Jaan Jõgeveri rahvaluuleloengud Tartu ülikoolis aastatel 1909-1911
Jaan Jõgever’s folklore lectures delivered at the University of Tartu in 1909-1911

Summary/Abstract: In Estonia, higher education in the vernacular became accessible in 1919. This was also the year when a folklore department was established at the University of Tartu, providing three-level education in folklore and enabling acquisition of both master’s and doctoral degrees. Previously (1803–1919) knowledge of Estonian culture had been transmitted to Tartu students by the lecturer of the Estonian Language. In 1909 Jaan Jõgever (1860–1924) was elected to the post. He did four lectures a week, one of which was dedicated to folklore, in particular to tale and song studies. The manuscripts of his lectures on folklore are kept at Tartu University Library as remarkable sources for the study of early teaching methods in the specialty as well as of Jõgever’s professional views. In the last quarter of the 19th century, intellectuals with an Estonian background made an effort to establish an Estonian professorship at Tartu University, but failed. So the intellectuals gathered in professional societies, creating a readiness for scientific research as well as for the development of independent disciplines. Jaan Jõgever was one of those who, despite his various livelihoods such as censor, schoolmaster, bookkeeper etc., took a deep interest in various issues of the Estonian language, literature, cultural history, and folklore. Having graduated from Tartu University as a Slavic philology major, he defended his Candidate’s dissertation (in Russian) providing a comparative analysis of Slavic and Finnish animal stories. In the late 1880s and early 1890s he was active in studying, collecting and publishing Estonian language materials as well as folklore, especially animal stories. And yet his true role in Estonian folklore studies has remained underexposed, being limited to mentions of his collecting folklore and publishing animal tales. Some slight attention has been paid to his merits in translating some texts important in the history of folklore studies. The lectures delivered by Jõgever in the 1910s indicate, on the one hand, that he was extremely well read in the studies of his contemporaries, and reveal, on the other hand, how persistently, based on his researcher character, he delved into the folklore subjects of his interest.

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