the pandemic, inequalities in mobility manifested themselves in different spheres – which urban dwellers could move to the countryside (owning a country home is a privilege), who could work remotely (mostly in middle-class jobs) or who could go to a place with limited access (mostly islands or popular domestic tourism areas).
In the case of Ukrainians, the ability to move was also critical – it consisted in the very possibility of leaving Ukraine. Even after arriving in Estonia, the fate of the refugees largely depended on the location where they found themselves – either in a big city where it was easy to move with the help of public transport or on foot, or in rural areas where it was more difficult to get around due to the lack of public transportation. During the Ukrainian refugee crisis, the rural cosmopolitanism emerged in Estonia more clearly than before. On the one hand, the ethnic and cultural composition of small places changed almost overnight, and thus rural areas became more diverse. On the other hand, this unexpected challenge showed that the rural cosmopolitan community is in many ways vulnerable and precarious.
It is noteworthy that strong cultural constructions of rural people (peaceful, safe) and urban people (dangerous invaders) surfaced in conflict situations. On the other hand, the tensions showed how closely the country and the city are connected through mobility. At the same time, mobilities also affected the daily life of people who did not move. One person’s movement could affect another’s staying put, as well as interpersonal relationships, political decisions, and life arrangements.
It can be concluded that rural areas are becoming more hybrid for various reasons, and they are connected to the city through various forms of movement in ways that may go unnoticed at first glance, but which emerge precisely in crisis situations. Crises also highlight the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of these bonds, as well as their strengths. Rural populations and their modes of movement shape everyday practices and infrastructures, just as the image and discursive power of rural areas shapes people’s decisions – both big and small.



Mobile sense of belonging as a means of coping in the 1950s everyday life: The case of one family

Kadri Kasemets
Research Fellow
Centre for Landscape and Culture
School of Humanities, Tallinn University
kadrisem@tlu.ee

Hannes Palang
Professor of Human Geography
Head of the Centre for Landscape and Culture
School of Humanities, Tallinn University
palang@tlu.ee

Keywords: everyday letters, everyday life, mobility, rurality, sense of belonging, sense of place, Sovietization

This study contributes to the micro-history during the structural reorganization of Estonia in the 1950s by examining everyday letter exchange between the members of a family consisting of a single mother and her two daughters. The study uses a mobilities approach toward the meaning of belonging while investigating everyday places and related practices, the mentalities of individual stages of life, and symbolical relations which are influenced by structural formation. The study indicates mobile characteristics of belonging in a family’s subjective attachment to a place.
The letters reflect the developments in self-identity related to the sense of belonging of two different generations influenced by rural and urban everyday life. The sense of belonging of the mother, born before World War II, is moving to the past, where the historically shaped everyday life and personal meaning-making at the rural home farm can offer symbolic and practical safety in this insecure social period. The sense of belonging of the younger daughter, considering her personal life stage and the conditions of the ruling power, is adapting to urban life, as this environment offers better possibilities for self-realization.
The English version of the article: Kasemets, Kadri & Palang, Hannes 2020. The mobile belonging in the historical everyday letters: The case of Estonia in the 1950s. – Journal of Baltic Studies 51 (1), pp. 17–33 (DOI:10.1080/01629778.2019.1694048).



Text stuck to landscape: Hell lore

Marju Kõivupuu
Senior Research Fellow / Associate Professor
Centre for Landscape and Culture
School of Humanities, Tallinn University
kpuu@tlu.ee

Keywords: grottos, hell(s), hiis legends, landscape lore, Old Nick, outcrops, place lore, sandstone



On the landscape, there are natural caves known as hells or hell graves, formed, for example, as a result of the outflow of spring water and in some cases expanded and deepened by human hands over time, as well as sandstone outcrops, feather holes or sölls or valleys, where, according to folk tales, mythological creatures-giants have lived or live: old pagans or devils.
In this article, the focus is on “hell” as a traditional landscape element and places named “hell” in place lore and place creation, in original fiction based on folk tales, in tourism economy, etc.
I claim that hell-themed place stories written down by folk over the ages stick to the landscape in different ways, whether it is the reuse of stories based on standard motifs in place creation, the consolidation of the landscape image embedded in traditional texts in tourism, even when the landscape itself has long since changed, etc.
Scenically interesting places need attractive stories; this is one of the key themes of placemaking.
As a concept, I use local place lore as an umbrella term for oral tradition in the field that can be linked to certain places in the landscape. Local place lore includes both international motifs and local legends, which in some cases have also been told as true stories.
Local lore, as a type of lore that shows the connection between a person and a place, has been valued mainly because of the aspect that creates and supports local identity. However, the landscape surrounding the community is not a static but a dynamic space, in which new meanings that reflect the life of the community arise or are created, and these are also reflected in the lore related to the landscape.



Landscape playground

Hannes Palang
Professor of Human Geography
Head of the Centre for Landscape and Culture
School of Humanities, Tallinn University
palang@tlu.ee

Keywords: geocaching as consumption of nature’s contribution, geocaching as place making, influence of geocaching on the environment

This paper studies further the idea expressed by Paul Claval about landscape as a playground. For a decade, scholars have wondered whether games such as geocaching could be used if not in planning, then at least in getting feedback about people’s landscape preferences. This paper studies the role of geocaching in landscape changes through three lenses: geocaching as consumption of nature’s contribution to people, as influence on the environment, and as place making. The author concludes that, first, landscape can indeed serve as a playground and let the players inscribe on its layers of meaning understandable only for the dedicated (initiated). Second, the hope for getting feedback about preferences will probably fail, as the players care more about the contents of the game, but at the same time we could get insights into the preferences of the player communities. Finally, the game allows for recreating and remembering places and telling stories.



Eating, drinking, pushing, driving… Playing event on Facebook

Mare Kalda
Department of Folkloristics
Estonian Literary Museum
mare.kalda@folklore.ee

Keywords: digital folklore, event studies, Facebook event, meme, online-performativity, event community

The Internet and its social media platforms offer opportunities to make visible grassroots creative products and activities, which would not otherwise receive wider attention.
In November 2018, as Facebook enables to create online meeting spaces for various events, a series of fake events was initiated on this social media platform by Estonian-speaking users. The “actions” were announced exactly like any other Facebook event, yet were not actually intended to be performed. It is reasonable to consider the event-organising game as a special vernacular practice that deserves to be observed from a folkloristic perspective.
The analysis focuses on various aspects of fake events – the genre of these actions, the seriality of events, the dialogue between the participants and those interested in the comments sections, but also the peculiarities of the co-created content. The article attempts to frame the groups of internet users that temporarily gathered around the events within the concept of event community, and traces which stages of the formation and operation of an event community occur in the fake events.
In a broader context, the author discusses the similarities between the parodies that lie at the forefront of the fake events initiated by social media users’ communities and the Renaissance carnivals in a public city square.



Reception of the Georgian-Abkhazian war (1992–1993) in the Estonian media during and after the war

Aivar Jürgenson
Senior Research Fellow
Estonian Folklore Archives, Estonian Literary Museum
aivar.jyrgenson.001@gmail.com

Keywords: Georgian-Abkhazian war, media, war journalism, reception

In the minds of Estonians Abkhazia is associated mainly with Estonians living there. When the Georgian-Abkhazian war broke out in August 1992, the Estonian state evacuated about 170 Estonians and their families from Abkhazia in the autumn of the same year. The reception of the war itself in the Estonian media was low and related to the situation of Estonians there, but the motives and direct causes of the war and the development of war events were also examined. One Baltic News Service journalist observed the evacuation of Estonians and wrote about the events of the war on the spot, but most of the authors operated in Estonia and used various sources. In today’s context, it may seem surprising to what extent materials from Russian information channels were used, but at that time it was understandable: Russia covered events in its border countries more actively than Western agencies. Materials translated directly from Russian newspapers were also published in the Estonian press. The choice of sources also influenced the framing in which the events of that time were mediated.
The coverage of the war in the Estonian media has undergone significant developments over the decades. The articles published during the war presented the events in a neutral way, rather sympathizing with the Abkhazians than the aggressor. While in the first half of the war the fighters of the Confederation of Mountain People of the Caucasus were presented as allies of the Abkhazians, the articles published at the end of the war sometimes included Russians, although the contribution of the Russians was not explained. However, even at the end of the war, the coverage remained largely neutral, conveying the views of both Georgians and Abkhazians.
From the middle of 1994, the reception of the war began to change, which was related to Georgia’s international self-assertion. Reports from international organizations increasingly highlighted the issue of Georgian war refugees and Georgia’s claim to territorial integrity. This was also reflected in the Estonian media, where Abkhazians were increasingly called separatists without the right to independence. However, until the end of the 1990s, some articles were published that also provided Abkhaz views on events. Estonia had taken a clear direction towards integration with the West, but there was no clear understanding of Georgia’s orientation, which also influenced the attitudes of Estonian media towards Georgia-Abkhazia relations. Georgia’s leader, Eduard Shevardnadze, maneuvered between the West and Russia, pushing Abkhazia into an economic blockade and concluding agreements with Russia, while seeking integration with NATO and the European Union.
The situation changed dramatically after the Rose Revolution in Georgia, when Mikhail Saakashvili, who had come to power, began to move unequivocally on the path of Western integration. At the same time, Georgia’s relations with Russia deteriorated. Georgia, a small brave country in conflict with Russia, suddenly became Estonians’ ally and friend. The common enemy unites, and when Saakashvili’s rhetoric gained a firm foothold in Georgia’s territorial integrity, Abkhazia was clearly positioned in the Estonian mainstream media as a separatist Russian puppet. Retrospectively, the reception of the Georgian-Abkhazian war changed – the pluralistic approach of the 1990s was replaced by the Georgian version. In this connection, the portrayal of the role of the Russians in the war also changed: peace mediators in the early 1990s or postcolonial implementers of the divide et impera principle now became allies of the Abkhaz. After the Law of Occupied Territories was adopted in Georgia on 23 October 2008, the concept “occupied Georgian territory” as an epithet of Abkhazia appeared in the Estonian media. As Russia continues to be in the position of a negative external “stranger” for the Estonian media, Russia’s relations with Georgia continue to influence our media attitudes towards Abkhazia and interpretations of the Georgian-Abkhazian war.



News in brief

In memoriam
Ruth Mirov (24.11.1928 – 26.09.2022)
Colleagues’ reminiscences

Birthday greetings
Olli (Olga Ottilie) Kõiva (90), Tiiu Salasoo (90), Mall Hiiemäe (85), Luule Krikmann (85), Kristi Salve (80), Mihály Hoppál (80), Rein Saukas (75), Janīna Kursīte (70), Merike Kiipus (65), Vilve Asmer (65), Tõnis Lukas (60), Taive Särg (60), Ülo Valk (60), Ergo-Hart Västrik (50), Mari Sarv (50), Salle Kajak (50), Andreas Kalkun (45), Maris Kuperjanov (45).

Virumaa regional programme supported folklore collection from Russian-language pupils Sergey Troitskiy and Anna Troitskaia give an overview of school folklore collection campaign in 2022.

Folklorists from the Estonian Literary Museum at the Colloquium on Proverbs in Tavira
Piret Voolaid writes about the 16th Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Proverbs (ICP22), which took place in Tavira, Algarve, southern Portugal, on 6–13 November (homepage: https://www.colloquium-proverbs.org/icp/en/colloquium).



Calendar
A brief summary of the events of Estonian folklorists from July to December 2022.