international cooperation anna bërzkalne
rita treija
Cooperation among professional folklore researchers is a considerable issue for the history of the discipline. In the 1920s and 1930s, the most noteworthy Latvian partner in the then existing international collaboration network was Anna Berzkalne (1891—1956). She was a representative of the historic-geographical method in Latvian folkloristics. Anna Berzkalne was very enthusiastic about providing Latvian folklore materials to researchers abroad. She in return also received support to her studies and research. Keywords: Anna Berzkalne, Latvian folkloristics, history of international folkloristics.
Sodelovanje med poklicnimi raziskovalci folklore je pomembno vprašanje v zgodovini discipline. V20. in 30. letih 20. stoletja je bila v Latviji v mednarodnih stikih najopaznejša Anna Berzkalne (1891—1956). Bila je predstavnica zgodovinsko-geografske metode v latvijski folkloristiki. Anna Berzkalne je latvijsko folklorno izročilo z navdušenjem posredovala tujim raziskovalcem, prav tako pa je bila tudi sama deležna podpore pri svojem raziskovanju. Ključne besede: Anna Berzkalne, latvijska folkloristika, zgodovina mednarodne folkloristike.
Although very rarely mentioned in the historiography of Latvian folklore studies until quite recently, international collaboration played an essential role in the inter-war period. The aim of this article is to reveal the cooperation between the Latvian folklorists and their colleagues abroad, thus illuminating the impact of this collaboration on the history of the discipline. This link will be explored by focusing on Anna Berzkalne's contribution to this process as well as her gains from it.
ANNA BËRZKALNE
Anna Berzkalne (1891—1956) was one of most educated Latvian women of her time. She was the first Latvian folklorist who earned her academic degree in folklore studies. For over ten years, Anna Berzkalne was an external student of the University of Tartu and worked on her doctoral dissertation The Song of the Youth who Died in Sorrow: Its Primary Form and Latvian Versions under the leadership of Professor Walter Anderson. she was a Latvian ambassadress and an apologist of the historic-geographical method or so-called Finnish school. Above all, Anna Berzkalne is remembered and respected for her role in compiling the Archives of Latvian Folklore (1924). Being a pioneer in many aspects, she is an outstanding figure in the history of Latvian folkloristics. The
DOI: 10.3986/Traditio2011400311
TRADITIONES, 40/3, 2011, 157-168
most productive period of her professional life was between the two world wars, during the 1920s and 1930s. unfortunately, this significant person belonged to the cluster of intellectuals who were passed over in silence during the Soviet period, a practice characteristic of the time.1
Anna Bërzkalne in the 1920s.
1 Anna Berzkalne belonged to the "bourgeois scholarship" generation that was oppressed for the biassed reasons during the Soviet regime.
Anna Berzkalne's scholarly heritage, as far as printed publications are concerned, is rather sparse. being noticeably self-critical and conscious of the responsibility that the printed word carries, Berzkalne never hurried to publish her studies. Her style was, first and foremost, to bring her ideas to maturity and develop textual output to some kind of technical perfection. Only afterwards would she have considered the issue of publication. However, her studies that were published are very significant for the history of Latvian folkloristics. In addition, a decent number of popular-science articles by Anna Berzkalne served to introduce both wide circles of Latvian intelligentsia and other daily and weekly press readers to folklore as a new study object in its various manifestations.
In 1947, Anna Berzkalne herself decided to summarize her written works, both published and unpublished, in a special list, "Register of Studies" (LUAB R Annas Berzkalnes f. 13, 14.) The folklorist's bibliographical list was made up by 52 units in total — 32 published and 20 unpublished works (in manuscript and typescript).
Among the most notable works in Berzkalne's compendium, one must underscore the brochure entitled Basic Concepts of Folk Poetry (Berzkalne 1937) that was addressed to schoolchildren (main collectors of Latvian folklore in 1920s and 1930s); "Type Index of Latvian Folk Ballads" in K. Baron's Collection 'Latvju Dainas' that was published in Finland in the Folklore Fellows Communications series ("Typenverzeichnis lettischer Volksromanzen in der Sammlung Kr. Barons' Latvju Dainas') (Berzkalne 1938), and the book entitled The Song of the Youth who Died in Sorrow (Berzkalne 1942), her thesis in Latvian (the text of the dissertation was English).
As head of the Latvian Folklore Archives, Anna Berzkalne developed and managed to publish a number of methodological instructions and questionnaires for collectors of folk traditions and place names. There were several publications that discussed the Latvian Folklore Archives' goals and objectives as well as reports on the recent number of folklore units included in the Archives' collection (Berzkalne 1925, 1927). In the article entitled "Folk Poetry and Literature" (Berzkalne 1930), she referred to the use of folklore in European literature. At the same time, she encouraged students and academics to dare to focus on folklore research.
A fair amount of Anna Berzkalne's intellectual capacity was devoted to the keen effort of introducing the Latvian audience to international scholarship as well as to Finnish folkloristics. "It became my necessity — to show my people that there was some other sense to its collected treasures besides being nicely bound and arranged on bookshelves," she declared frankly in the presentation of her dissertation in 1942 (LUAB R Annas Berzkalnes f. 12, 2.).
Via Izglïtïbas Ministrijas Menešraksts and Latvju Grdmata, well-known local journals, Anna Berzkalne presented to Latvian readers research on Finnish and Estonian folklore. In this way Latvians were given a chance to acquaint themselves with the studies of the prominent Walter Anderson (1925), Antti Aarne (1921), and Kaarle Krohn (1930). she also reviewed the latest works of foreign colleagues (Berzkalne
1926a, b, 1928) and, with a perceptible spirit of competition, shed light on their achievements and the most important disciplinary events abroad (Berzkalne 1926c, 1931, 1935).
Over the years, Berzkalne tried to keep in touch with the international community of folklorists. From 1927 until 1938, she provided information on the latest Latvian publications in folklore and ethnography to the publisher Walter de Gruyter & Co in Berlin, who published the Ethnographic Bibliography (Volkskundliche Bibliographie). However, the main form of communication with the international community was personal, via postal correspondence.
REQUIREMENTS OF METHOD
In 1920s and 1930s, folkloristics in Latvia developed as an independent scholarly discipline and saw its institutional foundation. Anna Berzkalne was very much at the heart of this enterprise. Among other things, she was involved in the network of the international scholarly society, being nearly the only representative of international folkloristics in Latvia and an outspoken one at that. A comparative course (the "Finnish way") was one of the dominant approaches to folklore research of the time, and it was advocated as well by Anna Berzkalne. For Berzkalne, the substance of a serious folklore study free from dilettantism was the comparison of similar folklore texts both in Latvian and in other languages, far and near. In this manner, the question of a text's origin could be answered. Following the comparative paradigm, she regarded every folk culture phenomenon as international and always searched for its wider historical and geographical context. Many of her colleagues worked abroad in a similar manner. If one were asked to indicate the single most important characteristic of practitioners of international folkloristics, it would be their unswerving commitment to a comparative perspective. Unlike folklorists who are content to restrict themselves to local, regional, or even national traditions, the internationally minded scholar is ever seeking to relate such traditions to a wider context. Whether the goal is to identify similarities or to distinguish differences across cultures, the quest to find cognates— that is, genetically-historically related versions of a given item—is the hallmark of the truly international folklorist. (Dundes 1999: 25) Anna Berzkalne's ideals of folklore research were formed during her studies at the Higher Women Courses in Kazan, Russia (1913—1917), where she was introduced to the historic-geographical method (the so-called Finnish school) by Professor Walter Anderson. Since then, the method's charisma constantly followed Anna Berzkalne. Despite the fact that her published studies could not outnumber those of some of her closest colleagues, Berzkalne's contributions were scrupulously elaborated as she tried
to apply the historic-geographical method faultlessly to every detail. Anna Bërzkalne was the only Latvian folklorist who has consistently complied with the principles of the Finnish school.
Bërzkalne's ultimate authority in folklore research was Walter Anderson and, hand in hand, the Finnish folklorists. One must underscore Kaarle Krohn's impact in this regard, since the Finnish standard was taken into account both when establishing the Latvian Folklore Archives and when managing its daily activities. As folklore researcher Dace Bula has correctly pointed out: the Latvians would hardly have the abundant folklore archives if Anna Bërzkalne had not implemented ideas and work methods drawn from the worldwide recognized historic-geographical method (Bula 2006: 67).
As Alan Dundes notes, Finland undoubtedly was the country where international folkloristics had flourished the most (Dundes 1999: 37). International cooperation among folklorists was a logical result of the historic-geographical method. Complying with the Finnish school, the prospective folklore studies predicted gathering as many text variations as possible of a wide area. The international collaboration to a certain extent solved the problem of logistics that was a fundamental stumbling block of the method. Alan Dundes explicitly raised this issue:
Very few libraries contain a sufficient sampling of folklore collections worldwide to permit ambitious comparative studies. It may take several years to complete a full-fledged historic-geographical study (to locate all extant texts, translate them, carry out the trait breakdown of every text, and determine subtypes, the archetype, and possible paths of diffusion), and few students of folklore are willing or able to commit that much time and energy to a project of this scope. (Dundes 1999: 40) Thus, all the folklorists doing comparative research were more or less involved in the international network and received help from their colleagues abroad.
FOLKLORISTS IN CIRCLES
The private documentations of comparative students reveal that there were clusters of professional partners of varying size, all of them necessary for the routine of research. The folklorists have not only provided each other with folklore materials and field literature, but they also confided in each other about their plans and difficulties, encouraged each other, gave each other professional advice, helped each other by proofreading, and so on. In addition, the scholarly communication was indispensable for learning about field novelties directly from those who knew the scene in some or other country. Exchanging letters represented a substantial part of folklorists' professional activities, and existing archival evidence demonstrates that grand disciplinary figures had even hundreds of corresponding acquaintances at home and abroad (for instance,
Kaarle Krohn (the Finnish Literature Society), or John Meier (German Archive of Folk Song) have imposing lists of correspondents).
Writing and reading letters was on Anna Berzkalne's daily schedule, as well. As director of the Archives of Latvian Folklore (1924—29), she was responsible for maintaining relations with numerous folklore collectors from all parts of the country, which took a considerable amount of time. Moreover, via letters she corresponded vivaciously with field counterparts from Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Italy and other countries. Anna Berzkalne was very enthusiastic about providing Latvian folklore materials of different genres to folklore researchers and other interested persons from abroad. Both prominent experts of the discipline as well as beginners in the field experienced her collegiate and truly unselfish assistance. Letters by 43 correspondents of folkloristic circles in total are kept in Anna Berzkalne's fund at the Academic Library of the University of Latvia (LUAB R Annas Berzkalnes f. 3.-8.). All these persons had either received the information they needed for their studies or helped the Latvian folklorist by forwarding variants of the ballad she researched. Subsequently, there is a coterie of foreign folklorists (Anderson, Loorits from Tartu, Krohn from Helsinki, Meier, Seemann from Freiburg, Balys from Kaunas, Grüner-Nielsen from Copenhagen, Wikman from Turku) among the many names Berzkalne mentioned with gratitude in the preface of her monograph (Berzkalne 1942: 3-4). In the 1920s and 1930s, Anna Berzkalne was involved in the peer network of European folklorists, and in this way she endeavored to support other folklorists while she also received great support for her doctoral research from the international scholarly society. Within this group, she maintained particularly close cooperation and personal friendship with Finnish folklorists Kaarle Krohn and Elsa Enäjärvi-Haavio, Oskar Loorits from Estonia, Baltic-German Walter Anderson and John Meier from Germany.
COLLABORATION CLOSE-UP
To gain appropriate insight into cooperation among folklorists, it is worth examining Anna Berzkalne's correspondence with the Estonian folklorist Oskar Loorits (19001961). The correspondence available for examination is a valuable collection of 334 letters written in German, Russian, English, Latvian, and Estonian between 1923 and 1943. Anna Berzkalne's letters are being kept by the Estonian Cultural History Archives and the Estonian Literary Museum (KM EKLA, f. 175), while the holders of the majority of Oskar Loorits' letters is the Academic Library of the University of Latvia Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books (LUAB R Annas Berzkalnes f. 7., 1.-134). The letters of the two neighboring folklorists may be regarded as testimonies of their private and professional biographies as well as a part of the history of the discipline, especially in the context of international folkloristics.
Anna Berzkalne's and Oskar Loorits' biographies show several similarities. Both contemporaries were professionally educated folklorists, both were students of professor Walter Anderson, and to a definite extent both were acquainted with the historic-geographical folklore research method. Both Anna Berzkalne and Oskar Loorits founded and managed unitary folklore archives (Eesti Rahvaluule Arhiiv, the Estonian Folklore Archive in Tartu was established in 1927, whereas the Archive of Latvian Folklore was the pioneer in the Baltic states, having been founded in 1924). Berzkalne's and Loorits' correspondence was based primarily on their professional interests; however, they also represented a private "conversation" between two good friends providing each other support and encouragement.
Annas Berzkalnes's pen-pal Oskar Loorits was born in Köpu, the Southern part of Estonia. In 1919, he entered the University of Tartu, and initially his research fervor was focused on the Estonian language. However, after his first period of fieldwork in the Livonian villages in Latvia (Loorits accompanied his professor Lauri Kettunen, the Finnish linguist), Loorits decided to turn to folklore studies, to which he then dedicated his life. In the same way, he never lost his interest in the Livonian people, a small Finno-Ugric minority of Latvia. Loorits received a grant for his doctoral studies from 1923 until 1927, yet he defended his dissertation on the Livonian beliefs already in 1926, thus becoming one of the youngest doctors in the history of Estonian humanities (Tedre 1995: 458).
Although Berzkalne's and Loorits' academic framing seems similar, they actually walked different paths. This may be attributed to differences in personal temperament; at the same time, the gender role is not to be underestimated.2 Loorits' folkloristic career was very dynamic and successful. He was not only the founder and director of the Estonian Folklore Archives, but also a university lecturer and a very prolific author of scholarly publications (36 books and approximately 200 articles). Skeptical about the historic-geographical method, Loorits nevertheless applied it to some degree while gathering and systematizing folklore materials. However, his primary approach was historical-ethnological, and he fluently combined methods from philology, cultural history, psychology, aesthetics, and sociology, thus preferring "the vertical study of ideas and phenomena to the theory of borrowed motifs and so-called horizontal research" (Västrik 2005: 208). Despite their different standpoints (for instance, Berzkalne never rushed to publish her studies unlike Loorits who used to avoid any hesitation), the two former students of Walter Anderson retained their friendship long-lasting, mutually encouraging and full of life.
Anna Berzkalne's letters to Oskar Loorits and her overall biography confirms the tendency towards the latent gender discrimination in the academic circles of Riga. Therefore, in this light, the recent disciplinary history proposal by Professor Ulrika Wolf-Knuts is definitely considerable: "Or, why not concentrate on the role of women in folklore scholarship?" (Wolf-Knuts 2010: 7)
2
Anna Berzkalne's letter to Oskar Loorits. December 18, 1939. KM EKLA, f. 175, m.: 9, 1, 34/34.
There are quite a few issues in Berzkalne's and Loorits' correspondence concerning the disciplinary topics of their time, including archival work; carrying out doctoral theses; recently intended scholarly publications; journeys and fieldwork; and academic life in Tartu and Riga. The letters between Anna Berzkalne and Oskar Loorits were exchanged with varying intensity over the years (thus, for instance, one letter in 1940 and 20 letters in 1933). Their correspondence was most intense in two periods: 1926—1927
and 1932—1937. The primary reasons for this increase include the need for new Latvian or Estonian folklore materials, miscellaneous research and archival work issues, as well as sporadic matters of everyday life. Thus, one can find the main occurrences of a folklorists' professional career well reflected in this correspondence. Youthfully enthusiastic, the Latvian and Estonian folklorists helped and encouraged one another in the field to which they both belonged. One would not exaggerate if one characterized their letters as documents of professional and private support. For example, since the Archives of Latvian Folklore was founded earlier, Anna Bërzkalne had some useful experience to share with Oskar Loorits:
Your intention is to start with EFA3 work the right way. If only you could acquire the means to hire an assistant and start to work, the chance to continue will follow little by little, and the classy gentlemen will have to consider you, i.e., the archives. It was similar with our Archives, for we started with almost nothing. (KM EKLA, 175. f., m.: .., 38/50)
The output of Loorits' doctoral dissertation and the succeeding monograph Livonian Folk Beliefs (Liivi rahva usund; Loorits 1926—1928) were the focus of the first period of intense correspondence. In turn, Anna Bërzkalne's external doctoral studies and the elaboration of her doctoral work was the centre of attention during the second period. Through all the years of correspondence, both pen-pals kept proofreading and reviewing each other's papers as well as more voluminous texts of future publications.
Being particularly close associates, the pen-pals mutually confided in each other their subjective assessments of the local scholars and science officials. It is worth mentioning that each of them, to a certain extent, stood outside the conformist circles of Riga and Tartu. Such opposition represented a strategic risk. Especially Anna Bërzkalne faced unfair actions as well as stagnant indifference towards her folkloristic work (an unfair dispute with an administration official even led to losing her post at the Archives in 1929). It is thus not a surprised that a great deal of irony or even sarcasm can be found in both Bërzkalne's and Loorits' statements. Commenting on intrigues and disagreements, Anna Bërzkalne used the designations "fathers" (Russian om^bl) and "gentlemen" (German Herren), whereas Loorits' adversaries got the label "the geese" (German Gänse). (See KM EKLA, f. 175, m.: .., 4/5; 51/66 a. o.4) For Anna Bëzkalne, "the promised land" of the discipline was Finland. Thus, the polarization of Riga and Helsinki expresses itself in her epistolary compositions. On the 16th of November, 1924, she used very bitter words to characterize her hometown: "I am very glad that you can already work in Helsingfors. You must be doing well and feeling better than in our deserted, rigid, envious Riga" (KM EKLA, f. 175, m.: .. 5/7).
3	EFA - the Estonian Folklore Archives.
4	Anna Bërzkalne once mentioned even "fat and half-fat professors" (German fette und halbfette Professoren) that had caused many problems for the Archives (KM EKLA, f. 175, m.: .., 45/57).
Anna Berzkalne's and Oskar Loorits' interaction was very frank and went beyond political correctness. Loorits' distinct activities regarding the Livonian minority and the consequences of his actions in the 1930s are indicative of this. Loorits did not avoid criticizing Latvian politicians for their policy towards his protégé folk, actions that, after all, led to notable diplomatic complications between Latvia and Estonia. Anna Berzkalne tried to calm her hotheaded friend (KM EKLA, f. 175, m.: .., 50/64); yet she also took up the cudgels for Oskar Loorits when he was declared to be persona non grata by the Republic of Latvia in 1935 and when he violated the prohibition of crossing Latvia's border in 1937. One who reads the letters by Berzkalne and Loorits can easily ascertain that were people of different characters. Oskar Loorits was a visible public figure, very impulsive and passionate. Anna Berzkalne, on the contrary, was prudent, balanced and reserved.
Undoubtedly, the correspondence between Anna Berzkalne and Oskar Loorits continued for so many years because of their private friendship. Nonetheless, it was always a professional conversation between two folklore students who were involved in the network of international collaboration in the 1920s and 1930s.
REFERENCES AND SOURCES
Aarne, Antti
1921 Par pasaku petišanu. Izglitibas Ministrijas Menesraksts 9: 942—952. Andersons, Valters
1925 Par latviešu iespaidu igaunu vecäkä dailliteratürä. Latvju Grämata 6: 426—437. Berzkalne, Anna
1925 Latviesu folkloras krätuve. Riga: Latviešu folkloras krätuve.
1926a Gada pärskats par igaunu filologiju un vesturi. Latvju Grämata 4: 285—287.
1926b Igaunu tautas dziesmas. Latvju Grämata 5: 329—335.
1926c Igaunu un somu folkloristiskais darbs. Izglitibas Ministrijas Menesraksts 1: 46—54.
1927	Memie pagasti. Izglitibas Ministrijas Menesraksts 12: 538—539.
1928	Ieverojama svetku velte. Latvju Grämata 2: 121—124.
1930	Tautas dzeja un literatüra. Latvju Grämata 2: 75—77.
1931	Somu literatüras biedribas simtsgadu pastävëšanas svetki. Latvju Grämata 3: 106—110. 1935 Somu eps Kalevala. Izglitibas Ministrijas Menešraksts 3: 258—263.
1937	Pamatjedzienipar tautas dzeju. Riga: D. Zeltinš.
1938	Typenverzeichnis lettischer Volksromanzen in der Sammlung Kr. Barons' Latvju Dainas. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia (Folklore Fellows Communications; No. 123).
1942 Dziesmapar zelumä nomirusopuisi. Riga: Latvju Grämata.
Bula, Dace
2006 Cita folkloristika. Karogs 4: 58-70. Dundes, Alan (ed.)
1999 International Folkloristics: Classic Contributions by the Founders of Folklore. Lanham [etc.]: Row-man & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Krohn, Kaarle
1930 Kaarle Krohna Somu buramvärdi Latvija. Latvju Grämata 1: 43—48.
Loorits, Oskar
1926—1928 Liivi rahva usund. Bd. 1—3. Tartu.
Tedre, Ülo
1995 About the Life and Work of an Eccentric. In: Köiva, Mare, and Kai Vassiljeva (eds.), Folk Belief Today. Tartu: Estonian Academy of Sciences, Institute of the Estonian Language & Estonian Museum of Literature, 457-468.
Wolf-Knuts, Ulrika
2010 A history of folkloristics. Folklore Fellows' Network 38: 2-7.
Västrik, Ergo-Hart
2005 Oskar Loorits: Byzantine Cultural Relations and Practical Application of Folklore Archives. In: Kuutma, Kristin, and Tiiu Jaago (eds.), Studies in Estonian Folkloristics and Ethnology: A Reader and Reflexive History, 203-215.
KM EKLA, f. 175 The Estonian Cultural History Archives, The Estonian Literary Museum, Oskar Loorits' fund.
LUAB R Annas Berzkalnes f. 3-8; 12, 2; 13,14. The Academic Library of the University of Latvia, the Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books, Anna Berzkalne's fund.
MEDNARODNO SODELOVANJE. ANNA BERZKALNE
Anna Berzkalne (1891—1956) je bila prva latvijska folkloristka, ki je v tej vedi dosegla akademski naziv. Bila je ambasadorka Latvije in zagovornica historično-geografske metode ali t. i. finske šole. Ustanovila in vodila je Arhiv latvijske folklore (1924—1929). Kot začetnica na številnih področjih je bila v 20. in 30. letih prejšnjega stoletja izjemna osebnost latvijske folkloristike. V tem času se je folkloristika v Latviji razvila kot neodvisna znanstvena disciplina in dosegla institucionalne okvire. Anna Berzkalne je bila v središču tega dogajanja.
Sčasoma je skušala splesti stike z mednarodno skupino folkloristov. Povabljena je bila v mednarodno skupnost raziskovalcev in je veljala za skoraj edino zastopnico mednarodne folkloristike v Latviji. Zagovarjala je primerjalni pristop (finsko šolo). Sledeč komparativni paradigmi je pri raziskovanju latvijskih folklornih pojavov vključevala širši zgodovinski in prostorski kontekst.
Njena raziskovalna načela so se oblikovala med njenim študijem v Kazanu v Rusiji in pozneje v Tartuju v Estoniji, kjer je po zasugi profesorja Walterja Andersona in pod vplivom Kaarla Krohna spoznala t. i. finsko šolo. Ko so se ta načela uveljavila, so usmerjala delo Latvijskega folklornega arhiva.
Anna Berzkalne je ustvarila mrežo profesionalnega sodelovanja, ki je bilo nujno potrebno za primerjalne fokloriste. Ti si niso izmenjevali le folklornega gradiva in literature z raznih področij, temveč so si zaupali tudi svoje načrte in težave, se medsebojno spodbujali, si strokovno svetovali, si popravljali besedila, izmenjevali terenske izkušnje in podobno.
Komunicirali so predvsem pisno. Pisanje in branje pisem je bilo pri Anni Berzkalne vsakdanje opravilo. Živahno si je dopisovala s kolegi iz Estonije, s Finske, s Švedske, z Danske, Nemčije, iz Italije in iz drugih držav.
Anna Berzkalne je latvijsko folklorno izročilo (različne zvrsti) z navdušenjem posredovala tujim raziskovalcem in drugim posameznikom iz tujine, ki so se zanimali zanj. Tako uveljavljeni raziskovalci kot začetniki so bili tedaj deležni njene kolegialne in nesebične pomoči. To potrjujejo pisma 43 dopisovalcev iz raznih folklorističnih krogov, ki jim je posredovala želene informacije za njihove raziskave ali pa so ji oni pomagali s posredovanjem variant balade, ki jo je raziskovala (naslov njene doktorske disertacije je bil Pesem o mladeniču, ki je umrl od žalosti. Izvirna podoba in latvijske različice). Z nekaterimi je prav posebej tesno sodelovanje in bila njihova osebna prijateljica: to sta bila finska foklorista Kaarle Krohn in Elsa Enäjärvi-Haavio, Estonec Oskar Loorits, baltski Nemec Walter Anderson in Nemec John Meier.
Korespondenca Anne Berzkalne z estonskim folkloristom Oskarjem Looritsem je bila ena najtesnejših in je trajala dvajset let (1923—1943). V Estonskem kulturnozgodovinskem arhivu, Estonskem literarnem muzeju in na Oddelku za rokopise in dragocene knjige Akademske knjižnice Univerze v Latviji je zbirka 334-ih pisem, napisanih v nemščini, ruščini, angleščini, latvijščini in estonščini. Pisma folkloristov, ki sta si bila blizu, razkrivajo njuni zasebni in profesionalni biografiji, hkrati pa so del zgodovine discipline, posebno v kontekstu mednarodne folkloristike. Bila sta vrstnika, izobražena folklorista in študenta profesorja Walterja Andersona. Oba sta ustanovila enotna folklorna arhiva: Arhiv latvijske folklore je bil — kot prvi v baltiških državah — ustanovljen leta 1924, Estonski folklorni arhiv pa leta 1927.
Anna Berzkalne in Oskar Loorits sta si dopisovala o številnih aktualnih disciplinarnih vprašanjih, npr. o arhivskem delu, zagovorih doktorskih tez, nedavnih in načrtovanih objavah, potovanjih in terenskem delu in o akademskem življenju v Tartuju in Rigi. Z mladostnim navdušenjem sta pomagala drug drugemu in se spodbujala pri delu, ki sta mu bila predana. To je bil profesionalni pogovor med raziskovalcema folklore, povezanima v preplet mednarodnega sodelovanja v 20. in 30. letih 20. stoletja.
Profesionalna biografija Anne Berzkalne v celoti in podrobna študija njenega sodelovanja s kolegi v tujini kažeta na izrazito potrebo po vključevanju v mrežo evropske folkloristike. Zanjo je bilo to na eni strani vprašanje vitalnih zmogljivosti latvijske folkloristike, na drugi pa njena osebna predanost znanosti.
Rita Treija, Mag. philol., researcher, Archives of Latvian Folklore, Institute of Literature, Folklore, and Arts, University of Latvia, Akadëmijas lauk. 1, Riga, LV-1050, Latvia, rita.treija@lulfmi.lv, rita.treija@gmail.com