Lähivertailuja [‘Close comparisons’] was the title of a series of edited volumes, based on research papers and talks given at Finnish-Estonian workshops and seminars; these events gathered language teachers and applied linguists who worked on contrastive Finnish-Estonian studies. The first Lähivertailuja volume was released in 1985; the first 18 issues appeared in the publication series of different universities (Helsinki, Turku, Tampere, Joensuu, Jyväskylä, Oulu, after the turn of the millennium also Tartu and Tallinn). These 18 issues are now accessible in the DIGAR database; the links to the scanned fulltext versions can be found on the Archive page of Lähivõrdlusi. Lähivertailuja.
In the framework of this tradition, some VIRSU proceedings have also appeared:
- Viro ja suomi – kohdekielet kontrastissa. [‘Estonian and Finnish – target languages in contrast’] Ed. by Pirkko Muikku-Werner & Hannu Remes. Lähivertailuja 13. Joensuun yliopisto, 2003.
- VIRSU II – suomi ja viro kohdekielinä. [‘Finnish and Estonian as target languages’] Ed. by Helena Sulkala & Heli Laanekask. Lähivertailuja 14. Oulun yliopisto, 2004.
- Lähivertailuja 17. Ed. by Annekatrin Kaivapalu & Külvi Pruuli. Jyväskylän yliopisto, 2006.
From the 19th volume on (May 2010), the series now appears once a year as an open-access publication of the Estonian Association of Applied Linguistics, under the bilingual Estonian-Finnish title Lähivõrdlusi. Lähivertailuja. For more information about recent and forthcoming volumes and links to PDF fulltext versions, see the Lähivõrdlusi/Lähivertailuja homepage.
- Lähivõrdlusi – Lähivertailuja 19 (2010) contains articles based on papers presented at the Seili workshop in 2008.
- Lähivõrdlusi – Lähivertailuja 20 (2010) contains articles based on papers presented at the Mekrijärvi workshop in 2009.
- Lähivõrdlusi – Lähivertailuja 21 (2011) includes some contributions presented at the Piliscsaba workshop in 2010.
- Lähivõrdlusi – Lähivertailuja 22 (2012) includes some contributions presented at the VIRSU workshop in 2011 (part of the AFinLA symposium).
- Lähivõrdlusi – Lähivertailuja 23 (2013) includes some contributions presented at the LLLC conference in 2012.
- Lähivõrdlusi – Lähivertailuja 24 (2014) includes some contributions presented at the VIRSU workshop organised at the AFinLA symposium in Turku 2013. (View the whole volume here.)
- Lähivõrdlusi – Lähivertailuja 25 (2015) celebrated the 30th anniversary of the LV publications and included some reminiscences on the first stages of the Estonian-Finnish cooperations in applied linguistics.
- Lähivõrdlusi – Lähivertailuja 26 (2016) contains articles based on papers presented at the VIRSU workshop in Oulu 2015.