Kunstiajalugu kui rahvusteadus. Tartu Ülikooli kunstiajaloo õppetooli rajamisest ja esimese professori valimisest 1920.–1921. aastal
Art History and the National Discourse: The Establishment of the Chair of Art History at the Estonian University of Tartu and the Election of its First Professor in 1920–1921

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the relationship of art history and the national discourse in Estonia at the beginning of the 1920s. It is based on a close reading of the correspondence of the officials of the University of Tartu when they were seeking to find prospective candidates, informing and persuading them and discussing their terms for taking part in the competition for the chair of art history. The candidates were concerned about the political and financial situation in the newly established Estonian Republic and also about Germanophobia. The former social elite – the Baltic Germans – who were dispossessed of their properties in 1919 by the Land Reform Act, did play a part in contributing to the formation of the Act. The Act left the Baltic German noblemen their movable private property, such as art collections. The most valuable private art collection in Estonia at that time – the Reinhold Karl von Liphart bequest in the Raadi manor – was allowed by the Estonian parliament to be deported from Estonia in return for donating a third of the collection to the republic.

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