Julius Mägiste (born Julius Gustavi Mälson; 19 December 1900 – 11 March 1978) was an

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 ...

n linguist. He was born in the village of Kassema,

Tartu County Tartu County ( or ''Tartumaa'') is one of 15 counties of Estonia. It is located in eastern Estonia bordering Põlva County, Valga County, Viljandi County and Jõgeva County. The area of Tartu County is , which covers 6.9% of the territory of E ...

. In 1923 he graduated from the

University of Tartu The University of Tartu (UT; ; ) is a public research university located in the city of Tartu, Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is also the largest and oldest university in the country.

. Since 1925, he taught at the University of Tartu. From 1934 to 1936, he was the head of Mother Tongue Society. In 1944, he fled to Germany and in 1945 to Sweden in

Lund Lund (, ;"Lund"
(US) and ) is a city in the provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, southern Swed ...

. Until 1967, he taught

Finno-Ugric languages Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in the 19th centur ...

Lund University Lund University () is a Public university, public research university in Sweden and one of Northern Europe's oldest universities. The university is located in the city of Lund in the Swedish province of Scania. The university was officially foun ...

Biography

Mägiste was born into a farming family as Julius Gustavi Mälson (changed his name to Mägiste in 1922) in Kassema village,

within the

Governorate of Estonia The Governorate of Estonia, also known as the Esthonia (Estland) Governorate, was a province (''guberniya'') and one of the Baltic governorates of the Russian Empire. It was located in the northern Estonia with some islands in the West Estoni ...

, which was a part of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

on 19 December 1900. After Estonia's independence, he went on to study at the University of Tartu which he graduated in 1923. In 1925, he began teaching at the university and he then published his first work on the two Estonians dialects of Western Ingermanland. This thesis began in 1922 when he visited Ingermanland with support from the Mother Tongue Society. Mägiste's surveys were later published by Eesti Keel in 1922. At age 28 (1928–1929), he was elected the Extraordinary Professor of Finnic Languages of the University of Tartu after the success of his 1925 thesis. In 1937, Mägiste finished a 250-page manuscript of West Ingrian texts along with a glossary. However, due to the Second World War, the manuscript was never published and was eventually lost.

World War II

As a result of the German invasion and subsequent conquest of Estonia from the Soviets, the fieldworkers for the University of Tartu were forced to join the German military list, which included Mägiste, but were still allowed to continue their fieldwork. In 1943, while Estonia was under

German occupation German-occupied Europe, or Nazi-occupied Europe, refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet states, by the (armed forces) and the government of Nazi Germany at ...

, Mägiste made a visit to West Ingria. This was after surveys undertaken by the Germans revealed the population of ethnic minorities in Ingria. This would later result in a collection of texts Mägiste published in 1959. Among the minorities studied by him in West Ingria included the

Votians Vots, also referred to as Votes, Vods and Votians (, ''vađđalaizõd''; ; ; ) are a Baltic Finns, Finnic ethnic group native to historical Ingria, the part of modern-day northwestern Russia that is roughly southwest of Saint Petersburg and eas ...

and

Mordvins Mordvins (also Mordvinians, Mordovians; ; no equivalents in Moksha language, Moksha and Erzya language, Erzya) is an official term used in Russia and the Soviet Union to refer both to Erzyas and Mokshas since 1928. Names While Robert Gordon ...

. His work on the Votian language later became a way to preserve the Votian language. Due to his involvement with the Germans and further Soviet advances into the Baltics, Mägiste fled Estonia for Germany in 1944 before then fleeing to Sweden.

Publications

* "Rosona (Eesti Ingeri) murde pääjooned" (The main features of Rosona (Estonian Ingermanland) dialect) * "Estnisches etymologisches Wörterbuch" (manuscript, 12 editions ())

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Magiste, Julius 1900 births 1978 deaths Linguists from Estonia Estonian Finno-Ugrists Hugo Treffner Gymnasium alumni University of Tartu alumni Academic staff of the University of Tartu Academic staff of Lund University Estonian World War II refugees Estonian emigrants to Sweden People from Tartu Parish