Ott Kurs

Ott Valdeko Kurs (born 24 March 1939) is an Estonian geographer, ethnologist, turkologist and scholar of Finno-Ugric peoples. He is professor emeritus at the University of Tartu. His work has focused on human geography, especially cultural and political geography, ethnic minorities, borderlands, and the geography and historical development of Finno-Ugric peoples.

Early life and education Kurs was born in Tartu on 24 March 1939. He graduated from Tartu 5th Secondary School in 1957 and from Tartu State University in 1963. While at university he initially studied economics, but in 1959 began studying Turkology in the orientalist cabinet of Pent Nurmekund; he continued those studies in Azerbaijan in 1965–1966.

Career and scholarship Kurs spent most of his academic career at the University of Tartu, where he began teaching in 1966 and later served as professor of human geography. His published work has covered such topics as Ingria, the Veps people, indigenous Finnic populations in north-western Russia, the Turkic world, and the historical geography of Estonia.

A University of Tartu profile published on his 65th birthday credited him with more than 250 scholarly publications and more than 30 expeditions, mainly to areas inhabited by Finno-Ugric peoples, and noted his role as editor of the yearbook of the Estonian Geographical Society from 1992 onward.

Work on the history of geography Kurs has also written on the history of geography in Estonia and helped republish the work of the interwar geographer Edgar Kant. A review in Sirp described the 2007 volume as an important return of Kant's work to Estonian readers and identified Kurs as its compiler and author of the preface. In 2004 he received the University of Tartu Grand Medal.

Selected publications Kaardisõnastik (1994) "Ingria: The Broken Landbridge between Estonia and Finland" (1994) Etnilisi vähemusi ajas ja ruumis I (1998) Maailm, Euroopa ja Eesti. Poliitilisest geograafiast (1999) Geography in Estonia 17th–20th centuries (1999) "The Vepsians: An Administratively Divided Nationality" (2001)