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Aino Kallas: põgenemine ajalukku ja ajaloo eest

Author(s): Aivar Põldvee / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 08-09/2013

Aino Kallas (1878-1956) is considered a Finnish as well as an Estonian author. Her borderline status between the two cultures and her ambivalent oeuvre continue to provide substance for diverse literary historical interpretations, neither has reader interest waned, which has even led to talk of a renaissance of Aino Kallas. The article discusses the writer’s relations with (Estonian) history on which her masterpieces were based. Aino Kallas arrived at the themes from the 14th-17th centuries after a creative crisis making her realize that lack of the blood bond prevented her from delving into specifically Estonian problems and that realism was not her cup of tea. She found an escape in history, which allowed her to use dramatic plots and legends of the past offering timeless themes such as forbidden love, fatal passion, and death, well fitting the romantic genre of prose ballad. At the same time, autobiographical facts as well as reflections of contemporary social conditions and ideas remain an important part of her work. The oeuvre of Aino Kallas stands out on the background of Estonian historical narrative, offering a foretaste of the boom of historical fiction due in the mid-1930s, yet avoiding the themes pregnant with a national approach and ideology. Nevertheless, in 1935 a play of hers, despite following a classical example, caused a sharp conflict, as its plot was placed in the time of the 14th-century popular uprising in Estonia. The resentment rooted in national traumas resembled part of the Estonian response to the „Purge” by Sofi Oksanen. Still, the avoidance of social, national and political themes has protected Aino Kallas’s oeuvre from aging. Also, her archaistic usage, imitating old chronicles, which has been mediated to the Estonian reader by Friedebert Tuglas, has a fresh appeal. There is reason to believe that the works of Aino Kallas and her archaistic style have influenced the brilliant Estonian historical novelist Jaan Kross.

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Varemed ja aiad. Barokk-kirjanduse esteetika Bernard Kangro Tartu-romaanides

Author(s): Maarja Hollo / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 11/2014

Up to the present, Bernard Kangro’s Tartu novels („Springs of Ice” 1958, „The River Emajõgi” 1961, „Tartu” 1962, „The Stone Bridge” 1963, „The Black Book” 1965, and „Whirlwind of Fire” 1969), regarded as the core of his prose fiction, have been examined through a paradigm of literary movements. The goal of this article is to supplement and specify these so-called canonical treatments by an examination of the characteristics of baroque aesthetics as seen in Kangro’s last five Tartu novels. Among the features attributed to baroque literature are spatial representation of time, syncretism, a coexistence of different levels of meaning in a work, playfulness, and allegory. The allegorical scenes in Kangro’s Tartu novels create a particular dimension of timelessness, using situations that extend beyond the boundaries of the time of historical reality. The article provides a close analytical perspective on five allegorical scenes entitled Poor Yorick!, The Dance of the Flowers, The Garden, Spirit-Burning, and Ruins. The principal point of departure is the theory of allegory as articulated in Walter Benjamin’s habilitation thesis The Origin of German Tragic Drama (Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, 1928). According to this theoretical approach, allegory is the form of expression specific to the age of the Baroque, which Benjamin sets in opposition to the classicist symbol. For Benjamin, the aesthetic symbol represents a totalizing, unifying, harmonizing image that falsifies historical experience; allegory, on the contrary, foregrounds historical experiences that are premature, and that cause sadness and torment, allowing to speak of history as the suffering of the world. In the allegorical scenes of Kangro’s Tartu novels, which seem to function as windows in the novels’ basically realistic space, characters „awaken” from sleep and become able to see the time they are living in, a time that remains „invisible” and incomprehensible to them in the reality represented by the base text of the novel. By means of the allegorical way of seeing, Kangro seems to succeed best at transmitting the feeling of living the time he depicts, the years of the Second World War, and to show history as not being a continual, unshakable, and straightforward chain of events, thus differing radically from the attempt of one of his characters, Soviet historian Naatan Üirike.

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„Popi and Huhuu” ning tema eelkäija eesti kirjanduses

Author(s): Pille-Riin Larm / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 10/2012

The short story „Popi and Huhuu” (1914) by Friedebert Tuglas can be considered the crown of the canon of Estonian short stories. Yet up to now nobody has pointed out its resemblance to an anonymous pastime story Ahvi armastus ja kättemaksmine („The love and revenge of a monkey”) published in the literary magazine Meelejahutaja in 1881. To gain new knowledge about the birth of „Popi and Huhuu” and to clarify the relations of Tuglas with his preceding generation, the so-called epigons, the two stories are compared, using influence criticism’s method. It appears that Tuglas, however overtly sensitive to authenticity problems and inimical towards his predecessors, was closely bound to them by his borrowing one of their motifs. The spread of attitudes, ideas, motifs and plots during the decades between the pastime story and Tuglas’s short story demonstrates a huge development in Estonian literary thought. Nevertheless, the advent of Tuglas and the other representatives of Young Estonia did not mean a total break from the past, as they were also epigons, in a positive sense, carrying on from their predecessors: Estonian short prose had been playing with grand symbols long before the Young Estonians modernist project, although falling short of great abstractions or a truly artistic effect. Even the ideas known from the Young Estonians’ manifesto were in the air and expressed in the cultural press of the late 19th century.

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Naise eneseteadvuse ja iha sünd sonetis. Marie Under ja Edna St. Vincent Millay (I)

Author(s): Rebekka Lotman / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 06/2015

Mitmed tänapäeva monograafiad pühenduvad naissubjekti, tema iha, eneseteadvuse ja hääle analüüsile lääne sonetitraditsioonis. Ühe verstapostina nähakse siin Ameerika poetessi, 1923. aasta Pulitzeri luuleauhinna laureaadi Edna St. Vincent Millay rikast sonetiloomingut, mis pühitses naishäälega erootilist armastust siin ja praegu. Millay armastussonettide seeriaid peetakse petrarkismi, lääne luulekultuuris enam kui viiesaja aasta jooksul juurdunud sonetitraditsiooni kontekstis murranguliseks. Millay debüteeris ja avaldas esimesed uue ajastu naise häälega sonetid 1917. aastal ehk samal aastal, kui Marie Under avaldas oma varjamatust ihast pakatava esikkogu „Sonetid”. Mõlemad autorid armastasid sonetivormi: Under on kirjutanud üle 100 soneti, Millay sonetitoodang küünib üle 180. Mõlemad valasid sellesse vormi igatsused ja kired, meelelised tundmused ja hingeliikumised. Nende samal ajal, ent erineval pool maakera kirjutatud sonetid astuvad sageli lausa hämmastavasse dialoogi. Ühest küljest on mõlema poetessi sonettide hääleks tihti eneseteadlik, seksuaalne ja ihalev naissoost mina ning mitmel puhul loovad nad äärmiselt sarnase poeetilise maailma, teisalt võib paiguti näha, et nad esindavad selle maailma eri poolusi.

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Naise eneseteadvuse ja iha sünd sonetis. Marie Under ja Edna St. Vincent Millay (II)

Author(s): Rebekka Lotman / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 07/2015

In 1917 two great female sonneteers published their debut poetry collections: Marie Under in Estonia and Edna St. Vincent Millay in US. Both poets gave voice to the desiring and self-conscious New Woman in their sonnets: their sonnet series are openly erotic and sensual, their female personas do not believe in eternal love and desire sensuous pleasure now and here. The first part of the article gives an short overview of Petrarchism and female sonneteers, who have given voice to the woman in this primarily masculine discourse. It also points out the different cultural contexts of Millay’s and Under’s desiring sonnet series. Millay’s sonnets mark a break with tradition, whereas the female voice of Under’s sonnets continue a line of female poets, whose roots trace back to the Estonian folk song. The second part of the article gives a comparative analysis of the semantic world of Millay’s and Under’s love sonnets. Their both personas give expression to similar attitudes, but from this similarity emerges also the difference between them. Unlike Millay’s female persona, the voice of Under’s love sonnets objectifies her desired one entirely, mainly by using Petrarchan self-reflection in its extreme. While this kind of objectifying has been seen as something overly masculine in feminist criticism, in the case of Under’s poetry the critics have described it as a primarily female characteristic. Under’s desiring sonnets become completely autoerotic in her sensual nature sonnets which lack any object of desire: in the midst of desirous and exuberant nature the persona enjoys herself and the beauty of her body. Here as well, the formation of the persona takes place through mirroring, but here the nature itself is used as mirror (flowers, butterflies, bees, sea etc.), not the loved one as in the case of Petrarchism. Although soon after publishing most of the critics praised the novelty of Under’s sonnets, afterwards their importance in the critical discourse of Estonian literature has been diminished. That is probably why the author herself later censored her sonnets and exluded the most erotic ones from the revised editions and poetry collections. However, the main conclusion of the article is that Marie Under’s sensual sonnets written in her Siuru period were innovative not only in Estonian poetry, but in the context of the whole tradition of Petrarchism.

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Paulopriit Voolaine kogutud lutsi muinasjutud

Author(s): Inge Annom / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 08-09/2015

The article analyses the fairy tales collected from the environs of Ludza town, Latvia, in 1925–1937 by Paulopriit Voolaine. The collected material was sent by him to the Academic Mother Tongue Society, to M. J. Eisen’s Scholarship Fellows collection and to the Estonian Folklore Archives. In the 1920s his interest was focused on the Estonian narrative tradition of the Ludza enclave, but in the 1930s he also collected the folklore of other peoples inhabiting the region. As, for historical and political reasons, the Latgale region of Latvia has been rather multicultural Voolaine’s material is excellent for cross-ethnic comparative analysis. The number of the fairy tales collected by Voolaine from different peoples of the Ludza region exceeds 230. Most of them can be classified as miracle fairy tales, but the most popular types of tales are „Fly in Place of Nail” (ATU 772*) and „The Last Leaf” (ATU 1184), the former of which is a legend-like fairy tale and the latter belongs to tales about a gullible Devil. Some versions tend to occur more consistently with certain peoples. The Ludza Estonian versions of „Cinderella” (ATU 510A), for example, resemble those collected from Setumaa rather than those told among the neighbouring peoples. The fairy tales told by Gypsies, however, share some features with legends. The article addresses but a few aspects of the treasury of fairy tales from the Ludza region. The voluminous material collected by Voolaine certainly remains a valuable source for anybody interested in comparative folklore studies.

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Puu jaagupi pajatused

Author(s): Mall Hiiemäe / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 08-09/2015

The subjects and style of the stories told by Jaagup Puu (1879–1964) are analysed. Jaagup’s stories could be classified under tall tales like those in ATU 1875–1999. Jaagup used to narrate about his own life experiences, using exaggerations and fantasy bordering on the absurd. This socially poor and meagre-looking man would tell his stories, if possible, for two or three hours on end, emplotting the facts and events of his personal life, developing the story in great length, adding intermediate episodes, contaminations and comments. His stories are full of exaggerations, manipulation with numbers and dimensions, comical situations, abundant dialogue, similes, rhetorical questions and exclamations, gestures and miming. This was a masterful symbiosis of facts and fiction. By the mid-20th century fraudulent narratives had already receded from active story-telling as inopportune, being openly discouraged even from hunting and fishing stories. This is mainly why Jaagup’s stories could not spread any too far in space or time. Nor did the stories have the social focus characteristic of jokes.

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Johannes Barbaruse Venemaa

Author(s): Anneli Kõvamees / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 06/2016

The position of Johannes Vares-Barbarus (1890-1946) in Estonian history and culture is contradictory. On the one hand, he was a remarkable doctor of the name of Vares, on the other hand, a poet named Barbarus, whose modernistic poems were not always appreciated. Moreover, the reception of his works has been complicated by his actions in the 1940s, when he was one of the leading figures in the Sovietization of Estonia. His left-wing views are hardly overlooked whenever himself or his works are discussed. His poetry having received so much more attention than the rest of his works, this article analyzes his travelogue Matkavisandeid & mõtisklusi („Travel Sketches and Contemplations”), which is based on his visit to the Soviet Union. It was published in the literary magazine Looming in 1935 and reprinted in 1950 in his collected works. The article analyzes the image of the Soviet Union in his travelogue published in 1935 and discusses the notable changes that were made in the reprint. Some of those changes have significantly altered the meaning, so that the revised text fits perfectly the Soviet canon.

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Haigused ja igatsused: Lilli Suburgi käänuline tee

Author(s): Eve Annuk / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 07/2016

The article addresses the relationships of literature and disease on the example of the life and activities of Lilli Suburg (1841-1923).The life and creative activity of Suburg was affected, on the one hand, by a peculiarity of her appearance, notably, a scar left after a congenital tumor had been removed from her face, due to which she would wear a kerchief over her jaw throughout her life. On the other hand, for many years she suffered from hemorrhages forcing her to bed for long periods, incapacitated to help out her parents with farmwork. That affliction, however, gave Suburg a chance to engage in intellectual self-development by reading, writing a diary and teaching her younger sisters and brothers, which would hardly have been conceivable in addition to regular farm chores. Both in her diary and autobiography Suburg admits that her intellectual development was considerably influenced by illnesses and her physical vulnerability. This is also proved by observing the facts of her life. She chose singleness, which was partly due to her health problems. However, the need for self-subsistence impelled her to act in different directions, such as journalism, creative writing, teaching, while this versatility gave her a chance to realize and develop her different abilities. The periods of forced idleness caused by Suburg’s illness turned out to be intellectually fertile, providing time for reading and reflection. The sensibility caused by illness and physical vulnerability developed her empathy for others finding themselves in a vulnerable situation, such as children, the old and the sickly. Hence her deeply human attitude of caring underlying her worldview. More than any other published or unpublished text by Suburg, her diary reveals her sensitive, tender and vulnerable heart. Suburg’s autobiographically based fiction contains no direct reflection of her experience of disease. In her writing she managed to create the image of a new and better world with protagonists whose choices were not limited by physical afflictions. Possibly, if Suburg had not suffered from an illness enabling her to engage in intellectual self-improvement, she would never have become the person she became: a public figure, author, journalist, feminist and teacher.

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Nõukogude aja keerises: Irma Truupõllu lugu

Author(s): Janika Läänemets / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 01/2017

Irma Truupõld (1903-1980) began publishing short stories and poetry for both children and adults at the age of twenty. Four of her children’s books came out in print in the mid-1930s: Rohelise Päikese Maa (The Land of the Green Sun), Öömori okaslinn (The Needle City of Öömori), Aadi esimene armastus (Aadi’s First Love) and Kuidas jõuluvana leidis endale ameti (How Father Christmas Found His Profession). Of these, the first two are held in the highest regard and have remained her most popular works. Unfortunately, Truupõld’s literary career was cut short by the Soviet occupation and the establishment of Socialist Realism as the official artistic doctrine shortly thereafter. Critics found her fantastic stories to be ill-suited for Soviet children and accused Rohelise Päikese Maa of „bourgeois propaganda”. This resulted in a nearly twenty-year-long gap in the reception of Truupõld’s texts, the consequences of which are still felt today. She has regained her good reputation over time, but seems destined to stay in the periphery of the Estonian literary canon.

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Muusapoja Pojad Nooruse Kihermeid II

Author(s): Arne Merilai / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 03/2017

This entry is a continuation to the article „Sly Ain and the Old Heathen: Literary Marginalia in the „Noorus” Magazine of the 1960s, Part I (Keel ja Kirjandus 2016, 7: 489-503), which discussed the educating literary commentary published by mentor Ain Kaalep alias O. Muusapoeg ’lit. O. Son of the Muses’ in the 1960s editions of the magazine Noorus („Youth”). It highlighted the rhetoric of irony between the lines, which could be regarded as cultural counterpropaganda addressed to the younger generation of Soviet Estonia. Inspired by the same genre and idea, Lea Tormis wrote seven reflections on theatre events. Her younger brother, poet PaulEerik Rummo, under the alias Poor Yorick, published his seven „marginals” partly in playful dialogue with Kaalep. To the same context belongs Jaak Põldmäe’s „School of Poetics” which appeared in six parts. His influential lessons introduced a new structuralist understanding of the form of poetry, based on the formalist approach to the poetic function of language. The young scholar was keen to explain the basics of poetic language usage, metrics and different verse systems, as well as rhyme, sound effects, poetic license, and main figures of speech used in Estonian poetry.

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Sportlanna Keha Ja Hing Johannes Semperi Novellikogus „Ellinor”

Author(s): Merlin Kirikal / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 06/2017

The article explores the depiction of the body of a sporting woman, especially of one playing tennis or swimming, in Johannes Semper’s short story collection „Ellinor” (1927). There are three reasons why „Ellinor” has a radical meaning in the Estonian literature of the time. Firstly, the activities are consistently portrayed through the female point of view; secondly, the stories are permeated by an enthusiastic and luxuriant sense of life, which defies the book culture as remote from life; and thirdly, both a sporting „new woman” and homosexuality were certainly novel subjects in the Estonian culture of the time. The article analyses the aims and aspirations of „Ellinor’s” female protagonist, her active and sporting lifestyle and its connections with the modern social and cultural vibes. Semper’s sporting „new woman” has to do with the scientific and philosophical trends of the time, such as energetism, Freudianism and Darwin-based eugenics, while the focus on bodily perceptions bears obvious traces of Nietzsche and Bergson, referring at the same time to certain changes going on in modernising societies (female emancipation, population politics in the interwar period). Using the key concepts „body”, „sports” and „new woman”, the stories are considered in the cultural context of the time, where femininity would rather refer to the home-making role of a woman, although the importance of physical fitness was also emphasised both as a basis of ethnic survival and the beauty ideal. „Ellinor” is a vivid example of the ambiguous interpretation of the „new femininity”, sexuality and corporeality in the early 20th-century European culture. Despite Semper’s ambivalence and often scathing irony, especially towards the lesbian character of Liibeon, his Ellinor stories are a remarkably bold manifesto of modern, free and fulfilling lifestyle and attitudes. There is hardly another text of fiction with such emphasis to be found in the early 20th-century Estonian literature.

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Uuesti kokku korjatud ja raamatuks muutunud sõsara sõrmeluud

Author(s): Kristi Salve / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 05/2019

Review of: Sõsara sõrmeluud. Naised eesti muinasjuttudes. Koostanud ja ümber jutustanud Merili Metsvahi. Illustreerinud Britt Samoson. Tallinn: Kirjastus Hunt, 2018. 230 lk.

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Maakodu eesti NSV-S. Kultuurilised kujutelmad ja argised asjad

Author(s): Epp Annus / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 06/2019

The article is interested in the interconnection of cultural imaginaries and everyday materialities; these phenomena are explored in the context of commonly shared ideas about countryside home-life in Soviet Estonia. Based on Soviet-era fiction and poetry, and supported by life-writing and interviews, the essay outlines some basic strategies that are foregrounded in cultural imaginaries of the era: a nostalgic regard for the “authenticity” of pre-Soviet Estonian farm life, a belief in the salutary nature of countryside surroundings, and an ironical attitude towards summer-homing as it is performed by modern city dwellers. The poetry of Hando Runnel, as it presented in the 200-page volume of his collected poetry Kodu-käija (A Visitor of One’s Own Home, 1978), offers many images of countryside life, while references to Soviet style collectivized agriculture are notable for their absence in this oeuvre. Runnel’s visions occasionally include, however, markers of urbanization and images of country people settling into cities – as well as their corollary: abandoned farm homes. Like many of Runnel’s poems, his poem Üks veski seisab vete pääl (A Water Mill Stands over the Water) was adapted for a pop song lyric and gained huge popularity. In the 1980s, this poem came to represent dreams of a new beginning: the water mill is empty and abandoned, but the poetic voice calls for a “young and strong man” to come set it to work again, with a young maiden invited to share this home and this life with him. The call of this poem exemplifies the paradoxes of restoring the independent Estonian republic: the hope and desire was to restore the country and, with it, a way of life that had once existed. As the essay observes, however, such countryside ideals had already perished, even before WWII. Thus the longing to restore an “authentic” countryside life with its farmsteads and traditional small-scale agriculture was destined to bring disappointment. The restoration of national independence had no power, at this late stage of modernity, to bring to life these images of a premodern, idyllic world.

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Kaitstud doktoritööd

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 07/2019

Defended doctoral theses.

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Õrn, habras, kaitsetu mässaja (iseenese vastu) - Margit Lõhmus, Sterne

Author(s): Peeter Sauter / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 11/2019

Review of: Margit Lõhmus. Sterne. Jutud 2002– 2019. (Värske raamat 23.) Tallinn: Kultuurileht, 2019. 110 lk.

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Lühidalt

Author(s): Janika Kronberg ,Brita Melts,Johanna Ross,Maria-Maren Linkgreim / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 11/2019

Reviews of: Tõnu Õnnepalu. Aaker. (Muskoka, Ontario, CA). Mujal kodus II. EKSA, 2019. 389 lk. Cornelius Hasselblatt. Eesti kirjanduse 100 aastat. Siuru kevadest kirjanikupalgani. Tallinn: Post Factum, 2019. 237 lk. Aile Möldre. Eesti raamatu 100 aastat. Käsikirjalisest teosest digiraamatuni. Tallinn: Post Factum, 2019. 208 lk. Jüri Viikberg. Murdekiiker. Eesti murdenäiteid kõnes ja kirjas. Tehniline teostus Marko Petron, Indrek Hein, toimetajad Mari-Liis Kalvik, Tiina Laansalu. Tallinn: Eesti Keele Instituut, 2019. Veebiväljaanne. https://www.eki.ee/murded/kiiker

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Korüfee ja tema kirjad

Author(s): Sirje Olesk / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 01/2012

Review of: Artur Adson. Friedebert Tuglas. Paaži ja Felixi kirjavahetus 1917-1944. Tallinn: Underi ja Tuglase Kirjanduskeskus, 2011. 614 lk.

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Emakeele seltsis

Author(s): Killu Paldrok / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 05/2012

Report on the conference held on February 16th of 2011.

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Akadeemiline aino kallas

Author(s): Sirje Olesk / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 02/2013

Review of: Silja Vuorikuru. Kauneudentemppelin ovella. Aino Kallaksen tuotanto ja raamatullinen subteksti. Akateeminen väitöskirja. Helsinki: Helsingin yliopisto, 2012. 278 lk.

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