https://doi.org/10.7592/FEJF2017.67.saarlo REGILAUL IN THE POLITICAL WHIRLPOOL: ON COLLECTING REGILAUL IN NORTHEAST ESTONIA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 1950s Liina Saarlo Abstract: The article is dedicated to the history of the monumental regilaul publication Vana Kannel and examines the changing position of regilaul in the research politics of Soviet Estonia in the 1950s. The changing form of feldwork expeditions is dealt with, as the collection of regilaul was seen as a part of the preparation process of the publication. Concentrating on the series of feldtrips to Alutaguse region in the second half of the 1950s, objectives and details of feldwork are scrutinized to pinpoint the reasons for the failure of the endeavour. The fundamental question the article examines is the interaction between the dominating ideologies of research politics and the individual interests of folklore collectors. Keywords: academic source publication, feldwork, regilaul, research politics, singer, Soviet studies INTRODUCTION Since the nineteenth century, collecting and publishing regilaul, the old Esto- nian oral song tradition, has been one of the pillars of Estonian national move- ment, and one of the main building blocks in the construction of ethnic identity. Jakob Hurt (1839–1907), the leading fgure of Estonian national movement, initiator of nationwide folklore collecting in Estonia (see Jaago 2005), saw it as his mission to return to Estonians the collected folklore in the form of an academic publication series – Monumenta Estoniae antiquae. The frst part of this series, Vana Kannel (‘The Old Psaltery’), is a series of published regilaul corpora of Estonian parishes. The regilaul corpus from Alutaguse region (Jõhvi and Iisaku parishes), in the core of northeast Estonian folk song tradition, was published in volume VIII of Vana Kannel (Kokamägi & Tedre & Tuvi 1999). The history of collecting folklore is unique in each parish, containing episodes of collectors’ feldwork and collecting campaigns from different periods, and shaped by different ideologies and principles. Ülo Tedre, one of compilers of the eighth volume, wrote in the http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol67/saarlo.pdf