Immoral Obscenity: Censorship of Folklore Manuscript Collections in Late Stalinist Estonia

The history of folkloristics contains many cases of obscene materials that were excluded from field notes, books and archives. The Estonian Folklore Archives (founded in 1927) did incorporate dirty jokes, riddles and songs in its collection. Soviet occupation changed the topics of folklore scholarship and archival practices. Between the years 1945 and 1952, the Folklore Archives’ manuscript collections, catalogues and photographs were censored. Anti-Soviet texts were cut out or made unreadable. In the first years after the incorporation of the Republic of Estonia into the Soviet Union, anti-Soviet mainly meant politically sensitive materials such as jokes about Stalin, very patriotic texts or the names of some people. During the beginning of the 1950s, stricter rules were applied and obscene texts were also censored. In this article, I will focus on the censorship of obscene words and motifs and the political dimension of moralistic censorship in a totalitarian state

Ettevõtte finantsanalüüs Karupesa Hotell OÜ näitel

http://www.ester.ee/record=b4428282~S1*es

Higher Education in Estonia

The current publication is the fourth edition of Higher Education in Estonia. The first edition was compiled in collaboration with the Estonian Ministry of Education in 1998, the second and the third (revised) edition appeared in 2001 and 2004 respectively. The publication is an information tool for all those concerned with higher education in its international context. It contains information about the Estonian higher education system and the higher education institutions, meant primarily for use by credential evaluation and recognition bodies, such as recognition information centres, higher education institutions and employers

Uhkus ajab upakile: kalamehe ja ta naise (ATU 555) soovidemaailm

http://tartu.ester.ee/record=b2638905~S1*es

Ropp ja riigivastane: rahvaluulekogude tsenseerimisest Eestis hilisstalinismi perioodil

http://tartu.ester.ee/record=b2659131~S

Inventing a herbal tradition: The complex roots of the current popularity of Epilobium angustifolium in Eastern Europe

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Currently various scientific and popular sources provide a wide spectrum of ethnopharmacological information on many plants, yet the sources of that information, as well as the information itself, are often not clear, potentially resulting in the erroneous use of plants among lay people or even in official medicine. Our field studies in seven countries on the Eastern edge of Europe have revealed an unusual increase in the medicinal use of Epilobium angustifolium L., especially in Estonia, where the majority of uses were specifically related to “men's problems”. The aim of the current work is: to understand the recent and sudden increase in the interest in the use of E. angustifolium in Estonia; to evaluate the extent of documented traditional use of E. angustifolium among sources of knowledge considered traditional; to track different sources describing (or attributed as describing) the benefits of E. angustifolium; and to detect direct and indirect influences of the written sources on the currently documented local uses of E. angustifolium on the Eastern edge of Europe. Materials and methods: In this study we used a variety of methods: semi-structured interviews with 599 people in 7 countries, historical data analysis and historical ethnopharmacological source analysis. We researched historical and archival sources, and academic and popular literature published on the medicinal use of E. angustifolium in the regions of our field sites as well as internationally, paying close attention to the literature that might have directly or indirectly contributed to the popularity of E. angustifolium at different times in history. Results: Our results show that the sudden and recent popularity in the medical use of E. angustifolium in Estonia has been caused by local popular authors with academic medical backgrounds, relying simultaneously on “western” and Russian sources. While Russian sources have propagated (partially unpublished) results from the 1930s, “western” sources are scientific insights derived from the popularization of other Epilobium species by Austrian herbalist Maria Treben. The information Treben disseminated could have been originated from a previous peak in popularity of E. angustifolium in USA in the second half of the 19th century, caused in turn by misinterpretation of ancient herbals. The traditional uses of E. angustifolium were related to wounds and skin diseases, fever, pain (headache, sore throat, childbirth), and abdominal-related problems (constipation, stomach ache) and intestinal bleeding. Few more uses were based on the similarity principle. The main theme, however, is the fragmentation of use and its lack of consistency apart from wounds and skin diseases. Conclusions: Historical ethnobotanical investigations could help to avoid creating repeating waves of popularity of plants that have already been tried for certain diseases and later abandoned as not fully effective. There is, of course, a chance that E. angustifolium could also finally be proven to be clinically safe and cost-effective for treating benign prostatic hyperplasia, but this has not yet happened despite recent intensive research. Documented traditional use would suggest investigating the dermatological, intestinal anti-hemorrhagic and pain inhibiting properties of this plant, if any

Virtual Cellar of the Estonian Literary Museum: the Challenges of the Open Access in the Digital Era

Poster at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014Posters, Demos and Developer "How-To's"Estonian Literary Museum (ELM) was compiled in 1940 by Soviet authorities on the basis of four former archives forming part of the Estonian National Museum: Estonian Cultural History Archives, Estonian Folklore Archives, Archival Library, and the Estonian Bibliography Institution. Nowadays ELM is a state research institution combining various research groups and archives. The systematic digitization of the collections of the ELM started in 1990s; at the same time, various databases containing the content information and metadata were compiled, following the needs of different research groups. Since mid-nineties the percentage of born-digital materials has grown exponentially. In 2010, an online file repository and archival information system KIVIKE (acronym for the Virtual Cellar of the ELM) was established in order to preserve and manage all the digital collections and the information on all the archival collections of the ELM in one system. KIVIKE is a tool for archivists, researchers, and general public. The presentation will cover the opportunities and problems that have arosen when disclosing the data from a real archival cellar to a virtual one. One of the challenges has been the dichotomy between the open access principle and the protection of the rights of the donators.Sarv, Mari (Estonian Literary Museum, Estonia)Kulasalu, Kaisa (Estonian Literary Museum, Estonia