Siklódi Csilla szerk.: Tradicionális sportok, népi játékok (A Sportmúzeum Kincsei 2. Budapest, 1996)

Tradicionális sportok, népi játékok az észteknél (Marge Vaerv, Kalle Voolaid, Kaie Jeeser, Anu Sillastu)

Marge Värv - Kalle Voolaid - Kaie Jeeser - Anu Sillastu Trditional sports and games in Estonia Estonians have been farmers through centuries. Due to this, hard farm work has been an essential part of their everyday lives since childhood and little time has been left for entertainment. In spite of that, Estonians have preserved a rich selection of traditional games often played even nowadays. The fact that games have continued to exist so long can be explained by their connection with traditional holidays in the folk calendar. Traditional holidays were same from year to year and so were the traditional customs observed in certain days, e.g. straw was brought in at Christmas, Epiphany and St. Martin's Day, fire was made on Midsummer Day, sliding downhill was connected with Shrove Tuesday, etc. Observing these traditions helped to preserve the games connected with them. At the beginning of this century when some of the old customs started to die out, many of the games were forgotten as well. However, there have been people in Estonia who propagated these games. In Estonia the games (including also the folk games) have been studied mainly at the higher schools (Tartu University, Tallinn Pedagogical Institut), scientific institutions (the Estonian Language and Literature Institute, Tallinn-Tartu) and museums (the Estonian Literature Museum, Tartu), The Estonian National Museum, Tartu). The largest collection of described folk games we can find in the folklore archives of the Literature Museum, pictorial materials can be found also in the Estonian National Museum and the Estonian Sports Museum (Tartu). ( 1. picture) On among the first who collected and popularised the folk games in Estonia was Anna Raudkats (23. 02. 1886 - 12. 04. 1965). Anna Raudkats was among first gymnastic teachers who had higher education (in 1915 she finished Gymnastic Institute in Helsinki University). The main favour of Anna Raudkats has been collecting and describing the folk dances, but in the 30-ies she also wrote several books with the descriptions of games. In her gymnastic lessons she used both folk dances and folk games. In 1934-35 the first large collection of folk games took place under guidance of the Estonian National Museum and the Estonian Archives of Folklore as began preparations for scientific publication of the Estonian folk games. One initiator of this collection was Aleksander Kalamees (31. 07. 1897 - 08. 06. 1987). He graduated from the Berlin University of Physical Education in 1925 and worked at Tartu University. The photos that were made during the collection work are preserved in the Estonian Literature Museum's department of folklore and