ORAL HISTORY RESEARCH IN THE COLLABORATION SPACE OF ESTONIA AND THE NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES (Parimusliku ajaloo uurimine Eesti ja naabermaade koostooruumis)

The article provides an overview of the collaboration of oral history researchers and life history researchers in Estonia with researchers from Latvia, Lithuania and Finland. This is an interdisciplinary collaboration, which has formed over the past 12 years and unites folklorists from Finland, sociologists from Latvia and Lithuania, and researchers of different disciplines from Estonia. The Estonian term 'pärimuslik ajalugu' (oral history) is dealt with in the context of the related concepts of 'oral history' and 'life history research' ('biographical method'). The article focuses on the points of convergence and differences in methods, terminology, and research problems, which have revealed in the course of the collaboration. It is shown how the research (from terminology to research problems) is connected with the historical dimension of the development of research on the one hand, and with the dialogue in a common space of thought, on the other hand. The article observes in more detail the confluence of ideas in the dialogue of the mentioned collaboration space; these are grouped into the categories 'oral', 'written', and 'event', and represent a combination of experience, reality, and expression.