“Stalin is a wise man, Lenin was a little bird.” On Creating Soviet Folklore in the Seto Region during the Stalin Era

Abstract

The article focuses on the creation of songs about Soviet leaders and topical political issues by traditional singers of Setomaa (which is situated on either side of the border between south-eastern Estonia and Russia) during the Stalinist period. The first half of the article deals with the establishing of the concept and practices of creating folklore in the Soviet Union and the adaptation of these in occupied Estonia in the 1940s and 1950s. The cooperation of the singers and folklorists is analysed from the perspective of the “topography of the possible” in the context of a Soviet colonial matrix of power and the modernisation of Seto traditional culture, also including the oral singing tradition and gender roles. In addition to these general processes, details of particular singers’ individual experiences are also considered. The analysis of the song texts using the method of close reading focuses on religious and lament motifs, hyperbole, and the “incorrect” interpretations, the latter being based on the traditional religious worldview of the Seto as well as on formulaic language, which diverges from “normative” ideological discourse. The publishing history of the political songs is interpreted from the perspective of cultural appropriation.