Reframing Sacred Natural Sites as National Monuments in Estonia: Shifts in Nature-Culture Interactions

Abstract

The article will discuss sacred natural sites as a traditional mode of framing nature within vernacular religion and landscape management, especially after extant traditional natural sites of worship and taboo have been reframed as national monuments to exemplify beliefs rooted in Romantic-era narratives about Estonian history. Sacred natural sites in Estonia offer an example of interplay between, on the one hand, vernacular traditions on sacred landscapes that have been passed on orally and by custom and, on the other hand, invented traditions consolidating a national identity. By now, invented traditions originating in the civil religion have become parts of the vernacular religion and are replacing the portion of vernacular oral traditions that are not perceived as relevant. In the process of nation-building, local lore has been codified and crystallised, subordinated to the national canon, supplanted by the national standard or forgotten.

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