The Transgressive Kivisildnik as of 2019: Some Points of Importance Cover Image

Transgressiivne Kivisildnik – 2019. aasta seisuga, olulist
The Transgressive Kivisildnik as of 2019: Some Points of Importance

Author(s): Janek Kraavi
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Politics, Studies of Literature, Estonian Literature, Present Times (2010 - today)
Published by: SA Kultuurileht
Keywords: transgressive literature; contemporary Estonian literature; carnival 2.0; religion; jeremiad; rant; right-wing transgressiveness;

Summary/Abstract: Transgressiveness has always been one of the pivotal aspects of Kivisildnik’s creative project. Challenging taboos, a provocative attitude and the standpoint of an exceptional person are still essential for Kivisildnik’s recent poetry and publicist prose, but the changed political context and the impact of the new media now lends a different perspective to many of his themes, topics and tropes. The transgressive carnival trope described by Peter Stallybrass and Allon White has been replaced by a jeremiad announcing ruin, based on a depressive-realistic worldview conveyed by exhortational and allegoric visions of catastrophe. Yet today Kivisildnik’s transgressive attitude seems to be losing its strength to the obscene and hateful rhetoric which has become the norm in the public media. The right-wing transgressive rhetoric voicing political and cultural extremes robs Kivisildnik’s “artistic nihilism” from its protruding quality and makes it sound, in the context of left-leaning liberal criticism, politically incorrect and out of place. The rant building up in Kivisildnik’s texts over the past decade is reminiscent of a fierce square speech or the aggressive protest of some radical rappers. At the heart of Kivisildnik’s right-wing provocative attitude we find a literary super confident protagonist with an even stronger ego, who declares his mental and physical sovereignty. Kivisildnik’s ironical and nihilistic lyrical self is opposed to the liberal and global ideas of consumer capitalism, criticizes the demographic and cultural decadence of Estonia and the Western world, and attacks the principles of a multicultural society. Liberal ideology is counterbalanced by the powerful post-Christian thinking of the neo-religions, in which the self-image is associated with the idea of masculinity and sex, individual pride, non-conformism, and supreme knowledge. The transgressive meaning of the above attitudes manifests itself in the reversal of a stagnant world description and in aggressive rhetorical exaggeration, which can be at times unpleasant, disgusting and personally upsetting.

  • Issue Year: LXII/2019
  • Issue No: 12
  • Page Range: 960-979
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Estonian