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E-book
Author Kalmre, Eda, 1958-

Title The Human Sausage Factory : a Study of Post-War Rumour in Tartu
Published Amsterdam : Editions Rodopi, 2013

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Description 1 online resource (185 pages)
Series On the Boundary of Two Worlds: Identity, Freedom, and Moral Imagination in the Baltics ; v. 34
On the Boundary of Two Worlds: Identity, Freedom, and Moral Imagination in the Baltics
Contents Cover; Title Page; Copyright Page; Table of contents; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Tracing an old horror tale; Rumour and the post-war period in Tartu; Rumours in retrospect; Rumours and legends -- truth, ideology and interpretation; The sources and nature of this book; Chapter 1 -- Narratives about consuming human bodyparts as a folkloric and socio-historical phenomenon; Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century predecessors; Chapter 2 -- The legend of the sausage factory: post-warimages of violence and evil; A secret room or chamber
The milkmaid enticed into the ruins in broad daylight and thechild sent to deliver a letterInformants' performance strategies: the limits of understandingand mediating violence; Conclusion; Chapter 3 -- The folklore of the split society: rumoursof cannibalism in post-war Estonia; Some views of the different features of ethnocentrism; Creation of the figure of the adversary and possible symbolicsemantic models relating to the sausage factory story; Estonians and others; Estonian versus Estonian; Estonian versus Jew; Conclusion
Chapter 4 -- The sausage factory rumour: foodcontamination legends and criticism of the Soviet(economic) systemFingernails in jellied meat: reality or fabrication?; The story of Paul Saks; Taboos against discussing the Siege of Leningrad; Sausage factory rumours: a criticism of the Soviet (economic)system?; The sausage factory rumour: aggression and control; Legend and humour; Chapter 5 -- On the reception of the sausage factorystory today; Legends: a source of memoirs and biographies; On the content, structure and means of describing the Tartunarratives
The 'forbidden city' and forbidden memoriesThe sausage factory rumour as part of the identity of thepre-war generation; When survival becomes ordeal: informants' answers; The first narrator -- female engineer with Christian views; The second narrator -- farm girl and town official; The third narrator -- construction worker and chronicler; The fourth narrator -- chauffeur and bookseller with an interestin culture; They might come back -- the story without an ending; Chapter 6 -- Rumour as a metaphor for social truth; Notes; List of illustrations; Archival sources
Interviews, correspondence, manuscript biographiesBibliography; Index
Summary Under certain conditions, some rumours, which were established as part of folklore already long ago, may become fixed in the memory and the subconscious of several generations. This is what happened with the rumour about a human sausage factory after the Second World War. In Tartu, Estonia, this rumour obtained a symbolic meaning and power due to the politics of the totalitarian Soviet regime. The memories of the post-war period are still vivid in the collective mind, and the onetime rumour of sausage factories incorporates the population's tensions, pain, loss, choices, defiance and irreconci
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 160-172) and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject World War, 1939-1945 -- Estonia -- Tartu -- Folklore
Folklore -- Estonia -- Tartu
Cannibalism -- Estonia -- Tartu -- Folklore
Sausages -- Estonia -- Tartu -- Folklore
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Folklore & Mythology.
Cannibalism
Folklore
Sausages
Estonia -- Tartu
Genre/Form History
Folklore
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2013474460
ISBN 9789401209731
9401209731