Lunastuse teema A. H. Tammsaare romaanis "Põrgupõhja uus Vanapagan"
The Theme of Redemption in A. H. Tammsaare’s Novel „The Misadventures of the New Satan”

Summary/Abstract: The possibility or impossibility of human beatification is a theme running through Tammsaare’s oeuvre and culminating in his last novel „The Misadventures of the New Satan” (Põrgupõhja uus Vanapagan), but not as a theological but a socio-psychological problem. Tammsaare’s approach has not much to do with church. Rather, if we regard the novel as one of place, the source of redemption, in a religious and philosophical sense, is the place (farm) of Põrgupõhja (Hell’s End, lit. Base of Hell). A man is redeemed if the fruit of his life’s work is realised as such and remains his own. An Estonian man is redeemed through a home created with his own hands, of which he is the master. If the place is gone and there is nowhere to be socially redeemed through honest work, the consequences may be apocalyptic. If the soul has got lost together with its base, which is the only place where unification with God or Truth is possible, there is hardly any reason left to seek salvation. From the viewpoint of secular theology Tammsaare has helped Estonians in keeping up a certain religious intellectuality, feeding their awareness and interest in some questions that would perhaps never be asked otherwise.

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