Laulik jutustab laulikust - Marie Sepa elulooesitused suulise ja kirjaliku kultuuri piiril
A singer telling the story of a singer’s life - The biographical ­presentations of Marie Sepp hovering on the border of oral and literary culture

Summary/Abstract: The first part of the article discusses the models and examples of vernacular life writing, including the copious material written down for the archives by Marie Sepp (1862-1943), a country woman from Kolga-Jaani in Central Estonia. Marie Sepp also wrote her own life history based on folklorists’ instructions. Her life history reflects the relational self, considered characteristic of a communal agrarian society and of female writers. The rest of her biographical materials represent the oral tradition of (auto)biographical narration, while many of the small stories can be categorised under genres of narrative folklore. Among these is the „life history” of Mari Pärtens (1832-1919), Marie’s close community member from the previous generation, which is combined from short narratives revealing the peculiarities of her personality. Marie’s recordings of traditional songs and customs, in which personal experience plays an unusually significant part, also contain recollections of the spectacular performances by Mari Pärtens. The second part of the article discusses the identity and performativity of Marie Sepp and Mari Pärtens as outstanding singers. While Mari Pärtens’s performances show premodern spontaneous ritual-carnivalistic performativity, Marie Sepp seems to have adopted modern models of self-control. In addition, their age determined the different roles and „acceptable” genres in the performances. By the 1930s, Marie Sepp had channelled her need to perform into an alternative creative activity – writing. One example of how her subjectivity was related both to communal oral as well as to modern individualistic models was her wish to have a funeral wreath placed on her grave. This nod of respect by the elite was also a way to establish Marie’s „face” in the community (e.g., Hofstede 2001).

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