Oral and Literary Culture in the Medieval
and Early Modern Baltic Sea Region:
Cultural Transfer, Linguistic Registers
and Communicative Networks (2011–2014)

This project will study the interactions of oral and literary culture around the Baltic Sea - in par-ticular in Finland, Estonia, Karelia and Ingria - from 1200 to 1700. The interdisciplinary research project will make use of folklore, literary studies, communications, and network research as well as ideological and social historical concepts.

The project will have three areas of focus:

• Assimilation and textualisation of vernacular and religious traditions
• Oral and written traditions and linguistic registers of interaction
• Communicative networks of the Baltic Sea region

The Latin and vernacular textual tradition of Universalist Church culture and various religious, linguistic and custom-associated localities will be approached in the context of textual, thematic, statistical, musicological, and prevailing metric analyses. Key research questions include:

• How was the idea of "Pagan Poetry" associated with the Estonians used in Latin-language and German written history and literary traditions? (Kaljundi)
• How was the Latin language hagiography tradition of Saint Henry transformed in the vernacular and how was it later contextualised through Lutheran orthodoxy? (Timonen, Lehtonen)
• How were universalistic eastern and western "high traditions" (Great Traditions, cf. Red-field), appropriated and converted into local "small traditions", for example in Finnish and Karelian vernacular versions of poetry, music, and biographies of saints? (Smith, Rocky, Timonen)
• How does written communication effect personal contacts with essential networks, and how are exchanges based on mutual trust relationships used to create immaterial capital? (Leskelä)

Finnish, Karelian and Estonian folk poetry, Latin literature of the region, images, language, and musical registers connected to paganism, and the communication networks controlled by Low German and old Swedish have not been previously studied as a whole. The project, therefore, will result in a new perspective on medieval and early modern culture in the Baltic Sea region.

Study Group

• Responsible Director: Associate Professor, General Secretary Tuomas MS Lehtonen
• Researchers: Irma-Riitta Järvinen (Folklore), Linda Kaljundi (History), Kati Kallio (Folk-lore), Ilkka Leskelä (Social History), Senni Timonen (Folklore)

Funding: The Academy of Finland 2011–2014 (hankenro 137906)

Siting: The Finnish Literature Society, Research

Researchers to participate in a collaborative network:

• Sverre Bagge, Centre for Medieval Studies, Bergen, Norja
• Thomas A. Dubois, University of Wisconsin, Masison
• Ruth Finnegan, Open University, London
• John Miles Foley, University of Missouri
• Tuomas Heikkilä, Helsingin yliopisto
• Kaisa Häkkinen, Turun yliopisto
• Kurt Villads Jensen, Etelä-Tanskan yliopisto, Odense
• Esko M. Laine, Helsingin yliopisto
• Tuija Laine, Helsingin yliopisto
• Marko Lamberg, Jyväskylän yliopisto
• Elena Melnikova, Venäjän tiedeakatemia, Moskova
• Leidulf Melve, Centre for Medieval Studies, Bergen, Norja
• Lars Boje Mortensen, Etelä-Tanskan yliopisto, Odense
• Marco Mostert, University of Utrecht
• Michael North, Univerisity of Greifswald
• Nils Holger Petersen, Kööpenhaminan yliopisto
• Lotte Tarkka (Helsingin yliopisto)
• Ülo Valk (Tartu Ülikooli)