Spleen the Estonian Way: Estonian Literary Decadence in J. Randvere’s Ruth (1909), Friedebert Tuglas’ Felix Ormusson (1915), and Anton Hansen Tammsaar
Spleen the Estonian Way: Estonian Literary Decadence in J. Randvere’s Ruth (1909), Friedebert Tuglas’ Felix Ormusson (1915), and Anton Hansen Tammsaar

Summary/Abstract: Jaak Rähesoo argues that “Nowhere else in Europe [except the nations of Eastern Baltic, namely the Estonians, Finns, Latvians, and Lithuanians] have people rushed directly from folklore to modernity, the only narrow bridge between these distant worlds being a Bible translation and a handful of purely practical or edifying tracts.” Rähesoo adds: “It is only with the Young Estonia (Noor-Eesti) movement of 1905 that the Estonian literature (and the other arts too now) more or less caught up with contemporary European trends, rushing headlong into the refined world of the still — fashionable Symbolism. This synchronization of cultural development went hand in hand with an extremely rapid modernization of all spheres of life.” (Rähesoo 2000: 104; 106.)

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