Abstract
In this article I raise the question of the impact of handwritten songbooks on the formation of cultural identity. The research material consists of 28 songbooks created by 22 young Estonia-Swedes during the period 1861-1988. The songbooks contain both secular songs and spiritual songs mostly in Swedish and Estonian. I have closely read the songbooks and conducted interviews with people who know something about how the songbooks were created.
Theoretically, I place the songbooks on two musical pathways (Finnegan 1989), the secular song pathway and the spiritual song pathway. None of the songs in the books were written and primarily disseminated within the Estonian-Swedish community. Therefore, I place the creation of songbooks in a cultural borderland, where individuals have the opportunity to familiarise themselves with a foreign culture and see their own culture from a distance (Clifford 1992). Since musical pathways are situations where individuals meet, I perceive them as experienced communities where different imagined communities (Anderson 2016) are actualised through the songs.
My research shows how the songbook creators have reached cultural borderlands by following the two different song pathways. The songbooks created on the spiritual song pathway mainly contain song texts in Swedish. This indicates that the experienced community around the prayer houses in revival environments created bridges to imagined Christian, formed pan-Swedish communities through the songs.
Most secular songs in Swedish have not been transformed during their inclusion in songbooks. Therefore, I also perceive these songbooks as expressions of a pan-Swedish community. A few secular songs have been deliberately transformed during the transfer so that they express an imagined home-island or -village community instead of the pan-Swedish one.
Before 1918 the Estonia-Swedish community was a cultural minority in the Russian Empire and after 1918 a cultural minority in the Republic of Estonia. In the interwar period, Estonian songs were also included in the songbooks. Since most of the songs are relatively exact copies of popular songs that were disseminated through recordings and printed lyrics, I perceive them as expressions of ethnic convergence (Slobin & Ronström 1988).
Theoretically, I place the songbooks on two musical pathways (Finnegan 1989), the secular song pathway and the spiritual song pathway. None of the songs in the books were written and primarily disseminated within the Estonian-Swedish community. Therefore, I place the creation of songbooks in a cultural borderland, where individuals have the opportunity to familiarise themselves with a foreign culture and see their own culture from a distance (Clifford 1992). Since musical pathways are situations where individuals meet, I perceive them as experienced communities where different imagined communities (Anderson 2016) are actualised through the songs.
My research shows how the songbook creators have reached cultural borderlands by following the two different song pathways. The songbooks created on the spiritual song pathway mainly contain song texts in Swedish. This indicates that the experienced community around the prayer houses in revival environments created bridges to imagined Christian, formed pan-Swedish communities through the songs.
Most secular songs in Swedish have not been transformed during their inclusion in songbooks. Therefore, I also perceive these songbooks as expressions of a pan-Swedish community. A few secular songs have been deliberately transformed during the transfer so that they express an imagined home-island or -village community instead of the pan-Swedish one.
Before 1918 the Estonia-Swedish community was a cultural minority in the Russian Empire and after 1918 a cultural minority in the Republic of Estonia. In the interwar period, Estonian songs were also included in the songbooks. Since most of the songs are relatively exact copies of popular songs that were disseminated through recordings and printed lyrics, I perceive them as expressions of ethnic convergence (Slobin & Ronström 1988).
| Translated title of the contribution | Songbooks in cultural borderlands.: Communities in Estonia-Swedes' handwritten songbooks. |
|---|---|
| Original language | Swedish |
| Pages (from-to) | 63-92 |
| Number of pages | 30 |
| Journal | Etnomusikologian vuosikirja |
| Volume | 35 (2023) |
| Publication status | Published - 7 Dec 2023 |
| MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- musikaliska stigar
- kulturella gränsland
- handskrivna visböcker
- estlandssvenskar
- kulturell minoritet
- föreställd gemenskap
- pan-nationalism
- kulturell identitet