Archive
The Archive of the Estonian National Museum is located on the second floor of the Main House at the address: Veski 32, Tartu, phone: 7350 420, e-mail: tiina@erm.ee
The Archive is open from Monday to Friday from 9am to 4pm.
The archive is open to the public. Visitors who wish to use the archive are asked to familiarize themselves with the rules for use of the archive and fill out a registration form.
The Estonian National Museum archive’s departments and size as of 1 January 2010:
Archive
Topographic archive: 992 (49 836 pages)
Ethnographic archive: 871 (103 083 pages)
Archive of correspondents: 1268 (507 502 pages)
Sanitary-topographic archive: 370 (10 304 pages)
Drawing collection
Collection of ethnographic drawings: 22 875 pages
Drawings of museum objects: 3029 pages 4886 drawings
The Archive of the Estonian National Museum: 2366 folders
Topographic archive (TA)
The topographic archive preserves fieldwork diaries and travel notes beginning from the foundation of the museum in 1909. The archive comprises about the itineraries of the expeditions, i.e., the visited farmsteads and villages, the attitude of local people towards the collectors, information about the gained and unavailable objects, legends and drawings of objects, general ethnographic observations about the local people, customs, interaction, clothing, surroundings, nature, buildings, and many other things.
The topographic archive has been systematized by parish. In addition to Estonia and the linguistic enclaves of Estonian, there are also fieldwork diaries from the regions inhabited by Finno-Ugric peoples.
Ethnographic archive (EA)
The ethnographic archive comprises of materials on varied topics collected by museum researchers and grant-aided (history and art) students: clothing, buildings, furnishings, tillage, cattle-raising, fishing, apiculture, trade, handicraft and handicraft techniques, customs, food, and so on.
Besides ethnographic subjects, modernity is also reflected. In the ethnographic archive we can find material from all over Estonia, as well as from the linguistic enclaves of Estonian in Latvia, Siberia and the Caucasus.
There is also abundant information on the other Finno-Ugric peoples.
The collected materials are bound together, each unit including written material either similar in contents, collected on one expedition or during one year. Card catalogues facilitate the finding of the necessary material.
Archive of correspondents (KV)
The most voluminous archive at the museum includes the contributions of the members of the correspondents’ network and schoolchildren - answers to the questionnaires compiled by the museum, works that have participated in competitions, as well as other writings on ethnographic and cultural-historical subjects.
The collected materials are bound together, each unit including either answers to one questionnaire or treatments similar in their topics. Card catalogues facilitate the finding of necessary material.
Sanitary-topographic archive (STA)
This archive comprises of the materials of the all-Estonian health care "inventory" organized by the Health Service Institute in 1922-1930. They include data about the majority of villages, separate complete surveys of communes and summer resorts. Descriptions provided by doctors and senior medical students give a varied picture of settlements, buildings, people and everyday life in the 1920s. The archive has been systematized by county.
Drawing collection
Collection of ethnographic drawings (EJ)
The collection of ethnographic drawings comprises of drawings of farm buildings, furniture, articles of clothing, textiles, and everyday commodities, drawn both by artists and art students.
The first drawings date from the time before World War I. More systematic drawing of farm buildings started in the 1920s, with the help of art students and grant-aided students. In the late 1950s, when collective farms developed and many farm buildings became dilapidated, quite a few farmsteads with their outbuildings, yard plans and construction details were put down on paper. Also in the following years, besides museum artists, lecturers and students from Tartu Art School and the Estonian Art Academy have been participating in fieldwork, drawing objects and buildings.
Drawings of museum objects (MJ)
The collection includes drawings of objects preserved at the Estonian National Museum, mainly women’s handicraft and folk costumes, but also household items, means of transport, and so on. The basis of the collection is the illustrations made for publications. Detailed drawings of folk costumes serve as good ancillary material for holding consultations on folk costumes.
The Archive of the Estonian National Museum (ERMA)
The files of the Archive of the Estonian National Museum are preserved only in the Archive of the ENM. It comprises the material on the history of the museum in the form of minutes, working plans, reports, correspondence, personnel documents, etc., beginning from the establishment of the museum in 1909 to the present.
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