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The question posed in the title cannot have a straightforward reply, as any understanding between people depends on the language, language ...
Author archives: Annika
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Many processes, phenomena and events that took place in the former communist empire called the Soviet Union, have remained mysterious, illo...
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On 23 November 2006, one hundred years will have passed since the birth of Betti Alver, one of the most remarkable of all Estonian poets. W...
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* * *what’s the use of poetryI ask you – whatdoes poetry reconcileour divorced parentspit-a-pat holding handsbring them together againas it...
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The Star-Bright HourThe wind won’t ask: to what did life amount?To yourself you’ll render your own account.However long, however dark the n...
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Diplomacy and literature, or fine arts in general, can be viewed as the opposing spheres of human activities. In everyday language, dip...
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The 2005 Cultural Award of the Republic of Estonia for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement was given to the grand old man of Estonian letters,...
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The two laureates of the last annual poetry award both entered literature in the late 1990s; like Kristiina Ehin, Jürgen Rooste published h...
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A knot. I adjust one endon the other, then I draw the latteron the former, into the center of the noose.It resembles the imageof a tree wit...
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‘And we are standing at the crossroads.There are many aims and aspirations in our country, but the task of the young should be: when time i...
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On a beautiful Thursday in May, eight translators-to-be convened in the city of Visby for a three day seminar on how to translate Estonian ...
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CrooningI am so fleetingsighed the girl to the seaoh, what can I doyou are eternalI am transparent like yousighed the girl to the windowoh,...
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Paul-Eerik Rummo, one of the major authors of the Estonian poetry innovation of the 1960s, was born in 1942 in Tallinn to the family of wr...
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Paper presented at a literary conference on the occasion of Arvo Valton’s 70th birthday on 12 December 2005 at the Estonian Writers’ Un...
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During his lifetime, the prose-writer, poet and critic Jaan Oks published his articles and short stories in newspapers and various alma...
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It is not at all easy to make generalisations about the work of Mart Kivastik (1963). With the very first sentence he usually takes the...
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Jaanus stood on one leg without losing balance. The concrete surround of the burial plot was exactly the same width as his sandal. When he ...
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Arvo Valton (1935) began his career as a writer in the 1960s. He is still a productive writer today and has been translated into many langu...
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I am an Estonian poetI come from Lasnamäewhat is Lasnamäe?an eastern districtof our capital citythere are grey buildingsfive and nine store...
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fs is currently the shortest writer’s name in Estonia, used by Indrek Mesikepp (b. 1971), who graduated from Tartu University in 1999 as an...
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Founded in 1965, the Juhan Liiv annual prize for poetry has been less visible perhaps for the general public than some other literary prize...
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LAMADA KARJAMAAL HIIREHERNESLamada karjamaal hiirehernes,tulitav päike pää kohal kõrges;põse all poolniisked rootsud pehmed,purused pebred ...
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EELKEVADISES METSASOtsin sinililli eelkevadises metsasega leia.Kivi õitseb längus päikese käes,kivimudilasi vudib ringi,nii et silmade ...
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I read somewhere recently that between 2% and 3% of books published in the UK are translations. Whatever the exact statistic, this compares...
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The aim of this article is to look at Mustamäe's metamorphoses during its forty years of existence, the reflections of those metamorphoses ...
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The 2004 Cultural Award of the Republic of Estonia for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement was given to the poet Debora Vaarandi.The Esto...
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Every four years the Estonian Literature Information Centre summons together translators from all over Europe who are active and interested...
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Waltermaria Stojan, the director of the Austrian Cultural Forum in Warsaw, wanted to make poetry sing multinationally, yet in mother-to...
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In the last couple of years, several peculiar literary works have been published in Estonia which have a certain ‘family resemblance’ in th...
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from the collection The First Will (Esimene tahe):* * *A tired woman on the buscompares my chestwith that of her daughtercompares my shoesw...
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Lauri Pilter’s arrival in Estonian literature caused no sensation. Since the mid-1990s he has been translating into Estonian bits and p...
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In this article, the younger generation of Estonian authors will be discussed, in whose works we understand who are contemporary Estonians ...
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Elo Viiding is one of the most distinguished Estonian poets, not only currently but also in terms of the history of Estonian literature. Sh...
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During the second half of the 1980s, Soviet Estonian literature gradually started to change. A new generation of writers appeared, introduc...
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I will mostly talk about what has stayed with me. What has become familiar. Manipulating phonograms recorded on wax rolls, tapes, discs and...
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Shetlandic poet Robert Alan Jamieson reports from the Literature Across Frontiers Käsmu translation workshop held in Estonia, May 8th- 15th...
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In a desert kingdom, in a city located at the borderline between the sea and the desert - let us call it OIL CITY because of its big oi...
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Nikolai Baturin is one of the most exceptional and reclusive Estonian writers. The reception of his work has been contradictory: for a long...
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Madis Kõiv is an exceptional figure in Estonian literature and at the same time one of the principal writers in new Estonian literature; he...
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The 2003 Cultural Award of the Republic of Estonia for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement was given to the literary figure Vello Salo.
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Reading reference works about Ilmar Talve, we learn that he is a Finnish ethnologist of international renown, an honorary member of scienti...
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The beginning of written poetry
The pre-Romantic Kristian Jaak Peterson (14 March 1801 – 4 August 1822) who burst upon the literary scen...
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Hello- summers, black evanescences,mad dog, it’s barking at itself, it’s amad dog –- touch a dark stone, toucha deep stone, warmly, l...
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J. T. Father Vello Salo, now of the Pirita monastery, you have lived a long and adventurous life. You were born in Viljandi County in 1925...
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Chapter 13I was sitting on the steps outside the shop chewing on a blade of grass. Rita came and asked what was wrong. Nothing, I answered ...
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ELM: What to ask of a 32-year-old writer whose first book appeared 15 years ago, and who is equally busy as a TV host, restaurant criti...
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Albert Kivikas (1898-1978) had three quite distinct roles in Estonian literary history. I will examine them in chronological order. Kivikas...
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Aidi Vallik, author of several collections of poetry, has talked a few times about how she came to write books for young people.As a teache...
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The evening of nightbirdsNightbirds sing all evening long.How all the air and all the world breathesin the screaming pain of nightbirds!We ...
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TO BE A DOG-APARTMENTto be a dog-apartment with three barking roomswith a snout-bathroomwhere one tap dribbles coldand the other hot slobbe...
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The 2002 Cultural Award of the Republic of Estonia for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement was given to the writer Hando Runnel.In 2002 the Li...
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On the bicentenary of birth of Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald,the author of Kalevipoeg and the founder of Estonian literatureFriedrich Reinh...
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But they were no longer alone. While the belated fallout of the enlightenment in Western Europe triggered the end of serfdom, it was instea...
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I was woken by some kind of clattering–whistling din. I hadn’t yet opened my eyes, I hadn’t yet become conscious, when through my sleep I r...
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One of the explanations for this relative profusion of translations is, of course, the number of translators. In 1959, the teaching of Es...
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This spring saw the publication of poetry collections by mother and daughter, almost at the same time – Ly Seppel’s Sparkle of Time (Ajasär...
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"I’m nobody! Who are you?Are you – Nobody – Too?"This quotation is not from a translator, as you might expect, but from the American poet E...
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Jaan Kross’ 1998 novel Paigallend will soon be appearing in English under the title of Treading Air which is an approximation to the origi...
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Gotland lies more or less in the middle of the Baltic Sea. The "capital" and at the same time the only town is Visby. In the Middle Ages th...
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ULLO IN BERLIN AS A CHILD, ANNO 1923Ullo did not recall his impressions of the railway journey. But he did remember the taxi journey to Unt...
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RINGED MOONMoonlight falls distant and dry,Frosting the snowfields in lustre;Trees shudder darkly and sigh,And, to win warmth, seem to clus...
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This letter was written in Helsinki, even though the recipient also resided there. It is dated simply : Good Friday, 1905.My dear “Kame...
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Born on 30 November 1883 in Võnnu, in southern Estonia, into the family of a village teacher, Suits came to Tartu in 1895 and began his st...
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Autumn 1944 started the diaspora of Baltic peoples; exile scattered Estonian literature all over the world. Until that time, Estonian lite...
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Then there are the books about translation theory. The more I have been exploring them during my 25 years as a translator, the more convinc...
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The title was inspired by the name - and position in TV culture - of the 1990s science fiction series produced by F. F. Coppola. The most o...
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Starting in September 2002, the programme of the Finno-Ugric chair at Budapest University will offer a seminar on contemporary Estonia...
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Exchange of teaching staff between educational institutions in different countries is a common phenomenon. It does not always happen, howev...
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The 2001 Republic of Estonia Award for Lifetime Achievement was given to Ain Kaalep, and national awards went to Haljand Udam and Mati Unt....
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The prize-winning poem byMARI VALLISOO I Don’t Build Ei ehitaI don’t build...
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1. The history and social background
Ethnofuturism is a term which was born like a joke because there was a need for innovations in lite...
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On Estonian literature’s path to world literature, truly exotic events occur, largely thanks to Estophiles scattered around the globe. One...
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Arved Viirlaid. Selected Poems. Selected and translated from the Estonian by T.E. Moks and R.W. Stedingh. Vancouver. Lyre Press, 2001. 194 ...
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It was night - he stopped a while, drew his hand across his forehead, thought briefly, then took the raft over the river. For a long time h...
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A THOUSAND TIMESA thousand times the falling coffin lidhas tried to keep me underneath,where the dove, my dream, has veered amidwarm ashes ...
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The first Luulesild/Runon silta (Poetry Bridge) between Estonia and Finland occurred way back in 1982. The number of venues where the poets...
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The translation of Estonian fiction into Finnish dates back approximately 150 years. The first book ever to be translated from Estonian...