Ottessoni Roosi vanamesi jutud
The Folktales of Siberian Estonians in the Estonian Folklore Archives

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the folktales that were written down in villages of the Minusinsk region in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia by Rosalie Ottesson (1899-1979), an Estonian in Siberia and an informant and collaborator of the Department of Folklore, Estonian Literary Museum. The tales were written down in 1969-1976 when the tradition of telling folktales had more or less disappeared in Estonia. Ottesson, who grew up in a village community with a strong oral tradition, had heard folktales since her early childhood, first in the Estonian language, later in both Estonian and Russian. She translated the tales that she had heard in Russian into the Estonian language. It was only tens of years later that Rosalie Ottesson wrote down a majority of the folktales. Like many other collaborators of the folklore archives, she was simultaneously a storyteller and a collector of tales. Ottesson regarded her collaboration with the Department of Folklore both as her mission and a pleasant pastime. Despite the focus on collecting more archaic folklore in Estonia in the 1960s–1970s, the folktales written down by Ottesson should have attracted more attention of archive workers and researchers. The existing correspondence held in the archives suggests that although Ottesson’s rich knowledge of folklore was valued, she was often guided away from collecting folktales and was instructed to write down other types of folklore. It seems as if the workers at the Department of Folklore had felt that the time for collecting authentic folk tales was over and collecting secondary tradition was not important in the period at hand. The folklore department’s collecting strategies in the 1960s and 1970s were mostly aimed at recording the folklore of specific regions. Ottesson, however, chose to write down the folktales of Estonians in the region but noticed also those of her neighbours. The focus in these years was collecting primarily folklore texts and any additional notes or observations by the collectors were discouraged. For a modern-day researcher of folklore, however, collectors’ personal notes have turned into an invaluable source of help for understanding older folklore texts.

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