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Seltsimees Vaheri küsimus: Nõukogude subjektsus Luise Vaherti 1941. aasta päevikus I

Author(s): Kristo Nurmis / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 3/2020

This article is based on the diary of a young Estonian provincial female party activist Luise Vaher (née Kapstas), in which she describes her evacuation to the Soviet rear following the German invasion of the USSR in the summer and fall of 1941. The diary offers a rare glimpse into the mindset of recently converted Estonian Communists and their shock in encountering the realities of Soviet everyday life. It shows how a young female Bolshevik is trying to make sense of the abject Soviet poverty and the brutal kolkhoz life, its peculiar ethnic, racial and gender relations, and how these realities prompt her to reflect on her own beliefs and identity. The article is inspired by the so-called subjectivity school of Soviet studies, namely by the work of Jochen Hellbeck. The first part of the article examines the applicability of Hellbeck’s approach to the Soviet Estonian context. It also provides a political biography of Luise Vaher – from her conversion to Communism in the summer of 1940, through her rocky career as a provincial party activist, up to her post-Stalinist life as a prominent author of Soviet Estonian “women’s novels”.

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Tervikupüüe ja fragmendihirm Johannes Semperi loomingus

Author(s): Merlin Kirikal / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 3/2020

The aesthetic program of Estonian modernist writer Johannes Semper (1892–1970) is permeated by ideas of holism and organicism. The article explores what could have motivated/reinforced such a value system and how it might have affected Semper’s representations of body and gender. From the philosophical point of view Semper’s works have been molded, firstly, by a cognitive strand of German romanticism called organicism, according to which an artistic achievement is also organic, i.e. coming from the living world. Accordingly, an authentic work of art cannot be divided without causing irreparable damage to the whole. Also, it is the opposite of everything artificial. Secondly, Semper was fascinated by Henri Bergson’s philosophy, on which basis he insists on the integrity and organic nature of the literary situation, the form of the works and the bodies of the characters. For Semper, Bergson’s duration, for example, means an interconnection of phenomena, aims and bodies, recurring in Semper’s oeuvre as a chain motif. He also often applies Bergson’s concept of intuition, believing that the organic intertwining of life and art, body and spirit, content and form can only be perceived intuitively, not analytically. Semper’s holistic desire and his fear of fragmentation were further enhanced by the material and discursive traumas entailed by the First World War. In literary studies the divisive impact of war is often associated with a compensatory holistic desire, which can also be sensed in Semper’s male characters. Thus the characters, together with Semper as implied author, start on a quest for the organic and integral. Those virtues are mainly seen in the body of a dancing female imaged according to Isadora Duncan. For a male spectator the dancing woman appears as an embodiment of organic fusion, where one becomes both body and spirit as well as the dancer and the dance. The activity seems to have no residue, so complete is the fusion. A similar blending, without residue, is a prerequisite of a high-quality literary whole. At the same time the author uses mention of bodily discharges (secretions and excretions) to develop negative associations for certain characters. Such formal pedantry and intolerance against leaking bodies form a gloomy layer of Semper’s pathos-laden holism, a layer carrying some meanings deeply rooted in gender and the body.

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Seltsimees Vaheri küsimus. Nõukogude subjektiivsus Luise Vaheri 1941. aasta päevikus II

Author(s): Kristo Nurmis / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 4/2020

This is the second part of an article that explores the 1941 diary of young provincial female Estonian Communist Luise Vaher (née Kapstas). The article focuses on the ideological and gender discourses in the diary and highlights its source value for the study of Soviet everyday life in general. Vaher evacuates to the Volga region with a mindset of a militant, true-believing Bolshevik, who labels everyday adversaries as “enemies of the people” and threatens them with the full potential of Soviet repressive power. Upon arriving in towns and cities on the banks of Volga river she is, however, struck by the wretched state of Soviet everyday life, its abject poverty, its technological backwardness, and cultural underdevelopment. Though these encounters challenge her belief in Communism (to the point of wishing to abandon politics altogether and begin a “new life as a young woman”), Vaher continues to embrace revolutionary dreams of social justice, a high-industrial future, and political purge. But the encounters with the Soviet reality also awaken her sense of Estonianness, as she considers herself culturally and politically (even racially) superior to the local population. Here, the article explores the socio-cultural baggage Vaher brings from her previous life in a capitalist and rather liberal Estonia, and how her life habits and cultural dispositions collide with the radical otherness of the Soviet civilization. In her observations, Vaher is particularly shocked by the brutal treatment of Soviet women, whom she describes as everyday victims of verbal and sexual abuse and draconian work-discipline laws. Nevertheless, these conscious grievances do not attain a level that would rattle Vaher’s support for Communism. In the concluding remarks, I encourage further research on the ideological dimension of Estonian everyday thinking in 20th-century history.

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Argimütoloogia kui Mati Undi poeetika lähtekoht

Author(s): Indrek Ojam / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 4/2020

The aim of this article is to reinterpret the style and rhetoric of Mati Unt’s proseworks from the point of view of critique of various so-called everyday myths (“everyday mythology” also being the term title of Unt’s late essay-collections). The critical praise in Unt’s reception has revolved mostly around his unique ability to depict the most modern cultural trends, catchphrases and phenomena of his time. This talent of Unt has been explained by the author’s deep interest in myths and Jungian psychoanalysis. I propose, however, that the key author to understand the specific equilibrium of realism and estrangement so characteristic of Unt’s works, is Roland Barthes and his early book “Mythologies” (1957). Barthes’ contemporary French consumer-society was saturated with mythical tropes, which he proceeded to deconstruct using the critical methods of semiotics. Barthes saw the stereotypes of his contemporary television and commercial world as sedating and affirming the status quo. Cultural clichés of various kinds were also crucial raw material for Unt’s novels and short stories. He incorporated these materials into his works rather organically, thus achieving realistic effects, but often also overemphasised these tropes, coming close to estranging the reader. I attempt to show, through close-reading of two Unt’s short novellas from his middle period – “And if we are not dead, we shall be living on” (1973) and “Talking” (1984) – how Unt constructed a realistic story-world, using various modern stereotypes, and later rewrote these stories. The article ends with a discussion of how my analysis may contribute to the debate about Unt’s ambivalent place between modernism and postmodernism in Estonian literature.

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Ühistransport eesti kirjanduses

Author(s): Elle-Mari Talivee / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 6/2020

The article deals with the depiction of urban transport in Estonian fiction from the second half of the 19th century to the present day. Examples from the prose of Eduard Vilde, A. H. Tammsaare, Peet Vallak, Raimond Kaugver, Mati Unt, Mats Traat, Holger Kaints, Veronika Kivisilla and some other authors have been analysed, pointing out the rich variety of aspects the description of public transport offers to authors for creating, mediating and interpreting urban environment. The prevalent fictional coverage of Tallinn public transport is compared with two Estonian descriptions of dream trams by Paavo Matsin and Maarja Pärtna, supplemented by examples from the blook (i.e. blog-based book) of American bus driver Nathan Vass. The literary works are discussed along the timeline of the developing network of urban public transport (in Tallinn mainly) since the introduction of horse tram in 1888. The theoretical framework stems from Bart Keunen’s physics-inspired theory of states of aggregation, which enables observation of the growth and development of a city (including literary ones) as a space of social activity. Based on Keunen’s phases, the evolution of Tallinn public transport is seen as part of the growth of an old commercial town into a booming industrial city with remote suburbs. Those processes are also reflected in fiction. The current depiction of the city, however, relates to Keunen’s latest stage called plasma city, where the city image is being mediated by virtual media, social media or blog posts to be transformed into a b(l)ook later.

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Eesti varase tööliskirjanduse piirjooned ja tunnused

Author(s): Hegely Klaus / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 7/2020

The article is motivated by the marginal position of working-class literature in modern academic literary studies and the available theoretical views and definitions of working-class literature, which are largely obsolete or just superficial. The article highlights the problems associated with defining the concept of working-class literature, based on the relevant theories of well-recognised researchers such as John Lennon, Magnus Nilsson, Raoul Palmgren, Elsi Hyttinen and others. The focus is on the main definitions of working-class literature so far and their critique. The article seeks to provide answers to questions concerning the definition of working-class literature, its spread, research and main features. A polemic discussion is also presented about the definition of a workers’ writer. In addition, the text examines the relationship between working-class literature and other realistic literary currents prevalent in the late 19th and early 20th century, and outlines its spread and research specifically in Estonia. The final part of the article summarises the specific traits of Estonian working-class literature from the early 20th century, including traces of the relationship between Estonians and Baltic Germans, the Estonians’ agrarian point of view, the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, etc. The article is a follow-up of a Master’s thesis on Estonian working-class poetry, defended in the spring of 2019.

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Kuidas keel ruumi loob? Keelelise ruumiloome fenomenoloogia kirjanduskogemuse näitel

Author(s): Tõnu Viik / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 8-9/2020

The paper takes a phenomenological approach and looks into spatial formations (such as a room, a territory, a landscape, a city, a country) that are indicated in conversation and texts of literary fiction. As an example of such spatial formations we can think of the “Middle-earth” in The Lord of the Rings, but also of almost any spatially situated object or action that is conveyed to us by using words. Most of the research into the readers’ experience of fiction holds the view that these spaces are imaginary, i.e. they are a product of the writer’s imagination that is conveyed to the reader’s imagination by means of reading. Based on Husserl’s theory of signs and categorial intuition in the Logical Investigations I argue, in contrast, that imagination is not required to elucidate the readers’ experience of conversational or fictional spaces. The paper maintains that human linguistic consciousness is capable of intending the spatial formations “emptily”, “unfulfilled by”, or devoid of any imaginary or perceptual details. Thus the spatial formations of literary fiction are not imagined, but linguistically intended. Linguistic experience (of reading fiction, for example) has a way of constituting its objects that is irreducible to imagination. A number of examples from the Estonian literature are analyzed to prove and illustrate this process. The spatial formations that are created in reading these texts are numerically singular and unique, but unlike the singular objects of empirical perception or imagination they are not given (in the course of the experience of reading) in a perspective, they are without any particular details regarding their visual aspects or characteristics, and their temporality differs substantially from the objects of imagination and perception; they do not change in time and are characterized by “infinite repeatability”.

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Väitekiri algupärase ja tõlgitud keele eristatavusest

Author(s): Terje Loogus,Heete Sahkai / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 10/2020

Review of: Marju Taukar. Algupäraste ja tõlgitud eestikeelsete tekstide sarnasused ja erinevused. (Humanitaarteaduste dissertatsioonid 56.) Tallinn: Tallinna Ülikool, 2020. 125 lk. [Võrguväljaanne.]

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Kodu mitmemõõtmeline tähendus - Valev Uibopuu pagulasaastad

Author(s): Anna Hukka / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 11/2020

Writer Valev Uibopuu (1913-1997) lived in exile from 1943 until his death. During the whole exile period he held an active correspondence, especially with Estonians living in Estonia and with members of the Estonian diaspora, as well as with his first wife Tuuli Reijonen, who lived in Finland. These letters lay the foundation to this article, which is focused on his changing experience of home in exile. Thus I tried to find out what home meant to Uibopuu, how his concept of home developed in exile and how Uibopuu began to feel at home in Sweden, what kind of desires he related to home, how these desires were realized and what kind of senses of belonging and being an outsider he felt in exile. The hermeneutic approach has helped me to go through the letters. Uibopuu lived in several apartments during his exile years. He lived in Stockholm metropolitan area until 1954 when he moved to Lund after a short stay in Helsinki. In Lund he lived until his death. During the first years in exile Uibopuu’s home was mentally still in Estonia, while home in Sweden meant above all a concrete dwelling providing a roof over his head, shelter and safety. But during the decades-long refugeehood the new and unfamiliar situation developed into a secure and familiar one. Home, which before refugeeness had been clearly in Southern Estonia, was divided into three different areas of life (which though were bundled together): home in Sweden (private apartment, wife, work, everyday life and Estonian diaspora), home in South-Estonia based on nostalgic memories (years before the Soviet period, family, relatives, landscapes of South-Estonia, private family house) and the Republic of Estonia after regaining its independence (national community and Estonian cultural milieu - something Uibopuu fought for all through the exile years and the things on which he built his national identity). Besides these three areas of home, Finland became an important place too (his first wife, friends, the Finnish language). So Uibopuu’s homes were made up of places, social relationships, identities, memories and stories. While in exile, Uibopuu had to reflect on his place and meaning of home more than he would have done back in Estonia, which led to a keener awareness of the notion.

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Märkmeid Aare Pilve luulest

Author(s): Joosep Susi / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 08-09/2017

Review of: Aare Pilv. Kui vihm saab läbi. Mälestisi ühest ajastust (2007–2015). Tallinn: Tuum, 2017. 130 lk.

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Kirjad Laagrist: Karl Ristikivi kaks kirja Eerik Laiule Sigtuna põgenikelaagrist

Author(s): Janika Kronberg / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 10/2017

Koopiatega Karl Ristikivi kirjadest Eerik Laiule (1904-1961) astus 30. juunil 1994 Karl Ristikivi muuseumi uksest sisse Rein Moora (1926-2006), ajaloolane, graafik ja endine soomepoiss. Kokku oli koopiaid viiest kirjast, neist kaks varasemat on saadetud Sigtunast, mis pärast paaripäevast viibimist Vikingshilli nn läbikäigulaagris oli Ristikivi esimene, 1944. aasta lõpus umbes kolmekuine peatuskoht Rootsis. Mõned kirjakohad on varustatud ka Rein Moora pliiatsimärkustega.

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Linnad eesti kirjanduses

Author(s): Sirje Olesk / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 10/2017

Review of: Elle-Mari Talivee. Kuidas kirjutada linna. Eesti proosa linnamaastik aastail 1877–1903. (Tallinna Ülikooli humanitaarteaduste dissertatsioonid 35.) Tallinn: Tallinna Ülikool, Humanitaarteaduste instituut, 2017. 233 lk.

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Urmas Vadi psühholoogiline realism

Author(s): Johanna Ross / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 12/2017

Review of: Urmas Vadi. Neverland. Tallinn: Kolm Tarka, 2017. 347 lk.

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Jaan Kross kui keelekunstnik

Author(s): Clas Zilliacus / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 6/2020

Käesoleva aasta 19. veebruar oli Eestis lipupäev, tähistamaks kirjanik Jaan Krossi 100. sünniaastapäeva. Välja anti ka postmark ja Tallinna vanalinna kavandatakse mälestusmärki. Kross on oma rahvuse sümbol, eestilikkuse metonüüm. Ta on ise oma maa tihendatud kujul, tema raamatutes püsis alal Eesti kui kujutletud kogukond. Sellepärast heisatigi lipp.

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Me kõik oleme Hiidlased!

Author(s): Cornelius Hasselblatt / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 6/2020

Review of: Vaapo Vaher. Hiiumaa kirjanduse lugu. Esseid ja uurimusi. 1–2. Kärdla: Hiiumaa Teabekapital, 2019. 848 + 928 lk

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Lühidalt

Author(s): Ermo Karpov,Brita Melts / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 6/2020

Reviews of: Aado Lintrop. Minagi olin Jaakobiteel. Palveränduri märkmed. Tartu: Ilmamaa, 2020. 188 lk. Jüri Talvet. Tundmised. (Kaasaegne mõte 11.) Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2019. 207 lk.

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Oh sa mu noormehejutustus, kui pagana armas sa ikkagi oled!

Author(s): Johanna Ross / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 7/2020

Review of: Peedu Saar. Pascual. Tallinn: Pilgrim, 2018. 78 lk; Peedu Saar. Mailased. Tallinn: Paradiis, 2019. 182 lk

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„Teiega kirjavahetus on mulle aina kasuks” - Elin Toona ja Valev Uibopuu / Eesti Kirjanike Kooperatiivi kirjavahetusest

Author(s): Janika Kronberg / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 11/2020

Tänavu 10. detsembril möödub 70 aastat sellest, kui Stockholmi vanalinnas aadressil Lila Nygatan 8 asunud ajalehe Välis-Eesti toimetuses kogunesid kirjanikud August Gailit, Bernard Kangro, Valev Uibopuu ning tööstur Enn Vallak ja panid aluse Eesti Kirjanike Kooperatiivile - kirjastusele, mis kuni 1993. aastani andis paguluses välja suure osa neist raamatuist, mis praeguseks on kindlustanud omale koha eesti kirjanduse klassikas. Kirjastuse töös oli selle pikaaegse juhi ja tegevdirektori Kangro kõrval oluline osa Valev Uibopuul, kes alates maikuust 1954 kuni Lundi ülikooli lektori ametisse astumiseni 1. juulil 1971 tegi kirjastuses kontoritööd, pidades kirjavahetust autorite ja lugejatega, korraldades kirjastuse kolleegiumi tööd ning hoides korras üha kasvavat arhiivi. Mädchen für alles, ei saa ma jätta meenutamata Uibopuu sõnu, kui 1994. aasta kevadel palusin tal kirjeldada oma tööülesandeid kirjastuses.1

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Hilispuberteetlikke passioone

Author(s): Leo Luks / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 11/2020

Review of: Kaja Kann. Tänavatüdruk. Tallinn: Varrak, 2020. 255 lk.

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