The researchers in the meeting were greeted on their professional holiday by KarRC RAS President Olga Bakhmet and PetrSU Vice-Rector for Scientific Research Dr. Vladimir Syunyov.

Starting the session, Olga Bakhmet congratulated Leading Researcher at the Institute of Economics Galina Kozyreva on having been bestowed the title of 'Merited Scientist of the Republic of Karelia' and handed over the award to her. Certificate of Merit from the Republic of Karelia for major contribution and years of dedicated work was awarded to Forest Research Institute’s Secretary for Science Nadezhda Nikolaeva.

Four scientific presentations were delivered at the session, dedicated to the International Year of Indigenous Languages, folk medicine of Karelians in mythology and language, 170th anniversary since the second edition of “Kalevala”, and the sources of European theatre (in view of the Year of Theatre announced in Russia).

Senior Research at Ethnology Section of the Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History KarRC RAS Zinaida Strogalshchikova gave a lecture on the “International Year of Indigenous Languages and tasks for the humanities”.

She mentioned that according to UNESCO, the Veps language is of 22 critically endangered languages and the Karelian language is in the slightly ‘better-off’ group of 29 severely endangered languages. Not all native speakers actually agree to the suggested classification. The system of education for indigenous minorities is also in a predicament, which cannot but affect the viability of their languages. The revised Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger published by UNESCO claims 2500 of the world’s 6900 languages to be endangered.
– Indigenous languages have, however, remained amazingly resilient, which certainly leaves us hopeful, – remarked Zinaida Strogalshchikova.

Chair of Balto-Finnic Philology at PetrSU Tatyana Pashkova delivered a talk on “Folk medicine of Karelians in mythology and language”. Folk medicine of Karelians clearly has both rational and irrational elements, but the latter predominate. Tatyana told about the peculiar classification of diseases into two categories: light form – coming from God, severe form – from a bad person. The disease called ‘vesnukha’ (spring fever) was said to be the result of lying on masonry heating stove for too long, while a reason named for a headache was one’s spinning of a hat around a finger.
– Over 400 names for diseases have been identified, and Karelians aptly used both practical and magical methods of treating diseases, originating from mythological worldviews, – the speaker remarked.

The presentation “World creation models in Karelian folk runo songs and E. Lönnrot’s “Kalevala”” was given by Junior Researcher at Folklore Studies Section of the Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History KarRC RAS Maria Kundozerova. Based on the analysis of the available texts, the speaker argued that the worldviews of the Karelian people combine a bipartite vertical (Earth-Sky) and bipartite horizontal (Earth-Earth) models of the Universe. These peculiar ideas about the Universe maintained by the Karelian people, where the two models are combined, are represented in the famous “Kalevala” epic, even though Lönnrot has substantially modified the texts of folk runo songs. The cosmological ideas are mostly seen in the plots telling about the journeys of epic heros to mythical lands.

Deputy Director of the Institute of Philology PetrSU Anna Skoropadskaya gave the joint Learned Council session a presentation on “Sources of the European theater: “tormented woman” in Euripides’ tragedies”. Euripides is a unique Ancient Greece’s dramatist. Although Euripides did not enjoy much success among audiences in Athens, the characters he has created feel akin to a modern viewer. Mythological heroes are masks for finely drawn psychological portraits of keenly feeling and tormented people. In Aristotle’s’ words, Sophocles depicted people the way they should be, whereas Euripides the way they really are. His tragic heroes confront themselves rather than some external forces. This confrontation is beyond the limits of time and geography.

After the presentations, graduation diplomas were solemnly awarded to KarRC RAS PhD students who have completed the course.

The session was completed with the award ceremony for the best scientific publications of 2018 among KarRC RAS young scientists. President Olga Bakhmet handed winner diplomas to Svetlana Sergina (Institute of Biology), Ekaterina Shlapeko (Institute of Economics), Anastasia Afanas’eva (Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History), Ivan Romashkin (Forest Research Institute), Pavel Prokopovich, Sergey Burdyukh, Alexander Rodionov (all thee from Institute of Geology) and Natalia Galakhina (Northern Water Problems Institute).