Setomaa kui ajalooline ruum: lisam rkusi kaugema mineviku kohta / On the Early History of Setomaa and its Research State: Looking Back and Forward

On the Early History of Setomaa and its Research State: Looking Back and ForwardThis article, supporting the materials presented in the second volume of the book “Setomaa”, discusses some general topics about the early history of the Orthodox Setomaa region in the south-easternmost corner of Estonia. The text outlines and highlights some topics that are of crucial importance for understanding the older history of the region but which, due to the chronological structure of the volume, seem to have remained disregarded or split between different periods.In its early history, Setomaa was not a peripheral frontier area at state borders, but a central region that was located at an important waterway and intersected by an important land route and several smaller roads bound to it. Setomaa was the hinterland of two important centres—Pskov and Izborsk. Pskov was connected to it by both water and land routes; Izborsk lies within the core of the historical settlement region of eastern Setomaa. Although Izborsk was overtaken by the Pechory monastery in the Late Middle Ages, eastern Setomaa remained still densely populated. That Setomaa bordered in the west the sparsely populated peripheral area of Livonia, where the border between Pskov and Livonia was in some areas not exactly defined, does not decrease the importance of the area. In the broader frameworks, among the historical districts of Estonia, Setomaa has the most strategic location in relation to big crossroads.Archaeological data enable us to see the presence and continuity of several central settlement areas and ethno-cultural regions through ages. The settlement areas reflected in the archaeological record have different historical orientations. The coast of Lake Pskov, and in earlier times probably also the surroundings of Izborsk, was connected by waterways with the areas east of Lake Pskov and Lake Peipsi. In the remote past, the contacts that stretched to the shores of the Gulf of Finland and even further were also of great importance. The formation of the peculiarities of northern Setomaa arises from local cultural backgrounds. Eastern Setomaa and the coastal areas were also influenced by the vicinity of Pskov. Southern Setomaa has been bound throughout the ages with Latvia, especially its north-eastern part. Before the formation of the border between Pskov and Livonia in the thirteenth century, Setomaa had an unclear western border. The internal cultural heterogeneity of Setomaa arises greatly from the region’s geographic position, location “on the crossroads”, and openness to contacts from differ