Taara tammikud: ideaalse pühapaiga tung tekstist maastikule
How a sacred landscape migrates from a vision into the environment

Summary/Abstract: One of the shibboleths of Estonian culture is the widespread belief that “the holy tree of the ancient heathen Estonians was the oak” and that the principal natural holy site in the Estonian landscape must thus be an oak grove. There truly is an abundance of pre-Christian and/or non-Christian sacred sites in Estonia — holy groves, trees, springs, hills, creeks, rivers and lakes. But oak groves are remarkably rare among them. The concept of predominant oak groves dates back to the Estonian national revival in the 19th century. The oak-fetish apparently bled into the Estonian elite culture and was adopted as an important sign of Estonian national identity from the German culture in the 19th century, at a time when Estonian elite culture operated in the periphery of the wider German cultural space. The emblematic oak overshadows many non-oak sacred groves that can be found in Estonia and thus has proven to pose difficulties for those seeking to protect local natural sacred sites. Because of the predominance of the national mythology dating to the 19th and 20th centuries, oak sanctuaries are given more attention in contemporary Estonian culture than those that do not happen to have oaks growing in them. In the most everyday world, a sacred oak is depicted on the local currency — the Tamme-Lauri oak has assumed its place on the reverse of the Estonian ten-kroon banknote.

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