Tõusik. Märkmeid eelajaloost
Tõusik (Parvenu). Some Notes on Pre-History

Summary/Abstract: The urbanization of the Estonian people at the early 20th century engen dered certain new human types and life attitudes. That process was reflected in the Estonian lexis and the widening thematics of fiction. This was also the background to the first appearance of the word tõusik (parvenu) in Estonian usage around 1910–1920. The notion comes into use almost simultaneously in the political, cultural-ideological as well as literary critical discourses. The word tõusik (parvenu) for a human type was introduced in Estonian by journalist and social figure Ado Grenzstein who, living in Paris, published a pamphlet Tõusikute vastu ("Up against the parvenu", 1911). A decisive role in the establishment of the new word belongs to the members of the modernist movement "Noor-Eesti" ("Young Estonia") (above all Friedebert Tuglas), who see upstart mentality as a brake on the mental development of the ethnos. In fiction the notion takes firm root owing to two novels Orjad ("Slaves", 1912) and Ennäe inimest! ("Ecce homo", 1918) by Mait Metsanurk, both levelling sharp criticism on the Estonian mentality. On the plane of identity history, however, such critical approach to the upstart speaks of a crisis of the previously dominant peasant identity, accompanying the birth of the Estonian Republic

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