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“Honest artisans, dandies and bumpkins! Ernveste hern und frawn von der adell! Förärade och nådigaste borgare! Make haste, make haste, make...
Reflections
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Mati Unt (1944–2005), who would have turned 80 this year, first became known to his peers as a prose writer more than six decades ago. ...
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The revolving-stage concept, first used in a Munich theater in the late 19th century, can certainly be a metaphor to describe the 21st-cen...
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Estonian Literary Magazine was first published in 1995 and has served as a window into Estonia for those who do not speak Estonian but wis...
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When Estonian Literary Magazine was first published in 1995, it was our conviction that the whole world wanted to find out how fascinat...
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This year marks the thirtieth birthday of Tõnu Õnnepalu’s, aka Emil Tode’s Border State (1993), one of the most widely translated contempor...
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The reception of Emil Tode’s Border State (1993) was shaped by multiple elements that were novel to Estonian literature of the time, i...
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On New Year’s Eve a man straggles his way through Stockholm. Although he has been living in the city for quite some time, the narrator...
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Writer Indrek Koff takes a look at literature’s borderlands and asks what peculiarities might arise there.
For some reason, I’ve always ...
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Katja Novak’s overview of the 2022 Translators’ Seminar organized by the Estonian Literature Center in Käsmu, Estonia from June 10th to 15t...
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On May 1st, not a single air-raid siren went off all day in Lviv. My colleague Ostap Slyvynskiy and I were sitting at a sidewalk table at K...
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Ecological thinking lies at the core of Jaan Kaplinski’s (1941–2021) diverse catalogue. His poetry, prose, essays, and general outlook on l...
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Jaan Kaplinski wrote nearly 2,000 poems in several styles and languages over eighty years. The first in his official canon is a ballad titl...
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In Estonia, an interesting cultural discussion is underway, prompted by a call to celebrate Estonian Literature Day. The proposed date is J...
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It isn’t a stretch to assert that literature is an art of solitude. This especially true in comparison with other creative practices: many ...
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A speech by Mati Sirkel on Jaan Kross’s 80th birthday celebration at the Estonian Drama Theater, 2000Honorable Jaan!If you would allow me t...
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A very long time ago, so long now that it came as a great surprise even to myself, Piret Viires and I were the original editors of Estonian...
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A perfect day naturally begins early in the morning. That is my time! I hope I never learn to sleep in! I’d never exchange the promisin...
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EWOD (the Estonian Writers’ Online Dictionary) is a lexicon and database compiled by literary researchers at the University of Tartu, ...
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In October of last year, Finland’s oldest annual book fair brought together a total of 700 performers, 500 book releases, hundreds of stand...
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The object of this guide is to supply curious readers, who are possibly also travellers in the country, with some information about the lan...
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Places of writing can be divided into two: those where writing is possible in general, and those that have a direct connection to the subje...
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This year, the Lyrikline.org poetry portal, which was founded in Berlin in 1999, will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Running the site is t...
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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, diploma...
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If ever there was a fitting location for a first-of-its-kind showcase of Estonian literature and culture in the Anglophone world, it was the...
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"A Perfect Day" is a new ELM column, in which individuals associated with literature in Estonia share their recipes for a perfect day. The f...
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“Everybody has won and all must have prizes.”
Those are the Dodo’s words in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, and both James F. E...
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Estonia is a land of theater wonder, with sublime plays that are like Estonian chocolates: once you’ve opened the box, you can’t sto...
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Published in 1935, I Loved a German (Ma armastasin sakslast) was the seventh novel written by the Estonian literary classic A. H. Tammsaare ...
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In the late 1990s, Sergei Issakov (1931–2013), who was born in the border town of Narva and taught Slavic studies in Tartu his entire career...
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Estonia is a small country where people generally can’t make a living purely on art and literature: the market simply isn’t large enough. ...
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Interest in Estonia has been growing around the world, and rising along with it is the number of those intrigued by the Estonian language an...
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Over the last few years, the writers Birk Rohelend and Katrin Pauts have set out to enrich the Estonian crime genre with grim, trying tales ...
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Jaan Kaplinski received a lifetime creative achievement award from the Republic of Estonia. Andrei Ivanov was likewise recognized for his cr...
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Writing about female poets, one inevitably arrives at a disturbing thought: why are some women regarded as poets, and others as poetesses? T...
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When I was asked to write about the five Estonian short story writers I enjoy the most, I unconsciously wondered: based on what criteria? Th...
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Kai Aareleid, Holger Kaints, and Ilmar Taska deal with the 1940s in their newest novels.
Discussing the relationship between memories and...
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While the topic of confession and a deluge of biographies were items of discussion in Estonian literature during the first decade ...
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The Estonian Literature Center has a magnificent tradition of inviting translators of Estonian literature who hail from all around the world...
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When writer and literary critic Igor Kotjuh posted on his Facebook account the top ten events in Estonian literature in 2015, one of them wa...
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As an editor, you never know when you are going to find an interesting writer. Of course, manuscripts usually come from literary agents, but...
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Ten years ago was the one-hundredth anniversary of professional Estonian theatre. To celebrate the grand occasion, Pärnu’s Endla Theatre mad...
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"How’s that—we do have freedom now, don’t we?" Sõrgats insisted.
"Well, we do," Lumepart said, "but what am I supposed to do with that?"
...
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In a recent conversation, a student of Estonian literature at Tartu University perceptively remarked that she thought Estonian writers ...
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I – Discovering the Regi SongThere was once a boy growing up in the Estonian diaspora who watched too much television. He stopped watching ...
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At first I was a teacher, then teacher and writer, then only writer, then writer and translator and recently I have been only translator; f...
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In 2007 the Estonian Literary Society (ELS) celebrated its 100th anniversary. It is an organisation that had, at its heyday, about 2000 mem...
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In 2005, statistics revealed that the most popular author in Estonia, if judged by public library loans, was the American romance writer No...
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In the beginning of the 90s, this person became acquainted with a few Estonians freshly arrived in Paris. These humble notes gather togethe...
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Issues of the equality of and difference between the sexes have recently been vigorously discussed in all walks of life in Estonia. This wa...
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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 ...
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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"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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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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Exchange of teaching staff between educational institutions in different countries is a common phenomenon. It does not always happen, howev...
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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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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...
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Only a few months ago, the prestigious National Geographical Society in Washington, D. C. published a coffee table book: "Peoples of th...
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Can literature save the world? Yes, it is busy with saving-work. It does the work together with allies – other fine arts are the nearest am...
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1. Beauty and uglinessThe literary work of August Gailit (1891-1960) has fascinated readers of different generations throughout the twen...
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by Maima Grīnberga
In terms of the number of active translators, translated Estonian authors and the availability of information, the si...
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Timo Maran, Kadri Tüür You look at the lake, and the lake looks at you through ...
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Taking a closer look at cultures of different countries, we often discover similar positions. People occupying those positions fulfil more...
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Rather than narrating my encounters with Estonia according to some contrived plot, or explicating them in subordination to a thesis to ...
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4 June - 16 July 20001 continent + 100 writers + 43 countries + 98 languages + 44 days + 7000 kilometres by railway + 8 trains + 11 passed...
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It is rather difficult to maintain that ‘science fiction’ existed in Estonian writing before 1990, and almost equally difficult to claim th...
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At the beginning of the 19th century, at the peak of Romanticism, K.-J. Peterson (1801-1822), one of the first known poets of Estonian orig...
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I think the time has come to say a few words about poetry anthologies in translation. There are already enough to draw some conclusions. Be...
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It is my belief that critical works of excavation and restoration, though risking some danger of suffocation in the labyrinthine byways of ...
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Imaginary TriangleA.A. So…an overview of Estonian prose for ‘Estonian Literature Magazine’. It probably goes without saying that the no...
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During the seventies and the eighties the annual review of poetry in the literary magazine Looming was an important and influential institu...
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As a child of four or five, I used to long for paints and paper, so that I could draw to my heart’s content. My father gave me a piece ...
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From the coasts of the Mediterranean, the Baltic world appears to be as unknown, distant and exotic as the Fergana Valley, the mosques ...
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On reaching the age of reason I learned two things. Firstly, that there was no such thing as Father Christmas; and secondly, that there was...
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Eduard Vilde (1865-1933) was the first Estonian prose writer to achieve classic status, and he has thereby come to be regarded as the most...