„Meil oli Mihkel Mehka ja ta naise nimi Hipp“ – Hargla kihelkonna tunnuslikest eesnimedest

Siinses artiklis vaatlen Hargla kihelkonna isikunimistut, keskendudes piirkonna tunnusnimedele Mehka ja Hipp. Neist esimese järgi on tekkinud piirkonnanimi Mehkamaa ja ka etnonüüm mehkad piirkonna elanike tähistamiseks. Nimekasutuse uurimiseks koostasin Eesti Rahvusarhiivis säilitatavate Hargla kihelkonna kirikuraamatute põhjal eesnimekorpuse. Eelkõige analüüsin tunnusnimede ajalist ulatust lähtuvalt legendist, mille järgi Põhjasõja aegadel jäid piirkonda elama vaid Mehka ja Hipp ning Mõniste ümbruse rahvas pärineb suuresti sellest kooselust. Arhiiviallikad näitavad, et nimi Mehka ilmub kirikuraamatutesse alles 18. sajandi lõpus, kuid nimi võis olla varem kirikuraamatusse kirjutatud Mihklina. Eelmainitud legendi võib aga pidada kunstlikuks, mille levik on seotud eelkõige Mõniste muuseumiga, kus seda hakati tutvustama. Hargla kihelkonna üldine nimevaramu muutus aga käib kokku ühiskondlike muutustega 19. sajandi lõpukümnenditel ja sealt kadusid koos mitmete teiste toonaste tavaliste nimedega ka piirkonna tunnuseesnimed Mehka ja Hipp. Abstract. Taavi Pae: “We used Mehka instead Mihkel and his wife’s name was Hipp” – On the characteristic first names of Hargla parish. In this article, I analyse first names in the Hargla parish (Võru county in Southern Estonia), focusing on two historically typical first names for the region: Mehka and Hipp. The first of these has been used to identify the whole area (Mehkamaa) as well as an ethnonym (mehkad). The author compiled a firstname corpus based on the Hargla parish register kept in the Estonian National Archives. One motive for the analysis was to verify the folklore of only two people in the area – a Mehka and a Hipp – surviving the Great Northern War, with the full population of the area descending from this partnership. The archive materials indicate that Mehka appeared in the parish register only in the late 18th century. There are several references to the earlier use of that name, but in the parish record they were marked as Mihkel. Nonetheless, the ‘folklore’ can be considered artificial with its spread primarily related to the Mõniste Museum founded in 1957. The general change in the name system of Hargla parish coincided with the social changes in the late 19th century. The regional first names Mehka and Hipp disappeared and the names became longer and more German-like

Salme Nõmmik ja Eesti NSV majandusgeograafia - võimalused ja valikud

Salme Nõmmik and Estonian economic geography – possibilities and choices Erki Tammiksaar, Taavi Pae, Ott Kurs The becoming of Salme Nõmmik (1910-1988) an economic geographer was a coincidence of several favourable circumstances; in the first place, it was conditioned by the emigration of the academic personnel of the Republic of Estonia abroad in the fear of Soviet rule in 1944. In comparison with the general level of Soviet economic geography, she was in several scientific aspects more successful than her Russian colleagues, although she took up geographical science relatively late (she was 36). To reach such an academic level, Nõmmik greatly made use of the scientific legacy created in independent Estonia. Edgar Kant (1902-1978) who had an opportunity to work in a liberal society open for new ideas, was far ahead of his time. Criticizing Kant´s ideas ideologically, Salme Nõmmik managed to make use of the achievements of Kant - mathematical methods in economic geography - which took her among the classics of Soviet economic geography. As the direction in economic geography approved by the party at the beginning of the 1950s was not favourable for the investigation of administrative-economic regions and their sub-regions, supporting large and instead simple regions based on industry, Nõmmik did not become a pioneer in the application of mathematical methods in economic geography in the Soviet Union. As soon as the party changed its attitude and it was possible to study the regionalization of smaller territories, Nõmmik took up that work. The comparative material collected by Estonian geographers during the Republic of Estonia between two world wars was sufficient to be used effectively in establishing changes under socialism and prognosticating the developments. It, unfortunately, did not give results as 1) the Soviet government did not allow to use reliable statistical data neither from the period of the Republic of Estonia, nor from the Soviet period, 2) the building up of the state by regions of different types, following the party principles, was too artificial and rejected marketing laws, 3) objective restrictions in the use of mathematical methods, did not enable to comprehend completely the essence of geographical space. Although the Soviet society is part of the history, we have to accept that the system existed and required a methodological basis for its existence. One of the important fields warranting the existence of the Soviet rule was economic geography. That is why the investigations by Salme Nõmmik will in future also be referred to in Russia, where the state and power rested on regionalization for over 60 years