This issue of Pro Ethnologia 12, Latest Reports on Ethnology has been compiled from the reports given in the conferences of young ethnologists, called Ethnological Voices, held in the Estonian National Museum. The conference Ethnological Voices which has been organised since the year 1999, addresses undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as young researchers in ethnology and other relevant subjects. So far, the conferences have not concentrated on a specific topic, and their main aim has been to offer involvement opportunities necessary for the performance of young researchers. Therefore, initially, the organising committee did not set themselves the task of publishing the conference papers. After the second conference, however, I decided to make an attempt to publish a selection of conference papers in a separate edition. In addition to the conference reports, the present issue Pro Ethnologia 12 also includes a few more papers not directly related to the conference.
It has proved difficult to highlight researchers only because of their age. Instead, it would be better to find another reason for the publication of the volume. Consider, for example, the aspect of generation. Despite this fact, the authors published within this issue may not have the necessary links between their ideas, if scientific aspects are considered. Yet looking from an outside perspective, the authors have certain traits in common, an assumption, which can be controversial.
Most of the authors have attended Tartu University within the last decade (except Svetlana Karm who graduated from Izhevsk State University, the Udmurt Republic). I must also admit that there are some other authors who should be included in this issue. Yet, for whatever reasons, their papers were not received. Therefore, even if this issue is called the issue of the 1990s generation, it remains a limited selection, rather than a comprehensive overview of the young authors in the 1990s.
These authors have had an entirely different background, compared to their senior colleagues. They have had the experience of traveling around the world and studying in different universities abroad during their study period. Also, teaching ethnology in Tartu University has been much more profound and flexible in the 1990s than it was in previous times. Therefore, these researchers have had greater access to international contacts and a new environment, considering theoretical, as well as ideological aspects.
Despite the fact that the authors in this issue are not linked to one another by subject areas, they definitely are connected in other aspects, and this would be such as a more theory-centered approach, a search for internal underlying implicit structures within culture, as well as an emphasis on mental aspects of culture and mental attitude in general, all prescribed by the 1990s.
Svetlana Karm outlines the aspects of the Udmurt world view through the works of Bernit Munkicsi (18601937), a Hungarian researcher. Although Munkicsi was engaged in popularisation and a description of Udmurt traditional culture, he has remained the leading researcher into the Udmurt world view. A more detailed analysis of the Udmurts religious beliefs has then to be completed by other researchers in the future.
Liivo Niglas, in his article about the identity of the Yamal Nenets, analyses the special nature of the relationship between Nenets and reindeer. The article has been written in response to the workshop discussion Changing Ethnic Identities, published in Pro Ethnologia 10. The workshop was held within the 41st annual conference of the Estonian National Museum, called Cultural Identity of Arctic Peoples, held on 15 April 2000. One of the subjects discussed in the workshop was the idea of L. Niglas about reindeer being a basic factor of the Nenets world view. In this paper, he extends his ideas about the Nenets identity and responds to the criticism of the workshop.
Similarly, Laur Vallikivi focuses on the analysis regarding the culture of the reindeer herder Nenets. This article, based on the report delivered at the conference Ethnological Voices 3 deals with the challenges and problems concurrent with the integration into society of the Yamb-to Nenets group who had lived in social isolation until the 1990s. The author concentrates on what he regards might be interesting, namely on how adaptation to new circumstances takes place by way of conversion by a voluntary transition to the Baptist faith. He shows how this has affected everyday life, world outlook and social relationships.
Indrek Jts deals with the connections between the Komi nationalist movement and Russian Orthodoxy in the 19th century. He argues that a number of processes within nationalism may be, in principle, universal. The nationalist identity movement started in France in the 18th century and then moved on to other parts of Europe, and by the turn of the 20th century, the second wave of this also spread across the peripheral areas of Europe, including the Komi region. This paper concentrates on the report delivered within the conference Ethnological Voices 2.
Monika Rauba offers a fresh approach to the social changes in Vru County, Southern Estonia, since the 1980s. Rauba is suspicious of the attitudes suggested by the press and studies, arguing that the significant social and political changes of the 198090s have not brought about equally rapid transformation in the Estonian rural peoples world view. Rauba claims that a number of aspects of the new changed lifestyle were already part of the rural lifestyle in the Soviet period. The author has paid special attention to the farmers attitude to their life before and after Estonias becoming an independent country, i.e. in a kolkhoz and after the break-up of kolkhozes. This reveals that peoples lifestyles, attitudes and ways of life have not undergone significant changes. This paper is also based on the report delivered during the conference.
The issue concludes with Pille Runnels survey of home pages, a key element of the Internet, focussing on the home pages of young Estonians. She analyses the level of the individual, tracing the strategies used for making oneself visible in the Internet. In home pages, the author outlines the four main functions: orientation (home page as a source of information, notebook, archive), self-expression (means of entering a higher status), self-introspection, creativity.
The editors are grateful to the authors who participated in the conferences Ethnological Voices. We are also indebted to the Tartu NEFA group, as well as to everybody who has assisted the organisation of the conferences and publication of this issue. Finally, we thank our reviewers for their crucial contributions.
