ORAL HISTORY: MIGRATION AND LOCAL IDENTITIES - Academia

Migration and Narrationmoving to towns, or by joining the soon-to-happen large-scale emigrationto other provinces of Russia. 3As a result of different time layers, the general attitude in Estoniaindeed favours a sedentary lifestyle, as becomes evident also in thecurrently analysed web-course materials. This concerns local migrationand also the migration between states, and it is expressed in theuse of words. For instance, in the following sentence the word “harsh”coveys the speaker’s assessment of a person with a wandering lifestyle:“Maybe I am harsh, but such a person is never going to be a true local”.She adds that only a local person would keep his or her home place tidyand respect it, and that the home place preconditions a certain territorialtogetherness in the course of several generations.Further, some examples referring to how a sedentary lifestyleis valued and given preference in comparison with a mobile lifestyle.During the students’ communication circle in 2007 it was also claimedthat a hiidlane (Eng. “indigenous inhabitant of Hiiumaa island”; Hiiumaais the second largest island in Estonia) becomes a local once he orshe has been living on Hiiumaa for three generations: “Not that localsare hostile, but the psyche and specificities of hiidlane become intrinsicduring this period of time, I think.” This is a statement I have comeacross in different situations. For example, during a training course acouple of years ago, the trainer asked the company managers of Hiiumaawhat they would expect most from a young job-seeker during ajob interview. The answer: “That he or she is a hiidlane.” Well, yes, butbeside this? The answer: “That his or her parents would also be hiidlased...”(Eng. “indigenous inhabitants of Hiiumaa”). And this is how itremained to be.Another example I present about giving preference to a sedentarylifestyle concerns the characterisation of those who have come to livein Estonia. Two groups of such incomers have acquired a rather negativeevaluation and the third can be perceived as neutral: “those fromRussia who are looking for a better way of life” (i.e. those who havecome from the Easternmost areas of the Soviet Union); “businessmenwho have come here to make big money and phonies from Western743Regarding the demographic situation in Estonia see, in detail, Palli, 1998,pp. 27-30.