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In Estonian theatre, the experience of World War I found expression somewhat belatedly, in the early 1920s, when Expresssionist plays, mainly by contemporary German playwrights – Ernst Toller,Walter Hasenclever, Georg Kaiser et al – were staged in the Estonia Theatre, in the Drama Theatre and in the amateur Hommikteater (Morning Theatre, 1921–1924). The article examines the most significant Expressionist stage productions, focusing on the relations between their ideological, affective and stylistic dimensions. Critical and audience receptions of Expressionist plays are discussed as well.In the Estonia Theatre, a group of young actors and directors(Ants Lauter, Erna Villmer, et al) sought to innovate theatrical language by making use of new, Expressionist devices. In contrast, the amateur Hommikteater (led by August Bachmann and Nigol Andresen)placed emphasis on spreading the ideals of new humanity and social justice, which reflected the left-wing sympathies of the troupe , but their work was also distinguished by an inventive style and a strong emotional impact on audiences. The members of the literary group Tarapita (who promoted Expressionism themselves)enthusiastically supported Hommikteater. This little theatre became highly influential in the process of theatre innovation, despite its very small audiences.However, the key ideas and ideals of postwar Expressionism (including a strong anti-war pathos) had rather little effect on Estonian theatre in general. Expressionism mainly contributed to the widening of the stylistic palette of Estonian theatrical art. This can be partly explained by the social situation of the 1920s: victory in the War of Independence and the subsequent building of the independent Estonian state raised nationalist spirits and made people less sensitive to the destructive experiences of World War I as reflected in postwar German Expressionism.
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In keeping with Kivisildnik’s disposition of construing poetry, which opposes any socially or culturally dominant value or meaning, his poetry of the first half of the current decade – especially in the collections Liivlased ja saurused („Livonians and dinosaurs”, 2011), (:)soari evangeelium („The Gospel of (:)soar”, 2012) published in collaboration with Navitrolla, and Inimsööja taksojuht („The man-eating taxi-driver”, 2013), but also Enne sõda ja kõike seda („Before the war and all this”, 2012) – strikes the eye with some antihumanist traits. Although Kivisildnik’s palette of literary devices had always implicitly spoken of antihumanist ideas („machine poetry”), the above collections mark a transition from implicit antihumanist pathos to a nearly explicit programme, which could as well be called an antihumanist counter-ideology. The mission of Kivisildnik’s antihumanist counter-ideology is to reveal the biologist and commercial foundation of the humanist illusion, i.e. to unfold the covert cynical core of humanism. To achieve this aim, Kivisildnik uses the reversal technique, creating a comical effect. The fun, however, is not innocent, as it enjoys seeing its object as small, low and despicable by exchanging an ideological hyperbole for a litotes, thus performing a symbolic neutering of the object. With the same purpose in mind the author is trying to neuter the humanist image of man, the core of which is human free will. However, this leads us to Kivisildnik’s paradox: the condition of the possibility of his vision is also the condition of its impossibility. As long as there are readers of that poetry the realisation of Kivisildnik’s vision of total destruction must be still a little away. Yet, with no more readers around the prophecy must have been realised. Thus, the poetry referred to above manifests itself as a kind of text of warning, with a constantly haunting menacing potential on its limits.
More...Teos ja autor
The article discusses the Russian historical novel „Constantin Loeven (From my memoirs)” (1831) by Baron Karl Georg Woldemar Friedrich von Rosen (1800–1860), who was born in Estonia. Rosen’s literary activities started from writing poetry in Latin, of which no example has survived. He used German to publish criticism and translations, but most of his oeuvre is in Russian. He started learning Russian at the age of 19. Since 1825 he published in Russian, as his ambition was to become not only a Russian author, but also a Russian national ideologist. So he wrote some plays on themes of Russian history and a libretto for the first Russian national opera „A life for the Tzar”. The article analyses the innovative qualities. of Rosen’s novel. The scene is laid in Estonia, southern Russia, and Greece. The protagonist participates in the Greek War of Independence. The Greek theme enables „Constantin Loeven” to be classified as a historical novel, which was the most topical genre of the time. Unlike in earlier Russian literature Rosen’s romantic hero of Baltic German origin is not a gloomy criminal, but rather a modern man with a complex and strange mindset, a freedom fighter. The character owes to the German sentimentalist and romanticist tradition, as well as to the French libertine novel. In addition, the article specifies on some biographical details of baron Rosen.
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This article stems from the research of oral history and life stories in Estonia. While both stories and research studies made on the basis of stories at the end of the 20th century concentrated on the experience of the 20th-century events (World War II, mass repressions, life under the conditions of the Soviet authority, etc.), more and more attention is currently paid to the present day (multicultural environments, virtual communities, communication space of transnational families, etc.). The article observes, on the basis of Baltic German texts, life in a culturally diverse environment and transnational family in the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. By means of text analysis, the authors’ subjective geographies are mapped and thereafter, their attitudes to one or the other territory and the cultural “other” are described. The question is, what is the common share of cultural diversity and transnationality in the past and in the present-day society; which factors favour this common share (mutual relationships of family members, existence of communication networks etc.) and which ones exclude it (historical-cultural features, like e.g. the existence of the class society).
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Denis Diderot’s work has recently been enthusiastically translated into Estonian. Translations of Neveu de Rameau, Jacques le Fataliste, Paradoxe sur le comédien, Lettre sur les aveugles and Lettre sur les sourds et muets have been published from 2003 to 2015. In the 20th century, there was seemingly much less interest for his work. Only a few excerpts from his texts were translated and critical attention rarely focused on him. However, a closer look reveals that Diderot has held a rather important place in several culturally significant debates and that the relatively discreet response to his work reflects some key developments of Estonian literature.
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The paper gives an overview of Estonian war songs. Together with Keisrilaul, the Estonian translation of “Russian anthem”, they form the beginning of Estonian patriotic poetry. The tradition of Estonian war songs reaches back to the early 19th century, when ReinholdJohann Winkler published “War Songs of Estonian Land Forces”(1807), inspired by the Franco-Russian war. The tradition developed as it was influenced by the other wars involving Russia in the19th century. The choices of topics and thematic structures of war songs further advanced in the period of the Russo-Turkish war, in the second half of the 1870s. At that time, the patriotic ambitions of Estonians were advanced in cooperation with the Empire of Russia;on the other hand, the humility and national sense of inferiority of Estonians were propagated by the Greater Russian ideology and ambitions. During World War I, narrative war songs, containing influences of Estonian trochaic tetrameter folk songs and traditional ballads, developed. In a number of verses of that time, epic,dramatic and lyric elements merged, increasing sensual intensity.Despite the parallels with Greater Russia surviving in themes, the concept of Estonia played a central role in song books, verse books and special almanacs published during World War I.
More...Sonettide kuningas August Pihlak
The article examines the poetical works by August Pihlak (1903–1970), Estonian exile poet who fled from Estonia to the USA during World War II. Although, from a strictly objective point of view, his poetry’s contribution to the Estonian sonnet tradition is remarkable, he has practically been left out from Estonian literary history. Also, none of his seven poetry collections has ever been reviewed in any literary magazine. Among other poems Pihlak’s poetry collections include 229 sonnets, which makes him one of the most productive Estonian sonneteers. Furthermore, he is the only Estonian poet who has written six heroic crowns (sonnet redoublé). The formal aspects of his sonnets are often multifarious and playful – he frequently experiments with the sonnets’ rhyme schemes, stanzas and verse meter. The characteristic feature of Pihlak’s sonnet production is their so-called autometapoetical function: his sonnets’ formal elements tend to harmonize with their verbal message.The article analyzes August Pihlak’s rich sonnet production by discussing different aspects of his poems: rhyme schemes, meter, stanzas, poet’s voice, lexicon, thematics and ideology; also, this is an attempt to explicate a poet’s exclusion from a poetry tradition despite his indisputable contribution to it in some levels. The introductory part of the article gives a brief overview of his life.
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Andrei Ivanov (b. 1971) is the most well known Estonian Russianlanguage writer who has won many literary awards in Estonia and Russia. His prose and position in the literary field of Estonia has initiated the discussion about the exact definition of Estonian literature and the status of the Estonian Russian-language literature. Due to Ivanov’s prose, the world of Estonian Russians has become more visible for the Estonian audience. He also gives a piercing look into the modern society and offers a different perspective on the world; these are some of the reasons of his popularity. The article focuses on the analysis of the reception of Ivanov’s prose published in Estonian. The vast majority of Ivanov’s prose has been translated into Estonian: Путешествие Ханумана на Лолланд, Харбинские мотыльки, Бизар, Исповедь лунатика, Горсть праха, Печатный шар Расмуса Хансена, Мой датский дядюшка and Зола. The author has entered the Estonian cultural field through translations, it may be said that he has been found in translations. Ivanov’s books are bestsellers and widely discussed in newspapers, blogs and in the literary magazines. The position of Estonian Russian literature has shifted from the periphery into the spotlight and the works by Ivanov have played a decisive role in that process. The article focuses on the analysis of the reception of Ivanov’s prose published in Estonian. The articles published in the Estonian language and concentrating on his prose (both in newspapers and in the literary magazines) are under observation. What topics have been discussed? Which aspects of Ivanov’s prose have attracted the attention of the critics?
More...Lilli Suburgi käänuline tee
The article addresses the relationships of literature and disease on the example of the life and activities of Lilli Suburg (1841–1923).The life and creative activity of Suburg was affected, on the one hand, by a peculiarity of her appearance, notably, a scar left after a congenital tumor had been removed from her face, due to which she would wear a kerchief over her jaw throughout her life. On the other hand, for many years she suffered from hemorrhages forcing her to bed for long periods, incapacitated to help out her parents with farmwork. That affliction, however, gave Suburg a chance to engage in intellectual self-development by reading, writing a diary and teaching her younger sisters and brothers, which would hardly have been conceivable in addition to regular farm chores.Both in her diary and autobiography Suburg admits that her intellectual development was considerably influenced by illnesses and her physical vulnerability. This is also proved by observing the facts of her life. She chose singleness, which was partly due to her health problems. However, the need for self-subsistence impelled her to act in different directions, such as journalism, creative writing, teaching, while this versatility gave her a chance to realize and develop her different abilities.The periods of forced idleness caused by Suburg’s illness turned out to be intellectually fertile, providing time for reading and reflection. The sensibility caused by illness and physical vulnerability developed her empathy for others finding themselves in a vulnerable situation, such as children, the old and the sickly. Hence her deeply human attitude of caring underlying her worldview. More than any other published or unpublished text by Suburg, her diary reveals her sensitive, tender and vulnerable heart. Suburg’s autobiographically based fiction contains no direct reflection of her experience of disease. In her writing she managed to create the image of a new and better world with protagonists whose choices were not limited by physical afflictions.Possibly, if Suburg had not suffered from an illness enabling her to engage in intellectual self-improvement, she would never have become the person she became: a public figure, author, journalist, feminist and teacher.
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The article focuses on the Estonian novels depicting Soviet prison camps in the 1940s and 1950s. For a long time the Soviet prison camp theme was not publicly discussed in Estonia due to political reasons. Texts dealing with prison camps could appear in print only outside the Soviet Union. The most notable of these are the novels by Arved Viirlaid. The Estonian prison camp novels can be seen as “the literature of testimony”, to use the term by Leona Toker. Dramatic historical events are written down to record the events and to show the inhumane nature of the Soviet society. These records of the dramatic past follow certain patterns and create certain self- and heteroimages that are analysed in the article. The goal is to map themes, motifs and characteristics in such novels, concentrating on various taboos and rules in the prison camp environment. A prison camp is a closed territory within a closed territory; prison camps can be seen as small models of the Soviet society. Prison camp novels provide a detailed view of the environment of the prison camp, its inhabitants and activities. The lives of prisoners whirl around labour and food. The crucial thing is to survive, which often leads to moral decline, e.g. stealing or cheating. However, there are certain lines Estonians do not cross, e.g. cannibalism or homosexual relationships with superiors. Estonians are always depicted as political prisoners (not common criminals) and heterosexuals, while Russians are portrayed mainly as criminals and often also as homosexuals.
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This article is based on the interpretation of a segment of the reception of J. Randvere’s provocative, short essay-novella “Ruth” (1909), which was written by Johannes Aavik, a well-known Young Estonian and one of the principal modernizers of the Estonian language. This segment of reception regards “Ruth” as the quintessence of Young Estonia’s ideology, but does not offer a full explanation of how this ideology in “Ruth” is associated, on the one hand, with Young Estonians’ ambitions in modernizing Estonian literature and, on the other, with the broader fin de siècle European culture. I shall ask through which discourses does this ideology, which is innovative in the context of Estonian culture at the beginning of the 20th century, express itself in “Ruth”? What imaginations, representations and associations appear in “Ruth” in relation to the Young Estonian program, which interweaves tradition and/ or Estonian national-mindedness on the one hand, and Europeannes and/or modern ideas on the other. Or who are these Europeans and Estonians with whom Young Estonians wish to identify? Although Young Estonian ideology in “Ruth” has mostly been associated with connotations of decadence like “a culture of individuality”, “artificiality” and “aestheticism”, I will argue that in “Ruth” counter-discourses also come to the forefront. In other words, “Ruth” becomes the quintessence of the Young Estonia ideology, because it serves as a metaphoric counterpart to the Young Estonians’ program: “let us be Estonians, but let us become Europeans”. Through the reproduction of decadent discourse, which is in this text in the dominant position, “Ruth” oscillates between the ambivalent valorizations of signs of health (norms) and disease or decadence (deviation from the norms), accompanied, on the one hand, and among other things by opposition to the national discourse and, on the other hand, to the signs of decadence, that is the neutralization of the symptoms of decadence.
More...Ühe reisikirja juhtum
The position of Johannes Vares-Barbarus (1890–1946) in Estonian history and culture is contradictory. On the one hand, he was a remarkable doctor of the name of Vares, on the other hand, a poet named Barbarus, whose modernistic poems were not always appreciated. Moreover, the reception of his works has been complicated by his actions in the 1940s, when he was one of the leading figures in the Sovietization of Estonia. His left-wing views are hardly overlooked whenever himself or his works are discussed. His poetry having received so much more attention than the rest of his works, this article analyzes his travelogue Matkavisandeid & mõtisklusi („Travel Sketches and Contemplations”), which is based on his visit to the Soviet Union. It was published in the literary magazine Looming in 1935 and reprinted in 1950 in his collected works. The article analyzes the image of the Soviet Union in his travelogue published in 1935 and discusses the notable changes that were made in the reprint. Some of those changes have significantly altered the meaning, so that the revised text fits perfectly the Soviet canon.
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The article examines the level of narration in Karl Ristikivi’s novel The Burning Flag (“Põlev lipp”) and the various narrators inhabiting this level together with their addressees and narrative strategies. The close reading of the novel reveals that the narration functions in four different regimes (neutral, documentary chronicle, the writer, the narrator – and the latter two combined). The narrators that can be detected also have as their counterparts clearly defined addressees – the writer has the “learned reader” and the narrator has the listeners around the campfire. The mode of we-narrative entails both of the narrators. The distance of the narrators in respect of the story is different – the narrator presents the story from the viewpoint of the witness whereas the writer admits his reliance on written sources. The we-narrator combines these two perspectives and this results in a metaphysical viewpoint on the human being and history also present in Ristikivi’s earlier novels (especially in the dilogy All that ever was and Nothing happened). It is rather remarkable that the novel reveals as the addressee of the we-narrator the ideal reader of the novel.
More...Kaplinski aiad ja peenramaad
The garden as a literary trope has a time-honoured tradition behind it. Its classic manifestations include locus amoenus, a pleasant and delightful space in perpetual bloom, as well as hortus conclusus, an enclosed leafy space bearing religious connotations. Gardening as an occupation has been compared to a continuation of God’s work of creation on earth. However, these traditional tropes need not pay much attention to soil that has a crucial role in the cycle of matter between the living and the nonliving parts of the environment and makes the cultivation of surface vegetation possible.In the early poetry of the Estonian author Jaan Kaplinski (b. 1941) the traditional garden image, particularly a fruit garden in bloom, tends to appear as a place suggestive of a promise of eternal solace. Independent of these, there are also poems that demonstrate an awareness of the living soil, as well as the underlying bedrock, as important components in the environment. Occasionally these texts also acquire a (quasi)religious dimension of death and resurrection; the latter may occur in the guise of a plant. The soil and the garden come together at a somewhat later stage of Kaplinski’s poetry, in particular the collection Evening Brings Everything Back (1985), which documents the passing of nearly a year in the life of the poet. The poems give evidence of the spread of kitchen gardening and preserve-making in Estonia during the Soviet years that helped to fulfil a gap left by the limited availability of food, and was thus also endorsed by the official Party line. The poems record the bodily engagement required by managing a vegetable garden, weeding and watering. In their treatment of the human mastery of the environment the texts stand out in the context of Kaplinski’s work that more usually has been linked to deep ecology. Still, his take-on of gardening does not fully amount to an anthropocentrism that would counter the principles of land ethic as suggested by Aldo Leopold.
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Triggered by the image suggested in Hamlet that even while bounded in a nutshell it is still possible to consider oneself the king of infinite space, the article attempts to chart the reach of the dimension of the far-away space in Jaan Kaplinski’s poetry. The point of departure is found in the chrestomatic works on space and place in humanistic geography that underscore the nature of space as „amorphous and intangible and not an entity that can be directly described and analysed” (Relph 1976: 8). Thus, while lacking stability and connoting with openness, freedom and mobility, space is made meaningful by places for which it creates a context. In Kaplinski’s poems four major kinds of far-away spaces can be detected, each signalled by the type of places embedded in them. Firstly, there is the cosmic space that can be described by evoking the names of celestial bodies and constellations; there is an awareness that distances in this type of space are measured in light years. Secondly, a type of space appears that bears features of the Fairy land described by folklorists, such as being vaguely located somewhere unmeasureably far away with scarce toponymic reference mostly used just to signal distance, and being possibly surrounded by a boundary that cuts it off from the everyday world. Tropes emerging in connection with this space are mountains, the desert and the sea. Thirdly, there is a kind of space constructed by places and regions on the actual political world map, usually sites of tension and conflict an awareness of which may explictly come from the media. A prominent subcategory, directly connected with map-making and the related naming of foreign places, is (post)colonial space. Also other culturally or politically mediated spaces are gathered under this umbrella. And finally, there is the far-off dimension of the world that the persona can relate to as a traveller, either by having visited certain places or dreaming of the possibility. What also emerges in the course of the discussion is that the spatial types appear already in Kaplinski’s slim first collection and are elaborated in a more individual manner throughout the poet’s later oevre.
More...Nooruse kihermeid I
The article discusses the inspiring literary commentary published by mentor Ain Kaalep alias O. Muusapoeg ‘lit. O. Son of the Muses’ in the 1960s editions of the magazine Noorus („Youth”), which was officially addressed to the Communist youth of the Estonian SSR. It highlights the rhetoric of irony cleverly hidden between the lines, which could be regarded as critical counterpropaganda. On the one hand, the writings carried an important mission of educating the rising generation in classic literature, Estonian as well as world and from the Antique to the exuberant current literature, trying to fulfil the deficiency in aesthetic knowledge afflicting post-war Estonia. On the other hand, using hints like in the classic Aesop’s language the author addressed the informed readers with messages close to their hearts, such as prohibited or nearly banned literature, or the censored historical and cultural memory of Estonia, while vulgar speculations on fine arts and life were ridiculed as manifest ignorance. The author has termed his pragmatic tactics as „showing the [red] colour”, which means that using Soviet phrases and motifs as Trojan horses he often managed to send opposite signals, thus reversing echoed praise to sarcastic censure. Such hidden or half-revealed contraband served not Soviet interests but those of cultural resistance. Kaalep’s subtle counter-demagogy stimulated the Estonian spirit, although those scratching the mere surface may of course have been misled. The cessation of the series in 1970 coincides with the end of the political thaw.
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Der Artikel beruht auf den entsprechenden Kapiteln der Monographie des Autors (2011) über die Rezeption der estnischen Literatur im deutschsprachigen Raum, ist aber stellenweise gekürzt, bearbeitet und weiterentwickelt. Da von Jaan Kross vergleichsweise viele Bücher auf Deutsch vorliegen, bietet sich sein Werk für eine eingehendere Rezeptionsanalyse an. Im Vordergrund stand dabei die Frage, warum die zwischenzeitlich sehr lebhafte Rezeption zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts erlahmt ist. Hierzu wird die Theorie des literarischen Feldes von Pierre Bourdieu angewendet, anhand deren untersucht wird, welche Rolle die jeweiligen Akteure auf dem Rezeptionsfeld gespielt haben. In erster Linie werden Verlage und Kritiker in Abhängigkeit von ihrer Position auf dem literarischen Feld betrachtet, ferner inhaltliche Aussagen der Kritik und begrenzt auch quantitative Angaben. Im Ergebnis scheint es vier Faktoren zu geben, die in ihrer Addition eine spezifische Situation für die deutsche Rezeption von Jaan Kross geschaffen haben, die auf andere Länder nicht zutrifft und die sich nachteilig auf die Aufnahme der Werke des Autors ausgewirkt hat: Das Nicht-Bekommen des Nobelpreises (trifft freilich für alle Länder zu), zurückhaltende Aufnahme eines Romans in tonangebenden Medien, infolgedessen Verzögerung der Herausgabe der weiteren Werke, und schließlich die Aufspaltung zwischen verschiedenen Verlagen.
More...Friedrich Nikolai Russowi ja Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwaldi Krimmi sõja ainelised teosed
The article examines the pragmatics of the Crimean War based texts by Friedrich Nikolai Russow and Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald, who were both figures of the early stage of the Estonian National Awakening. The texts analysed include Tallinna koddaniko ramat omma söbbradele male („A book from a citizen of Tallinn to his friends in the country”, 1854–1857) and the short poem Söalaul Eestima tüttarlastele („A war song to Estonian girls”, 1854) by Russow, to which F. R. Kreutzwald responded with his poem Sõda („War”, 1854). Although both authors glorify the Tzar and the double-headed eagle, they hardly deserve to be called government patriots. Considering the fate and future of the Estonian people those two figures of the early period of Estonian National Awakening sought support for their aspirations to cultivate the Estonian language, original Estonian literature and journalism, turning to whoever had the means and authority to realise such desires. Facing the dilemma: Baltic Germans versus the government sitting in in St. Petersburg and Russian public opinion, the national leaders of the time made their bets on the Russian side and guided their readers accordingly. However, their plans changed as soon as it turned out that the short-sighted imperial politics was not apt to support the views of the Estonian enlighteners, while the advent of Russification in a few decades brought a total restructuring of the relevant forces.
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