Ühest eesti kirjanduslugude painavast mõistest: epigonism
Epigonism – an Obsession of Estonian Literary Histories

Summary/Abstract: the modernist aesthetic treats epigonism as a negative practice. In Estonia, the term has become part and parcel of describing the local literary activity of the final decades of the 19th century. However, despite the negative associations, by today many texts of the time have been counted among the basic. moreover, in that period imitation was considered the norm rather than something condemnable. Following the Greek origin of the term, the epigones of the time were rather regarded as descendants of great heroes, a new generation to further their fathers’ cause. to trace the advent of the term in the local discourse the article analyses a number of relevant Estonian textbooks and literary histories. most of them indeed make mention of epigonism. It turns out that the Estonian epigones were first called epigones more or less by their contemporaries (see the contents of the unfinished Part 2 of Eesti kirjanduse ajalugu („Estonian Literary History”) by tõnu sander, published in 1901, written in the early 1890s). sander’s originally neutral term was adopted by Young Estonians Gustav suits and Friedebert tuglas, whose critical views and attitudes made their way into mihkel kampmann’s literary history, Part 2 (1913) and the analogous works to follow. although the exact source of sander’s ’time of epigones’ has not been established yet, it is clear that literary historians have elaborated his introductory sketch into a standing canon for the end-of-19th-century Estonian literature. moreover, the integration of Estonian literature into a new aesthetic paradigm seems to have started even earlier than the vigorous action of Young Estonians.

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