Vildé, Boris (1908-1942)

Shot in February 1942, at the age of 33, for his activities in resistance to the German occupation in France, Boris Vildé is an ethnologist and linguist who specialised in the northern European regions. Of Russian origin, born in 1908, he trained in ethnology in France and was one of the few, among the first generation of professional ethnologists, to choose a Europeanist field. In 1937 and 1938, he conducted ethnographic surveys in Estonia and Finland, in regions of cultural contact.

Keywords: Linguistics | Ethnology | Finland | Estonia | Russia/USSR | European Studies | Finno-Ugric studies | Setomaaa | Seto | Pre-Christian beliefs | Material culture | Technology | Shamanism | Musée de l’Homme | Institut d’ethnologie | Musée d’ethnographie du Trocadéro | Marcel Mauss | Paul Rivet