Introduction

Words create reality. They not only refer to phenomena and events, it is through words that phenomena and events come to be. It is thanks to words uttered and recorded by humans that have made the world what it is today. The words that human beings have heard and said, read and written in the duration of their lives, have shaped these worlds and lives, and through this shaped the people themselves and made them what they are today.

The present article will analyse the words used by Ksenia Müürsepp (1911–2004) in creating her identity. In particular, the article will focus on the religious legends narrated by Ksenia and will analyse the religious legend she told twice to her interviewers, the protagonist of which is her name saint, and discuss the significance of the legend to Ksenia.

Ksenia Müürsepp was of Setu origin and spoke Setu dialect – a version of Estonian that has very many discrepancies from Estonian literary language. Ksenia was born in the village of Kuurakõsõ (in Russian it has had two names: Kosenki and Bresdelyevo) in Setumaa and spent the first part of her life there. Setumaa straddles the Estonian–Russian border, being partly in southeast Estonia and partly in northwest Russia. Between the two World Wars the area that is today part of the Russian Federation belonged to the Estonian Republic.