Public seminar on the history of epidemics at Estonian National Museum & Postimees

In the beginning of June I had the honour to speak at the Estonian National Museum at their public lecture day on epidemics, Jumala viha ja juudasitt. The public symposium was connected to the part of the permanent exhibition that speaks of health and disease in Estonian environmental history, which I once upon a time curated together with Liisi Jääts and the rest of the Estonian Centre for Environmental History, KAJAK. The epidemics section has for obvious reasons become popular over the last 1,5 years (I wrote about it once before), but 2021 was also 165 years from the first valioration in Tartu and 10 years from founding KAJAK, so the symposium was very timely. Apart from myself, the speakers lineup included soon-to-be president of Estonia but then the director of the Estonian National Museum, Alar Karis, curator of the environmental history section of the exhibition, Liisi Jääts, as well as Lea Leppik, Reet Hiiemäe and Ken Kalling - all researchers who have dedicated a considerable amount of their careers to studying Estonian medical history.

While we did quite extensive background research into different disease statistics, epidemics, treatment methods and public health campaigns on Estonian territory for the exhibition, I do not consider myself a major specialist in the field. My talk was more about wider history of ideas concerning disease and treatment which also provides the narrative roadmap for the exhibition from the folkloric disease conception, God’s will or miasmas to pathogen-based health care with sterilisation as an ideal. It also served as a popular reminder of how common epidemics have been here and how little traditional great herbalists could help in the event of an epidemic. Something which is increasingly forgotten, particularly among the new spirituality seekers. I also concentrated on the difference between biomedical, phenomenological and social definition of disease and the impact that the discrepancy between the three may have on how people react vis-a-vis epidemics and public health measures.

The talk and in fact the whole symposium can be watched at the website of the Estonian National Museum and parts of it were published in the Estonian daily Postimees. Which parts, I do not really know because the published version is behind the paywall and the public part includes the end of the manuscript I sent in. At least this time the title was not changed beyond recognition!

Public symposium on epidemic in Estonian history at Estonian National Museum.

Presenting in "Petersburg" today: Polar readings 2020

Together with Tayana Arkachaa, I will be presenting “Who Wants the krill “Schnitzel”? Researching and Using Krill in Soviet Union and Japan” at the Polar Readings conference today. The conference was supposed to take place in St Petersburg between May 18-21, and was now taken online. Alas, the duration of the talk was reduced from 20 to 10 minutes together with the digitalisation of the conference, so Tayana gets to do the speaking in Russian. The conference is also streamed on YouTube, through the next three days. Tayana and I will present today at 13.00 Moscow time.

The contents we can cover in such a short time will inevitably be very limited but it has nevertheless served me to dig into my krill materials. The title alludes in fact to the Polish campaign of developing krill schnitzel, whereas nothing so spectacular was ever produced in the Soviet Union or Japan. However, looking closer at the numbers of krill fishing, I was struck again by the deeply ingrained racism in the discourse around Antarctica. From time to time, articles like this warn us against Russian and yellow peril in Antarctica. What is typical of texts like this, is that they mix Arctic and Antarctic in swift discursive turns and seldom have any good data about the countries that they suspect of wanting to take over Antarctica for resource extraction. I’m not saying that China or Russia are NOT interested in natural resources in the Antarctic. However, I don’t think they are interested in resources any MORE than all the other states of the Antarctic Treaty. No country has gone down there to simply enjoy an icy landscape. Yet, we never read articles of what is Norway up to in Antarctica, whereas it is the country that fishes up most krill. If Russia essentially stopped krill fishing after the fall of the Soviet Union and Japan stopped krilling in 2012, then Norway’s krill fishing has been on increase year after year. In 2018/2019, Norway fished 245 014 tons of krill, compared to the 2nd biggest krill fisher, China, who came home with 50 423 tons - five times less. Yet, articles like the one linked above, keep asking about Chinese interest in marine resources of the Antarctic. And yes, Russian colleagues at the conference have just confirmed that the Arctic scientific program of this year had to be downsized because they cannot get their people out. But Norway, what is Norway up to? Not having looked into the Norwegian materials closer, i can only guess that the culprit is the nice and pink salmon on your lunch plate - krill is an excellent feed in aquaculture, particularly for red meet fish, because krill makes their muscles even pinker.

Our exhibition at the Estonian National Museum in focus again

Reconstruction of the plague doctor mask and a modern protective gear for infectious diseases. Perhaps it is good that the museum is closed right now - these protective suits are a very priced commodity right now.

During 2015-2016, I had a privilege to work together with my colleagues from KAJAK, the Estonian Centre for Environmental History, and Estonian National Museum on a part of their new permanent exhibition on humans and environment. The part that I was responsible for, was a display on health and environment in Estonia in a historical perspective. Then it was a nerd choice in many ways - today it is in focus again. From the beginning of the epidemics, the images of our plague mask replica started spreading on social media. Yesterday, Alar Karis, the director of the Museum published a blog post on our materials related to small-pox mortality and early vaccination in Estonia.

Small-pox part of the display was in many ways exciting. Materials on small-pox vaccination campaigns were in many ways abundant but to grasp and visualise the context in many ways rather difficult as they principally consisted of books filled with the names of the vaccinated. But then there was an original knife for vaccination, as well as books that instructed how to do it - vaccination was carried out by local pastors, making thus sure that the vaccines also reached the remotest parts of the country. To convey that feeling and the process, we even staged a short film (freely watchable on youtube). Arguments against people who did not want to vaccinate their children remain eerily relevant for today. For a long time, we were searching for a photo of somebody with small-pox scars, but even Stalin’s photos are all retouched. In the end, University of Tartu’s History Museum found a scary series in their collection where you can see the deterioration of a small-pox patient day by day.

A man with small-pox on the 4th and 8th day of being at Tartu University Hospital in 1920s(?). I’m not sure he had a 9th day… TÜ Muuseumi fotokogu, nr ÜAM F 445:107/5 F

Choosing diseases that would be displayed at the exhibition was not so easy either. 1812 plague was something that we definitely wanted to include, but finding original objects from a disease outbreak more than 200years ago that had killed close to 80% of the population in some parts of Estonia, is very challenging. Since everybody was busy with surviving, nobody had time to actually keep track of how many people died, and most objects were destroyed, our knowledge is very scarce. In the end, the plague outbreak was represented with a short film of the archaeological excavation of Tallinn’s Santa Barbara graveyard and a running list of people who died of plague in Tallinn that keeps running and running without an end in sight. And the mask, of course, even though we have no historical documents that prove that exactly this was the design used in Estonia at that time.

This is not all of what we managed to fit into the small space dedicated to environmental history of epidemics in Estonia. There is water contamination by disposed medicine, development of quinine, emergence of sterilisation and hospital hygiene, and folk medicine, among other things. In the course of preparing it, I got to see the amazing medical and pharmaceutical collections of the Tartu University History Museum and stocked up a whole pile of material on other diseases that never made it to the exhibition and keep waiting for me to write about them.

Variatsioonid variolatsiooni teemal ehk „ilusad tüdrukud saavad paremini mehele kui rõugearmilised"

ERMi direktor Alar Karis. Ajal, mil uus viirushaigus on alustanud inimkonna proovile panemist, on arusaadavalt huvi selle teema vastu kõrgendatud. Selles blogiloos ongi jutuks nakkushaigused, täpsemalt võitlus rõugete vastu. Karmim haigus, mis omal ajal eestlasi maha niitis leetrite, düsenteeria, koolera, tüüfuse, sarlakite, malaaria ja rõugete kõrval, oli kindlasti katk.