Minevikutõlgenduste ja ajakäsituste uurimine pärimusliku ajaloo vaatepunktist. Kahe temaatilise jutustuse näitel

• Main Author: Tiiu Jaago
• Format: Article
• Language: Estonian
• Published: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum 2004-01-01
• Series: Mäetagused
• Online Access: http://www.folklore.ee/tagused/nr27/jaago.pdf

In Estonia narrative history [pärimuslik ajalugu] as a field of study and research trend is internationally associated with concepts and trends known by keywords `oral history' and `ethnohistory'. Oral history deals mostly with popular interpretations of the near history and has sprung out of historical studies following the World War II. Ethnohistory is a folkloric approach to interpretations of the past, where the focus of study is narratives of earlier cultures in the recent past or of the ancient cultures. The article observes two written narrative threads from the recent past. The stories, one written in 1961 and the other one in 2001, describe the formation of an industrial region in Estonia in the 20th century. The turning point of the narrative is World War II and the change of ruling regime in 1941 and 1944 in Estonia. The first story was sent to the Estonian National Museum by a correspondent, while the other was sent in response to the collection of life stories and is preserved in the Cultural History Archives of the Estonian Literary Museum. Both stories are true experience narratives and include an evaluation in the context of narrative period. The main problem tackled in the article is the treatment of time and its manifestations in the analysed stories: how the authors have distributed the narrative events chronologically; how different periods (the time of events, time of narration) have affected the formation of narrative chronology; which factors affecting the interpretations and perceptions of the period become evident in the narratives. The texts are analysed on super, macro and micro level, whereas the main emphasis is on macro-structure (chronological markers, comments and transitions to new markers). The central conflict in both narratives lies in the topics related to the mores, ethics and things considered sacred, in the second narrative the issue of power is added. Comparison of the two narratives reveals that the time lapse has distanced the narrator from the event, but has added the experience from the years between, i.e. the aftermath of the events and narratives about them. The intensification of political colouring in the second narrative (written in 2001) is inspired by the 50 years of living in the Soviet Union, during the period between the events and the narrative act (1944-1991; including the period of Russianisation, political censure, etc.). The experiences have begun to shape the interpretations of the events as source facts and therefore the distance has introduced both the course of events as well as the narrative of thought to the narrative history.