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ABSTRACT
This article focuses on an intriguing, but little-known, episode in the history of Estonian ethnography. During World War II, Estonian researchers had the opportunity to undertake two expeditions to study the Votians, close linguistic relatives, whom they had previously been unable to visit for political reasons. These expeditions took place with the permission and backing of German security and military authorities, which has raised the question of their collaboration. In this article, however, I argue that the research interests of Estonian ethnographers and the Nazi aims of racial studies overlapped only a little.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. In Estonia, the discipline concerned mainly with the material aspect of traditional peasant culture was called ‘ethnography’ until the 1990s. I use this term of the era instead of the present term ‘ethnology’
2. Ränk’s fieldwork diaries were recently published (Ränk Citation2023). Talve continued to keep a daily diary while on fieldwork. In 1990, he published part of his diary on the Votian expedition in Finnish translation (Talve Citation1990). The published text has been abridged somewhat but also includes explanatory notes. Ariste’s diary was published in 2005 together with his later Votian diaries (Ariste Citation2005).
3. Eesti Rahva Muuseum (Estonian National Museum, hereafter ERM) Fk 1004, 1007, 1008, 1009, 1049.
4. Edgar Kant to the Feldkommandantur, 20 October 1941, Rahvusarhiiv (Estonian National Archives, hereafter RA), EAA.2100.15.64, 17.
5. Report on the activities of Tartu University for the second semester of 1942 (9 May–15 July 1942), RA, EAA.2100.13.132, 66.
6. In Helsinki, Laid, together with Kustaa Vilkuna and Urho-Kaleva Kekkonen, organized the Estonian Bureau and served as its director until August 1944 (Erelt Citation1997, 467). Then Laid fled to Sweden, where he continued as an ethnologist and took an active part in the émigré community.
7. Talve would have gladly returned to Ingria but he had fled to Finland that spring to escape conscription into the Waffen-SS or Wehrmacht (Talve Citation1997b, 304).
8. Julius Mägiste was a professor of Baltic-Finnic languages at the University of Tartu whose research also dealt with the Izhorian and Ingrian Finnish dialects spoken in Estonian Ingria (see Saar Citation2015; Viitso Citation2000). Juhan Aul was engaged in physical anthropology. During the German occupation his academic career progressed rapidly. In July 1943, Aul became professor of the anthropology and racial studies chair established at the University of Tartu. That October, it became the Institute of Anthropology and Racial Science and Aul became its director. Aul did not himself share Nazi views on race but tried to leverage them for Estonian interests (for more on Aul and his studies, see Weiss-Wendt Citation2013; Kalling and Tammiksaar Citation2021, 37–41; Kalling and Tammiksaar Citation2022).
9. See ERM Fk 1049: 25, 26.
10. Estonia’s situation was somewhat similar to Finland’s in this respect. For Finnish wartime studies of eastern linguistic kin, see Pimiä (Citation2009).
11. Votian place names have never received official recognition and there is no consensus on their spelling. I base my spellings on the Votian dictionary (https://www.eki.ee/dict/vadja/). Ilmar Talve, Diary, 20 August 1942, ERM.
12. Ilmar Talve, Diary, 20 August 1942, ERM.
13. A bride’s dowry barrel.
14. Aul says he measured 330 people aged 19–45 (77 males and 253 females), including 142 Votians, 87 Izhorians, and 101 Russians (Citation1964, 120). The low number of adult men was probably due to the wartime conditions. Twenty-six measurements were taken from each individual, and the main emphasis was placed on data that ‘racially characterize’ people. 94 photographs were taken. See Ränk’s ‘Report of the Ingria expedition to the Head of Estonian Security Police and to the Directorate of Education of the Estonian Self-Administration,’ 19 September 1943, ERM Ak 5.4.8, 5.
15. Ilmar Talve, Diary, 3.–4.09.1942, ERM.
16. Adoption act no. 108, 30.09.1942, ERM.
17. ERM Ak 5.4.8, 5.
18. Ilmar Talve, Diary, 6.09.1942, ERM.
19. Hauptmann Siecora to Tartu University, 16 November 1942, RA, EAA.2100.15.59, 116.
20. Secretary to the Rector of Tartu University to Ränk and Ariste, 26 November 1942, RA, EAA.2100.15.59, 118.
21. Ariste to Hauptmann Siecora, 2 December 1942, RA, EAA.2100.15.59, 127, 129.
22. Ränk to the Rector of Tartu University, 2 December 1942, RA, EAA.2100.15.59, 128.
23. Die Front to Tartu University, 30 November 1942, RA, EAA.2100.15.59, 120.
24. Secretary to the Rector of Tartu University to J. Mark, J. Uluots, H. Sepp, G. Ränk, P. Ariste, A. Raun, L. Yllö, E. Markus, and A. Laasi, 9 December 1942, RA, EAA.2100.15.59, 123.
25. Ilmar Talve, Diary, 7 September 1942, ERM.
26. ERM B 45: 1–51.
27. ERM Fk 1007: 1–301; 1049: 1–149; ERM Fk 1009: 1–450; ERM Fk 1004: 1–152; ERM Fk 1008: 1–19. At some point in the Soviet period, probably in the 1950s, Ränk and Laid’s names as the photographers were obscured by tape on the back side of the photos. This was not deemed necessary for Talve, presumably because he was not that well known yet.
28. EJ 161: 1–57; EJ 163: 1–34; EJ 164: 1–4.
29. ERM Ak 5.4.5; 5.4.6; EKLA 404.47; ERM Ak 36.6.3.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Indrek Jääts
Indrek Jääts (Ph.D.) is an ethnologist educated at the University of Tartu in Estonia. His primary research interests are ethnicity, nationalism, and nationalities policy in eastern Europe, but his latest work has focused on the history of Estonian ethnology. He works at the Estonian National Museum as a senior researcher.