Fenno-Ugria at Paide Opinion festival 2024

Fenno-Ugria will participate in the Paide Opinion Festival in the area of Cultural Richness with a panel ‘The nation on the display window and on the stall’ on Saturday 10 August at 14.00-15.30.

The discussion will be held by Mare Mätas, a promoter of Kihnu culture; ethnologist Aimar Ventsel; heritage tourism entrepreneur Aivar Ruukel; a guide of the Sillamäe Museum Silver Sild; and project manager of Fenno-Ugria and a doctoral student at the University of Tartu Anna Kuznetsova. The panel will be moderated by Barbi Pilvre, Director of Fenno-Ugria.

The panel will focus on Finno-Ugric ethno-cultural activities in the new geopolitical context. If folklorisation and the link to the tourism industry are a way of preserving national cultures, should we welcome such developments, or should we oppose them? Is the revival of traditions for the sole purpose of exhibition or promotion the very means to preserve them, even if only as commercialised customs?