Diasporaa eestlaste maastikest

• Main Author: Aivar Jürgenson
• Format: Article
• Language: Estonian
• Published: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum 2012-04-01
• Series: Mäetagused
• Subjects: diaspora; adaptation; landscape; migration; Estonians in exile
• Online Access: http://www.folklore.ee/tagused/nr50/jyrgenson.pdf

The article focuses on an Estonian migrant’s view of the landscape, its specificity and change through the migration process. The change of the homeland is analysed as a cultural rapture. Physical relocation also brings along changes in the social and historical-cultural environment. The author investigates how the change of the homeland is expressed in terms of the landscape – which strategies are used in depicting foreign landscapes and how a foreign landscape is turned into a home, and also examines whether and how migrants attempt to compensate for the changes and preserve cultural continuity. The article dwells upon how the landscape reflects the different phases of the migrants’ adaption period, and talks about home landscapes as well as foreign ones and their comparison in the migrants’ stories. It also discusses in what relationship the landscapes of the old and new homelands are for different generations of migrants.As the Estonian diaspora is geographically wide, comprising almost all the continents, the text excerpts used are also collected in different countries. Most of the material comes from the letters written by the migrants. These letters have been sent from Siberia, Caucasus, South- and North America or Australia and have been published in the press. The letters are complemented by interview texts from the author’s fieldwork trips to Estonian diaspora groups.