Kuulujutud, luule ja mälestused: Jaan Saalvergi enesetapu žanrilised peegeldused
Rumors, poems and memoirs: The suicide of Jaan Saalverk in the generic field

Summary/Abstract: In the focus of this article is the generic field surrounding death and suicide. This generic field is made up of rather different genres (commemorative poems, memoirs, sensational newspaper articles, rumours, etc), some of which are created by professionals (ritual specialists, writers); however, quite a large part belongs to the field of vernacular literature. Jaan Saalverk (1874–1932) was a farmer, local politician and folklore collector who had mental health problems all through his life and, as a result of these, committed suicide in 1932. His death was reflected in an array of different genres: articles in sensational newspapers, oral legends embedding Saalverk into traditional stories about suicidal behaviour, and – commemorative poems and memoirs written by his three daughters. All these genres are quite ordinary parts of the generic field surrounding death; however, they are directed to different audiences and create different kinds of communities. Oral legends linked the events of voluntary death to traditional cultural (pre)conceptions, while media texts amplified the sensational aspects of the incident and created a connection with other similar cases. The daughters’ memorial poems placed voluntary death on the same level as so-called more ordinary deaths, emphasized the guilt and inability of those left behind to react, avoided highlighting the nature of death and making clear references to mental health problems that preceded death. In contrast, prose memoirs attempted to describe what happened as accurately and neutrally as possible, including emphasizing the episodes preceding death and the efforts made by those left behind. It is quite telling that the poems precede the prose texts – it seems that it was precisely the shared experience of grief in poetic form that gave them the courage to write about the same topic in a more realistic tone. The texts created by Saalverk’s daughters are inherently more ambivalent than the other texts examined as they show the desire to regain control of the story of Saalverk’s death.

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