Jaanus Plaat

This paper is a survey of the situation at the Chair of Ethnology of the University of Tartu in September 1995 and the experience and perspectives of teaching ethnology/anthropology in Estonia.

Currently we have four lecturers at the Chair of Ethnology, which is a part of the History Department of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Tartu. The head of the chair is Prof. Elle Vunder, other lecturers are Ene Kõresaar, Liivo Niglas and Jaanus Plaat. Prof. Vunder has a full-time appointment, the other three are part-time lecturers.

The aim of the Chair of Ethnology is to prepare researchers and museum workers. It is also possible to become a teacher of History through additional training.

Most courses in ethnology are taught by our chair, and the list of courses is the following (some courses are obligatory and some are optional):

1. Introduction to Ethnology (an obligatory course for all freshmen of the History Department) – 2 CPs (two credit points)
2. Basic Course of Estonian Ethnography – 2 CPs
3. Basic Course of Finno-Ugric Ethnology – 3 CPs
4. Methods of Ethnographic Fieldwork (theory and practice) – 2 CPs
5. Ethnographic Fieldwork I–II (2 practical fieldwork sessions during summer holidays) – 2 CPs each
6. Ethnography of Estonia I–II – 2 CPs
7. Ethnology of Europe I (Eastern Europe) – 2 CPs
8. Ethnology of Europe II (Central Europe) – 2 CPs
9. History of Theories and Methods of Ethnology – 2 CPs
10. Museum Studies – 1 CP
11. Practical Work in Museums – 2 CPs
12. Contemporary Research Methods in Ethnology – 1 CP
13. History of Ornament Styles – 2 CPs
14. North American Indians – 2 CPs
15. Ethnology of Sweden – 2 CPs

All the subjects are taught to students on three levels: lower, intermediate, and upper level. Students will normally pass all the courses taught by our chair within four years.

Students who have specialised in ethnology can also choose optional subjects taught at the University of Tartu, such as: History of Estonian Vocabulary; Archaeology of Estonia; Introduction to Folklore; Folk Religion and Customs; Computing; Additional Foreign Language (to Ethnology students a language of neighbouring or Finno-Ugric peoples is recommended, e.g. Swedish, Latvian, Finnish etc.); Semiotics; Comparative Study of Religion, etc.

Students of ethnology as well as other students from the History Department and elsewhere can also write their seminar papers, final seminar or BA papers, MA and PhD theses under the supervision of the staff members of the Chair of Ethnology.

As most of us are part-time lecturers, we have to use our resources very reasonably. As a priority, we must teach the main or basic courses (such as intro-courses, History of Anthropological Theory; Ethnographic Fieldwork Methods). Also, as we are the only chair of ethnology/anthropology in the world that is specialised in Estonian ethnography, we want to continue our courses dealing with different topics on Estonian culture and subcultures and supervise the papers written on Estonian ethnography.

It is also our intention to remain a centre of Finno-Ugric studies, to lecture and supervise seminar papers and theses on Finno-Ugric cultures. We also have to use ethnologists of the Estonian National Museum, which is the leading centre of ethnological research in Estonia. Ethnologists from the museum have mainly lectured on topics concerning Estonian and Finno-Ugric cultures.

In addition we have to provide training on new methods and approaches in ethnology. This is an area that has not been taught on contemporary level in Estonia. Our aim is to arrange possibilities for our students to take special courses in several branches of ethnology/anthropology that are not studied or insufficiently taught at the University of Tartu. Inviting guest professors to Tartu can be seen as one of the possibilities to achieve this aim. Last academic year we invited guest professors from Germany: Prof. Ulla Johansen read a course on cognitive ethnology, Prof. Klaus Roth provided lectures on contemporary material culture research. Both lecturers are among leading European ethnologists.

It is crucial for us to establish new contacts with different ethnology centres abroad and send our students to study at foreign universities. It is important to let them gain academic credits at foreign universities and take these into account here.

Our lecturers are at the same time academic advisors to our students, recommending them different subjects from other departments of the University of Tartu. Many courses which are taught at different departments here in Tartu are considered to be parts of anthropology or ethnology in other countries (e.g. Physical Anthropology, Linguistics, Archaeology, Folklore, etc.).

One of our main aims is to arrange ethnographic fieldwork for our students and supervise field sessions on contemporary methodological level. We can achieve this in co-operation with different local and international projects that contain ethnographic fieldwork. Last summer several ethnographic projects were carried out in Lake Peipsi area. They were organised by the Estonian National Museum (the Russian Old-Believers Project); by the Lake Peipsi Project and the Faculty of Social Sciences (the international anthropological project on the Russian and Estonian communities in Lake Peipsi area); and by archaeologists of the History Department (fieldwork in Setu villages on the Estonian side). The participants of these projects were the ethnology students of the History Department as well as sociology, folklore, and theology students and the researchers of the University of Tartu, the Estonian National Museum and the Estonian Literary Museum.

Our students can also continue to participate in various fieldwork trips of the Estonian National Museum. There have been many expeditions of museum researchers to different areas of Estonia and to Finno-Ugric peoples during the last decades. Our students are supervised by experienced specialists of Estonian and Finno-Ugric folk culture. But the main problem here is that many expeditions are not at the methodological level we consider to be contemporary. Ethnographic fieldwork methods are at present taught only by the Chair of Ethnology and we have to achieve an adequate level. We also have to find resources to obtain modern fieldwork equipment.

Other problems our department is facing, are mainly connected with the academic level of our scholarship. Estonian ethnology can be best understood by viewing it within the historical context. Estonian ethnology has primarily dealt with the material aspects of folk culture and ethnographic research has been characterised by historical realism. In the Soviet Union ethnography (ethnology) was above all viewed as a branch of history, a subdiscipline that dealt with human culture, especially its material aspects. Our ethnology has been largely untouched by the new currents in the study of culture, that emerged in the West after World War I. Now it is time to turn to contemporary scholarship in ethnology and cultural anthropology. We have to contribute to the transition from cultural history to cultural analysis within Estonian ethnology. We would like to introduce the current problems and methodological approaches in ethnology, strategies of doing fieldwork at the contemporary level. We can achieve this in co-operation with sociologists, anthropologists, folklorists, historians from several departments of the University of Tartu, museums and other scientific institutions. Maybe in the future we are strong enough to create a separate institute, which can unite ethnologists and anthropologists of the University of Tartu, the Estonian National Museum and other institutions.