Four Generations Later

In 1947, ethnographers Irina Yakimovitsh and Olga Mzhelskaya undertook an expedition to the eastern bank of the Narva River to document the local dialect spoken there. As audio recording technology was not available, the speech was preserved in written form instead. Among the local people they interviewed were Maria Kapajeva’s great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandmother, from whom the Kapajeva family name originated after the abolition of serfdom.

Maria asked her nephew and niece to read aloud the words of their shared ancestors. In the video, letters written down nearly eighty years ago are given voice once again. At the same time, the work captures the difficulty of reading the text: we hear the recorder and the readers discussing the pronunciation and meaning of the words. The language spoken within the same region – and even within the same family – has changed profoundly over time.