Mere kujutamine Mari Saadi romaanis „Lasnamäe lunastaja”
Depiction of the Sea in Mari Saat’s Novel Lasnamäe Lunastaja (“The Redeemer of Lasnamäe”)

Summary/Abstract: This article focuses on the descriptions of the sea in Mari Saat’s short novel Lasnamäe lunastaja (“The Redeemer of Lasnamäe”) (2008). In this work, descriptions of the sea are frequently connected with the portrayal of the protagonist Natalja Filippovna, her emotions and experiences of the past, present and future. The sea and the varying maritime views also represent limits between different places and spaces. The most central places of Lasnamäe lunastaja are the suburb of Lasnamäe in Tallinn and the coast of Crimea. The main character, a middle-aged Russian woman called Natalja lives in Lasnamäe with her teenage daughter Sofia in the first decade of the 21st century. Her dismal everyday life is constantly contrasted with her past memories of he coast of Crimea, where she once spent her carefree youth. In addition, the marine views of Lasnamäe and Crimea are compared with scenes of Finland and the sunny coasts of Capri. In this article, Lasnamäe lunastaja is analysed in connection with Aino Kallas’s short story Lasnamäen valkea laiva (published in Estonian in 1913, titled as Lasnamäe valge laev), to which the title of Mari Saat’s novel openly refers. Kallas’s short story is one of the best-known literary descriptions of the so-called Maltsvetian movement of the late 19th century. Both the so-called Maltsvetians in the 1860s and Natalja Filippovna in the first years after the restoration of Estonian independence were poor, oppressed folk in Lasnamäe, who dreamed about a better life in Crimea. Owing to the intertextual relationship with the famous text by Kallas the complicated questions of independence (both of an individual and a state) raised in Lasnamäe lunastaja open up to new interpretations.

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