Studies in Folklore and Popular Religion

Studies in Folklore and Popular Religion, vol. 1. Edited by Ulo Valk. Tartu, Estonia: University of Tartu. 1996. 212 pp. ISBN 9985 60 271 4. ISSN 1406 1090

The papers from the symposium "Walter Anderson and Folklore Studies Today" which are reviewed in this article have been published in the new Estonian journal Studies in Folklore and Popular Religion. These papers are important for three reasons--first, because they commemorate the birth of the significant East European folklorist Walter Anderson (1885-1962), second, because they are published in a new scholarly journal which has emerged in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the re-establishment of the independence of Estonia, and third, because the various papers reflect the much more open climate of enquiry which is now able to exist in the Baltic region.

In early October 1995, the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore of the University of Tartu held an international conference to commemorate the 110th anniversary of the birth of Walter Anderson, Professor of Folklore at the University 1920-39. Anderson was a seminal figure in the development of folklore studies in Estonia and the Baltic region and as a result had an indirect role in the development of Estonian nationalism in the period just prior to the annexation of Estonia by the Soviet Union. He exercised a significant influence on his students--who went on to hold positions in universities and museums--in methodology and the procedures for collection and analysis of materials, and the choice of subject for research. This influence is surprising in one way, because Anderson was not an Estonian. He was born into a German-speaking family in Minsk, Byelorussia, grew up in Kazan in the Tatar A.S.S.R., and held his first academic post at the university there. Nonetheless, he inspired his students in Kazan and in Tartu to examine systematically the folklore of their nations, which inevitably had the effect of supporting national identity vis-a-vis Russian and later Soviet domination. Anderson was a great proponent of the historical-geographical method of collection and analysis which typified the Finnish school, accepting the idea of a single origin for each tale type, rather than arguing for a polygenetic origin.

Consequently, it seemed strange to this reviewer that the editors of the symposium papers did not include a biography of Walter Anderson nor provide a list of his various writings. It is even stranger that Michael Chesnutt--who presumably gave the keynote address at this symposium with his paper "The Great Crusader of Diffusionism: Walter Anderson and the Geographic-Historical Method"--gives few details about the life, thought and work of Anderson but instead concentrates almost entirely on the work of Julius and Kaarle Krohn. Not only is little said about Walter Anderson in this paper, but little attempt is made to relate him to the thought of the Krohns.

There are nineteen papers in this volume, sixteen of which were presented at the symposium itself and three of which were invited as special contributions to the first volume of the new journal. The papers cover a wide range of subjects, discuss folklore subjects from Africa, India and Siberia as well as from Estonia and Kerelia, are written in English and German, are of widely varying length, and perhaps not surprisingly, vary considerably in quality.

Including the keynote address, four of the papers concern aspects of the history and research focus of folklore studies in Estonia and Latvia. Others discuss the hero, the micro-distribution of folk tales, the art of storytelling, urban folklore, ethnic identity, and the character and nature of spirits which appear in folktales.

For this reviewer, the most interesting papers were Erik Nagel's discussion of how modern sailors frame their life-threatening experiences in a pattern which closely parallels the traditional structure of the heroic tale. Other papers of note were: Anzori Barkalaja's discussion of the revival of shamanistic practices amongst modern-day young Ostyaks; Laura Stark's description of how Christianity has been appropriated by rural people in a remote part of Karelia; and Tiiu Jaago's portrayal of how several different ethnic groups in a border area of Estonia create their own history and national identity.

There is much food for thought in these papers, especially as they give some insight into the growing internationalisation of Estonian folkloristics. Nonetheless, the reviewer would have liked the papers to have been of a more even quality. Few of them, except for the ones just mentioned, were long enough to go into sufficient depth to elaborate upon their subject. One had the feeling of having just got into the subject when the paper ended abruptly. Finally, as has been stated before, the lack of a biography--indeed a critical biography--of Anderson's life and academic achievements, and a full bibliography of his writings and papers were major omissions in a book dedicated to promoting the memory of a key figure in folklore studies.