Armas Otto Aapo Väisänen (9 April 1890 – 18 July 1969) was an eminent Finnish scholar of

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

, an

ethnographer Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

and

ethnomusicologist Ethnomusicology is the multidisciplinary study of music in its cultural context. The discipline investigates social, cognitive, biological, comparative, and other dimensions. Ethnomusicologists study music as a reflection of culture and investiga ...

. Väisänen was born in

Savonranta Savonranta is a former List of former municipalities of Finland, municipality of Finland. It became part of Savonlinna in early 2009. It was located in the provinces of Finland, province of Eastern Finland and was part of the Southern Savonia r ...

. In the early twentieth century he documented, in recordings and photographs, traditional Finnish and

Finno-Ugric Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic languages, Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in ...

music and musicians. With a scholarship from the

Finno-Ugrian Society Finno-Ugrian Society (, ) is a Finnish learned society, dedicated to the study of Uralic and Altaic languages. It was founded in Helsinki in 1883 by the proposal of professor Otto Donner. The society publishes several academic journal An ...

Väisänen traveled to Russia in 1914 to collect Finno-Ugric folk melodies. He made field trips to

Mordovia Mordovia ( ),; Moksha language, Moksha and officially the Republic of Mordovia,; ; is a republics of Russia, republic of Russia, situated in Eastern Europe. Its capital city, capital is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of S ...

Ingria Ingria (; ; ; ) is a historical region including, and adjacent to, what is now the city of Saint Petersburg in northwestern Russia. The region lies along the southeastern shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordered by Lake Ladoga on the Karelian ...

, Veps, Russian

Karelia Karelia (; Karelian language, Karelian and ; , historically Коре́ла, ''Korela'' []; ) is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Russia (including the Soviet Union, Soviet era), Finland, and Sweden. It is currentl ...

. His activities also marked the a new stage in the history of collecting

Seto Seto may refer to: Places *Seto, Aichi, production place of Japanese pottery and venue of Expo 2005 * Seto, Ehime, facing the Seto Inland Sea * Seto, Okayama, adjacent to Okayama, in Okayama Prefecture *Seto Inland Sea of Japan *Setomaa (''Seto ...

folk songs in Southern

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

. After the first trip in 1912 he made 6 fieldtrips to Estonia between 1912 and 1923. A. O. Väisänen's dissertation was presented in 1939 on Ob-Ugrian folk music in . Between 1926 and 1957 Väisänen hold the position of the head of the folk music department at the

Sibelius Academy The Sibelius Academy (, ) is part of the University of the Arts Helsinki and a university-level music school which operates in Helsinki and Kuopio, Finland. It also has an adult education centre in Järvenpää and a training centre in Seinäjoki ...

, Helsinki, Finland. He was the professor of musicology at

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

from 1956 to 1959. He died in

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

, aged 79.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vaisanen, Armas Otto 1890 births 1969 deaths People from Savonlinna People from Mikkeli Province (Grand Duchy of Finland) Finnish ethnographers University of Helsinki alumni Academic staff of the University of Helsinki