Paul Ariste and the Veps Folklore

Abstract

The Vepsian folklore and language remained in the periphery of Paul Ariste's research subjects. Most of his fieldwork materials were destroyed in the 1965 fire, a small part of the collection is preserved in the Literary Museum (mostly folk songs, but also folk tales). P. Ariste has also published some of the Vepsian folk tales he collected (Vepsa muinasjutte (The Folk Tales of the Veps), Tallinn 1964). Paul Ariste's greatest contribution to the study of the Veps, both folklore and language, was his work at educating new gen- erations of researchers of the Vepsian folklore. Introduction: Infatuations, interests, research inclinations Some years ago two young Estonian folklorists E. H. Vastrik and M. Arukask completed a two-part documentary entitled The Two Loves of Paul Ariste. The title, however, is not completely cor- rect: he did not have just two loves, but two great loves, because the lively and curious academician had quite a number of aca- demic infatuations. These two that were addressed in the docu- mentary were Gypsies and Votians. However, in terms of aca- demic legacy these areas of study do not stand comparison. While the study of Votian language and folklore formed the most extensive and permanent part of Ariste's life's work, the Gypsy language and folklore is rather modestly represented in his bib- liography (Onga 2000). Infatuation, of course, is something that cannot be measured by the scope of articles or books. Regardless of the relatively short list of his articles on the Gypsy language and folklore, they still provide an interesting reading experience even decades later. The most important of the materials are folk- lore accounts and the published collection of folk tales. The pro- fessor also took pleasure in impressing Gypsies and others with his skills in speaking the Gypsy (Karma 1986). Interestingly enough, he made his first phonographic recordings of Gypsy lore among the Gypsy, who had been sent to East Estonia and whom