Estonia gunman dead

Via RIA Novosti:

The attacker was identified as one Karen Drambyan, 57, a member of the United Leftist Party of Estonia, a group with strong links to the country’s Russian community.

Purge

I've just finished reading Lola Rogers' translation of Puhdistus (Purge), by Sofi Oksanen. It's a remarkable work - restless, vivid, articulate, emotional, violent, political - and I don't think there is anything quite like it in the rest of world literature. The only book remotely akin to it that I've come across before is a strange Estonian novel from 2004, which has a similar graphic reconstruction of Soviet reality. I think Sofi Oksanen's work does require a knowledge of Estonian and Soviet history if the reader is to understand the thinking, motivation and actions of the characters. One solitary niggling doubt I have is that while the book amounts to an extraordinary tribute to the Estonian people and their survival of decades of Soviet occupation, the characters themselves don't come across as very likeable human beings - but I believe that may be deliberate on the author's part. It's good to see Paul-Eerik Rummo's poetry quoted in the opening of each section.

Why English is best

In the Guardian, Martin Riker writes about The Estonian Argument for English Translations.

ELM - autumn issue

The autumn 2009 issue of ELM (Estonian Literary Magazine) is now available online. Its contents include a good many poetry-related items, to celebrate the birth in 1609 of Reiner Brockmann, who among other things wrote the first poem in the Estonian language. In an introductory essay, Marju Lepajõe presents the life and work of Brockmann, and also lists some of the anniversary events, which include an international conference. There are English versions of poems by Timo Maran, and an account of Moonstruck - the first international Full Moon Poetry Festival, which was held at Luhtre Farm and Haimre Village Hall in Raplamaa county under a full moon from the 12th till the 16th of September, with guests including Sujata Bhatt, Viggo Madsen, Mathura, Lauri Sommer, Kauksi Ülle, Andres Ehin, Ly Seppel and Ban'ya Natsuishi. Shetland poet Lise Sinclair writes of

the memory of walking in the Estonian forest; the particular trees and people met; hearing the songs and the stories; the cranes from beneath the surface of the lake; music and dancing; the night dogs; haiku voices of Estonian and Japanese; and the absolute warmth of friendship, sauna, dark bread... all are now as immediate as the moon appears on Shetland and Estonia at the same time and we are joined by those silver threads, woven through the sky of a whole winter.

Helsinki Square

News that Tallinn may soon have a Helsinki Square (Helsingi väljak) - a proposal to give this name to the area in front of the Old City Harbour A-terminal is being discussed by municipal authorities, according to Tallinn's mayor, Edgar Savisaar. Savisaar also mentioned a proposal to erect a monument to former Finnish President Urho Kekkonen on the same site, noting that Kekkonen's visit to Tallinn in 1964 led among other things to the opening in the following year of regular passenger ferry services between the Estonian and Finnish capitals.

Marie Under: Au Jardin du Luxembourg

Les murs s'écartent! Il y avait encore de la verdure sur terre!
Comme Moïse l'eau, quelqu'un a fait surgir un jardin du rocher.
Il y a de la terre! Le jardinier a ouvert la bouche de la terre de la vallée de vie
par un long tuyau il conduit l'eau sur le gazon.

Par tout le parc les platanes portent le ciel,
et quelques-uns dans leur cime l'oiseau espiègle du soleil.
Pigeons gris et bruns, gorge jaune renflée:
l'un tend le bec vers le bassin, l'autre frappe une pomme de pin.

Et les taches claires fuient, suivies de leurs ombres,
par l'ouverture de l'allée, sur le gravier humide.
Devant, par-delà une étincelante robe d'eau,
on voit des naïades la hanche qui s'étire.

Autour de la vasque de la fontaine, un million de fleurs
plus de couleurs et de nuances que l'arc-en-ciel
Là les enfants attendent des bateaux, qui dans l'île
sont allés, au milieu du lac plein de rires:

au-dessus vibrent les arcs des rayons d'eau,
Déjà là-haut des feuilles sèches se déchirent
plus bas s'ouvre une fleur tandis que les autres tombent:
c'est le duel vie-mort... automne-printemps.

Et les massifs de fuchsias: les flacons des fleurs
versent encore un brevage bleu et rose.
Là les artistes et leurs modèles
rompent le pain d'un nouvel amour.

Déjà par endroits a pali le drap vert du gazon,
mais le jet d'eau, clair, écume:
blanc de haut en bas comme un cerisier...
Les statues sont seules: la bouche qui chantait est fermée.

Mais les moustaches tombantes de Flaubert parlent d'ascétisme,
Verlaine est amer comme s'il buvait de l'absinthe;
George Sand, si féminine: les plis de pierre de la manche
ne laissent pas deviner l'encre sur ses doigts.

*

Les murs s'écartent et il y a encore de la verdure sur terre!
Comme Moïse l'eau, quelqu'un a fait surgir un jardin du rocher.
Il y a de la terre! Le jardinier a ouvert la bouche de la terre de la vallée de vie
par un long tuyau il conduit l'eau sur le gazon.

translation by courtesy of Leopoldo Niilus


LUXEMBOURGI AIAS

Et hargneb müüristik! Et veel on maa pääl haljust!
Kui Mooses vee, löönd keegi aia kaljust.
On mulda! Aednik avand maa suu: eluorust
vett juhib üle rohtmaa pikast torust.

Plataanid kandmas taevast pargist läbi,
ja mõne ladvas päikse edev lind.
Pruun-hallid tuvid, kummis koldne rind:
kel püüab vesiriba nokk, kel toksib käbi.

Ja helkjaid laike pageb, varjud järgi,
allee avausest üle rõske kruusa.
Ees läbi sätendava vesisärgi
on näha näkineitsi ringutavat puusa.

Fontääni vaagna ümber miljon lilli: värve
ja toone enam neil kui vikerkaarel.
Sääl lapsed laevu ootavad, mis saarel
käind, keset naerust kumisevat järve,

mis üle vesikiirte vibud värisemas, -
Ju ülal juivi lehti kärisemas,
all kargab lahti õis, kui teised pudenevad:
on elu-surma kahevõitlus - sügis-kevad.

Ja fuksiate tarad: õilmepudelid
veel kallutavad sini-roosat jooki. -
Sääl kunstnikud ja nende mudelid
on murdmas uue armu katsekooki.

Ju siin-sääl luitund muru roheline kalev,
on purskkaev aga vahutav ja valev:
see valge üleni kui kirsipuu...
Raidkujud endamisi: kinni laulusuu.

Askeetlusest kuid lausuvad Flaubert'i laskund vurrud,
Verlaine on mõru nagu rüübates absinti;
George Sand nii naiselik: need kivikäikse kurrud
ei lase aimata ta sõrmil tinti.

*

Et hargnes müüristik ja veel on maa pääl haljust!
Kui Mooses vee, löönd keegi aia kaljust.
On muida! Aednik avand maa suu: eluorust
vett juhib üle rohtmaa pikast torust.

Marie Under: Two Poems

Scandinavia, postcolonialism and belles lettres

In the thread entitled Modern Greenlandic writing, David suggests that the postcolonial debate has affected many aspects of culture, mostly negatively. I would like to break a lance for a postcolonial approach when looking at Scandinavia and certainly Estonia, as long as we are clear what a postcolonial approach entails.

I fear that the type of postcolonial studies taught at many universities focusses a great deal on the British Empire, where the Britons are the baddies, robbing the indigenous population of raw materials, and the local people the goodies, seeking liberation. The fact that Britain did bring education, health care, law and order, etc., to the developing world gets conveniently forgotten. A second serious flaw in this type of postcolonialist examination is that the subject often looks at the world through the prism of those who come from, or were educated in, the metropolitan countries. So, subliminally, colonial attitudes are indeed perpetuated.

Postcolonial studies, if expanded to include ethnology, history, geo-politics, psychology, and other subjects beyond literature, could be a fruitful way of looking at Scandinavia and the Baltics. But if postcolonial studies does indeed deteriorate into a crude and uncritical bashing of the colonial power, assuming the indigenous peoples to be angels and the colonists all robbers and power-hungry plotters, then it is a non-starter. Nor would I like to see Scandinavian literature used in the same way as English literature is, as a quarry from which to dig out chunks of one-sided anti-colonialist proof.

Obviously, the big boys in Scandinavia over the centuries were Denmark and Sweden. Equally obviously, Norway, Iceland, the Faroes, Greenland, Finland, Estonia, Livonia, Greifswald, northern Poland, etc., were not always so thrilled at being the underdog. But the dilemma in modern times is whether any given colony can "go it alone" and become a viable economic and political entity if it becomes independent, within or without the framework of the EU. This debate is being held in Scotland right now, as I believe. The same tricky debate envelops the Faroes and Greenland.

Where literature (i.e. belles lettres) can come in is as an indicator of mood, opinion and action - and examine the psychology of key players and minor figures. But on its own, given the subjective attitudes of many writers, literature cannot stand alone as the only subject through which to examine the history of an empire or a specific epoch.

Brecht At Night

Eric's translation of Estonian author Mati Unt's documentary novel about Bertolt Brecht's life in Finland will be published by Dalkey Archive Press on August 20. The book is already advertised on Amazon, and pre-orders can be taken there.

Doris Kareva: "In dreams and poetry"

In 1989, as the Soviet Union was crumbling, a number of Estonian poets and prose authors issued an album of work entitled Wellesto. This 150-page album contained, among other things, the work of various Estonian authors who are now famous, but also, for instance, Märt Väljataga's translation of five poems by W.B. Yeats, and Mati Sirkel's translation of a Kafka text, and Kalju Soa's translation of Finnish poems by Ilpo Tiihonen. The imminent escape of Estonia from the Soviet Empire, and 1916 parallels in the case of Yeats, were not lost on Estonian readers. But there were also a couple of translations into foreign languages. One of these was a text, in Pia Tafdrup vein, about the essence of writing poetry by the accomplished Estonian poet Doris Kareva (born 1958) which was translated into both Finnish (Tapio Mäkeläinen) and English (Toomas Hendrik Ilves). Below, Ilves' translation of Kareva's text.

In dreams and poetry

A poem is like a dream – at once a memory and a fantasy; a genuineness that opens up not along the lines of life but the lines of fate; no, not the lot that befalls us, but an eternally present part of the world.

A distant song in the blood: a hymn, a humming, the heart’s rhythm, heard by the child eternally playing alone within us. He raises his head, listens – with the nearing song the ear even distinguishes words – but then it again descends into silence, again on the nether side of response and responsibility. A dream, forgotten before the avenging scourge of consciousness arrives; a letter written in the sand, washed away by the prohibiting tongue of the waves.

Like pearl a poem begins with a grain of sand; the force of inevitability concealed in its self-creation; in it an event no matter how trifling may metamorphose into meaning. The content of a poem is a secret and its form silence. A poem is woven from silence just as an air-thin scarf that effortlessly slips through a ring. A myriad of patterns, signs and ornaments will not change its being; inscrutable as a dream., it reveals only its infinite faces, yet it remains unknown, unfathomable. Yet still, it may strike a lightning-white bridge even between strangers – for often just those separated by gaping worlds hide the same being within.

A poem, a dream, a drug and forgetting still comprise a revelation, an unexpected genuineness, a flight over borders deemed to be real, a recognition, and awakening.

Never, no, never are we more ourselves, never so free and yet fathomlessly alone as in dreams and in poetry – except perhaps in love.
Translated from Estonian by Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Living memory

Juhani Salokannel 's biography of Jaan Kross (Sivistystahto, WSOY, 2008) has been translated into Estonian by Piret Saluri, and on Monday the translation was launched in Tallinn at a ceremony attended by Kross's widow Ellen Niit, other members of Kross's family, and Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, writes Hannu Marttila. In his speech, President Ilves remarked that although the book was written for a readership (i.e. Finns) who had not experienced occupation by a foreign power, it would none the less be instructive for younger Estonians now in their 20s and 30s.

Bridging the Gap - History and the Nordic World

I thought I'd continue out here in the open the discussion that started in the comments to Harry's Bredsdorff post. Eric wrote:

While nowadays I am more on the right in economic and social-cohesion terms, I still read the former Communist weekly Ny Tid, partly out of nostalgia, partly because of its good cultural coverage, and partly because it is always useful to read opposite views. When I was at UEA and in Åbo, the Communists I knew were almost painfully middle-class offspring. They'd never been within an armsbreath of a worker. But I admired their idealism. And I hope that we people that kick against the cultural pricks of bestsellerdom and xeno-ignorance in the UK can adopt an even-handed approach in political terms.

I have to admit that my political sympathies are mainly centre-right/libertarian. This, I think, is partly a result of the relatively long ime I spent during the 1970s and 80s -- after periods in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe -- trying to do something to lift the veils of wilful ignorance that surrounded the view of the Soviet Union then prevalent among Western democrats, most of whom were apparently unable to perceive the true nature of global Communism. It's also probably a result of the time I spent the United States during the same era, when the discussion of these issues had a different configuration from the one that characterized debate in the UK and Europe. Today, if I were still in the U.S. I suppose I would probably sympathize most with "right-wing Democrats" and "left-wing Republicans".

This political stance caused me some problems when I met writers and intellectuals in the Nordic countries, most of whom held views that were even more the to the left than those of their counterparts in Britain. On the other hand, I became aware that -- as Czeslaw Milosz pointed out in The Captive Mind -- totalitarian ideology has the power to enslave the minds of individuals who are otherwise decent and intelligent, and that behind the ideological enslavement and blindness often lie beauty, truth and honesty. That is particularly true of writers and poets, I think. In Finland, for example, I found some poets who, though they professed to be Communists, were writing poetry that would never be accepted in the framework of Soviet literary dogma, and was even far removed from anything could be called "left wing", or "politically committed".

It wasn't until I got to Estonia in the early 1990s that I began to meet writers and intellectuals from a Nordic cultural background who also had direct and personal experience of Soviet reality, and who because of that had managed to (even had to) bridge the gap between the personal and the public/political - much in the way that W.H. Auden had done in England and America decades earlier, though from a very different experiential base. These writers knew what Communism was and what it did to people, had felt its physically and mentally destructive force, which was similar to that of Nazi ideology and practice. Meeting these people was confirmation for me that even though in the rest of the Nordic world the influence of the Soviet threat and Soviet propaganda had put blinkers on many minds, there was a Nordic cultural reality that stood outside that limitation and beyond it.

I agree with Eric that the labels of "right" and "left" have become less meaningful since the fall of Communism - yet the old dichotomy remains, now mostly polarized around opposition to or support for the United States and its cultural and political role in spreading the values of liberty and democracy throughout the world. But also, for cultural and historical reasons, and probably because I'm British rather than European, the Nordic world has always seemed to me to stand somewhere between Europe amd America, and I guess I still see it as a kind of bridge between those two inwardly diverse but outwardly monolithic entities.

Sofi Oksanen in translation

The Estonian press has been paying a good deal of attention to the recent launch of the Finnish author Sofi Oksanen's novel Purge, which has just appeared in Jan Kaus' Estonian translation. The cover of the Estonian translation has been kept the same as that of the Finnish original. The translation was presented right across Estonia: in Kuressaare on the island of Saaremaa, in the seaside resort of Pärnu, in the university city of Tartu, plus the capital Tallinn.

The rights for this particular novel, which deals with Estonia and moral dilemmas under the Soviets, has been bought by publishers in 23 countries, including the United States. Oksanen herself says: "I regard it as important that my novel appears in the USA and Great Britain, where translations of Finnish literature do not usually appear". And she also mentioned that only 2% of fiction in Britain consists of translations. (Whether the percentage is two or three is not important.)

The novel is being published in an edition of 8,000 in Estonia, a large number of copies in post-Soviet Estonia, down from the enormous editions once published in Soviet times, when there was little other entertainment than reading. This is especially high, considering there are only about one million Estonian residents with Estonian as their mother-tongue. The book has also sold well in Finland itself. I hope the English translation comes soon.

With regard to attention to detail, Oksanen points out that her grandparents came from the Estonian countryside, and she had herself seen such implements as a scythe, and material such as cheesecloth, as used to literally make cheese with.

It cannot be denied that Oksanen herself has become something of a cult figure in both Finland and Estonia, where her Gothic presence can be seen frequently in the press. But because of the fact that the latterday Communists might try to disrupt the book launch, the Estonian police were keeping an eye on the event, held at the Finnish Embassy in Tallinn. Oksanen's play, based on this novel, is also on the Berliner Festspiele programme.

Mats Traat - poems, months and Tobias

What's in a month? In the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic around two decades ago the mere mention of February or March set off coded signals. February 24th is the Estonian National Day, whose celebration had been suppressed for half a century by the Soviet occupier. March 9th 1944 was the day when a squadron of Soviet bomber pilots, said to be women and led by a Canadian Communist, demolished several streets in the centre of Tallinn, the Estonian capital. So when Mats Traat published his collection Ajalaulud - luulet 1986-1989 (Songs of the Epoch - poems 1986-1989) in 1990, the casual mention of February or March was no doubt a deliberate act. When Traat was writing this collection, no one yet knew if the Baltic countries would be liberated, or whether there would be a repeat, Baltic style, of the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968.

Rudolf Tobias (1873-1918) was an Estonian composer who wrote an oratorio about Jonah escaping the belly of the whale. And there are, of course, parallels between the collapse of the Assyrian Empire and its capital Nineveh and that of the Soviet Union, with Estonia escaping from the maw of that latter empire.

DAY OF REMEMBRANCE


Flowers for those who died on the long road,
in the steppe, the forest, the frost.
Flowers for those that died from hard labour,
hardship, sorrow, hunger,
whose graves have vanished, razed to the ground,
deemed not to exist.


Harsh LP music does not recognise mourning.
Tammsaare keeps silent along with his people.


If you feel humiliation, you are still alive.


We, a people used to hell,
why don’t you get used
to the vale of hell?


Low is the threshold of juniper bushes,
death mows down someone
who never became a socialist hero
far from home, in the deserts of Afghanistan.


Who will count your tears,
who will write down your wounds,
Estonia?

***



IN THE MARCH SUNSHINE



Startled
at the bleakness of the age,
the cracked record of memory.

Thinking vague
waves of incredulity
riding high.


Every question seems childish,
the answers predictable:
together, like one man, jointly.


State monopoly of belief, queue at the vodka shop:
fifty-one people,
six of them women.


A really bad tooth
won’t tolerate cold or heat,
flowers noses can only smell one.


You have been brought out of the earth,
you won’t be going
back in.

***



ADDED INFORMATION ABOUT THE MARCH MISTS



The state where I was born
was soon destroyed,
the house where I first saw the light of day,
burnt down in a battle.
Omnipresent, omnipotent cancer
divide et impere.
Beyond the shield of mist a black figure
loveless, merciless.
Death is freedom. Montaigne
thought that each moment of his life.
And there was light.

***


ON A FEBRUARY NIGHT



Daytime and nighttime flags
fly jumbled together
the stars go out but the sword remains
He wields it in pitch darkness
mercilessly
May God have mercy on those that get in the way
the stars fall the sword remains

***



TOBIAS’ ORATORIO


Stay calm: the thought will not hold sway
whose traces are clotted with blood.
We go to a concert. A rainy evening
May the sounds uplift, the last night is a long way off.
Great is the hunger for light
and the thirst for freedom; raindrops
sparkle on your eyelashes. Stay calm:
Jonah is announcing
the destruction of Nineveh
in Estonia.

*******

Translated from Estonian by Eric Dickens

Mats Traat - an introduction to a poet

Mats Traat (born 1936) has written a long cycle of novels depicting life in the Estonian countryside during Czarist times, Independence, and the Soviet occupation. The farm of Palanumäe stands central in this suite of books. But Traat is also an observant social poet, again focusing on rural life. Critic Janika Kronberg has described Traat's poetry as follows:

"Traat made his début in 1962 with a collection of poetry considered to be close to the soil, and has to date published around twenty collections of poetry and three voluminous selections. With regard to his poetry, the term poetry of social comment has often been employed and this reflects the keenness in the 1960s on science and the technical revolution, plus the exploration of the cosmos, the scepticism of the following decades, and the joys and pains involved in the restoration of the Estonian Republic at the end of the 20th century.

Traat has remained himself. The core of his work involves an ethical pathos and a belief in the retreat of evil before good. His poetry contains a personal lyricism as well as sensitive nature portraits and sharp observations of society, but Traat never makes a cult of form or æstheticism for æstheticism's sake. And when the author, who comes from the south of Estonia, gave his cycle of dialect poems the title I Flee Into the Languages of Tartu then this does not mean that he has turned his back on the world, but that he is deriving strength from ancient expressions and values. Especially significant for Estonian poetry has been Histories From Harala (Harala elulood) which Traat has been adding to for four decades and whose first poems already appeared when Traat first started publishing. It is a collection of epitaphs in the style of Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology and where the author uses concision to sketch the lives of a couple of hundred inhabitants of the village of Harala. The author acts as a chronicler, revealing history by way of the biographies, also the hidden tragedy at the departure of human life, a gentle nostalgia and humour and where it is shown that every mortal has a life worth recording for posterity."

Mats Traat is relatively unknown outside of Estonia, compared with people who have also been both prose authors and poets, such as Jaan Kross and Jaan Kaplinski. But you can read more about this author here. This is where I brought together two short essays about him on the World Literature Forum, one by the above critic Janika Kronberg, the other by Livia Viitol.

Over time, I shall be translating poetry by Mats Traat on this blog. Various of his poems are scattered through anthologies, and I translated six of them for the anthology The Baltic Quintet. But not a great deal of his work has appeared in English. I shall not be tackling the dialect poems; in the spirit of "first things first" I shall translate poems written in standard Estonian. But apart from representing rural values, Traat also examines life in southern Estonia, around the university city of Tartu. Three of his poems here, from 1968, as a sampler:

NAÏVE POEM

If I were a weaver,
I'd thread sunrays into a veil
around each grain of sand.

If I were a weaver,
I'd thread a carpet out of rainbows
to cover each park bench.

If I were a weaver,
I'd thread a shawl from lark's songs
and wrap it around my darling.

But I am not a weaver.

***

I draw your portrait in the sand, on pine bark, in myself.
I draw the plan and it is electric.
Then I go and look for a current, to bring the picture to life.

When I finally find you and return,
the wind has trampled the plan, the waters have washed away the portrait.
A toeprint adorns the place where your eye should have been.

***

TOYS

The toy cat has serious claws
the toy dog black fangs
the toy tiger has frightening whiskers

The tin soldier has but a heart of tin
it melts when he sees the princess
the princess utters not a word
a hole melts in the soldier
he is taken to be melted down
the cats dogs tigers laugh
their painted laugh.

*******

This seemingly naïve love poet is the same person who, as a novelist later in life, wrote about the War of Estonian Independence, Russification during various periods, the Forest Brethren guerrilla movement, and the trauma of the kolkhoz system.

Translated from Estonian by Eric Dickens

Friedebert Tuglas - poetry and the threat of Siberia

Given the amount of mockery that the British prime minister is undergoing right now, it may be hard to understand that in Stalinist times a Soviet author could be literally sent to Siberia for the slightest hint of ridicule directed at the Great Leader. Not until 1973, did Estonian author Friedebert Tuglas dare to publish his anti-Stalin poem, and even then he could only hint at whom he was mocking. Tuglas had always been oppositional. As a young man he had gone into exile for a decade, fleeing the Czarist police. Now, in the early 1950s, he was in the doghouse again, thrown out of the Writers' Union of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic for formalism and cosmopolitanism. He eked out a living by translations, signed by friends.

The poem, which I will translate soon in slightly abridged form, was written in 1951, i.e. before Stalin's death, so it was risky for Tuglas to write. Tuglas provides a short introduction, which is as telling as the poem itself:

The year 1951. A coil of poverty and pain had tightened around me, so tight that it hardly allowed me to breathe. I had to somehow fill the empty days and the dangerous sick nights, to prevent me from falling into the ultimate depression. And when nothing else helped raise my spirits, I had to indulge in a kind of improvised correspondence...

The addressee was not entirely improvised. He had real qualities: he wore sideburns and was hoping to build a private house for himself. He even replied on occasion - also in verse.

Everything else about the circumstances needs no commentary. May the Creative Spirit of the reader fill in any gaps - that is an important factor in poetic correspondence!

Such was the feel of Stalinism. Even in the 1970s, you had to be careful. It took a further decade for satirical poetry in Estonia to become entirely threat-free.

Elo Viiding: "Mothers' Day"

Here is the poem Mothers' Day by Elo Viiding, which takes an ironic look at the way mothers are treated politically and socially by public figures full of assumptions and expectations, and is also about the physical side of bringing up children. It was first published in this translated version in an occasional English issue of the Swedish literary magazine 00-tal.

Viiding is just old enough to have have consciously experienced both Soviet and post-Soviet life. But even in post-Soviet Estonia, things are not perfect. Viiding is very much a poet of social comment and observation, whatever the political system of the country. Maybe this poem can be regarded as a kind of anti-Whitmanic rant:

Mothers' Day

On Mothers' Day every child should sing
and give its mother flowers and prime ministers think
that every mother wants to be honoured
and all prime ministers dream
that all women who aren't mothers
will feel simply feel rotten
more rotten than ever before
so the government gives mothers
special advantages
and passes a law on parental salaries

all teachers believe that every mother can be bothered
on Sunday morning at ten o'clock
to come to the Mothers' Day Concert
and every mother regards herself as part of
the social group "mothers"
and every mother is childishly insulted if no one sings for her
or people get annoyed at brutal selfishness of her children
more than about the beautiful two-facedness of society
so that you should be nervous on stage in front of all those mothers
in front of page-boy styled mothers and mothers in hats
and mothers with metallic finish cars
and mothers with nylon handbags and mothers with carrier bags
and mothers with Saint Laurent shadowed eyes
enterprising hawk-eyed single mothers and ostrich housewives
and the few clever fathers who stand at the back of the hall
because they're not allowed to sit they are men and today the mothers are sitting

because it's so nice so nice to sing to complete strangers
do you know your mother's heart
on Sunday morning ten o'clock in the stuffy hall to the gurgle of gastric juices
because if we don't sing to the mothers
they will all die off
not from a lack of sleep or hunger for sex
but because we ruined Mothers' Day for them
and we will have a bad conscience
so bad that we can never return to society

the prime minister thinks
that every mother has a heart of gold
on a chain around her neck
that every mother has read child psychology
that every mother is well acquainted with gender release and with the child's father
that every mother lives in a centrally-heated flat with hot and cold running water
that every mother is a Hansa Bank customer and dreams of obtaining a loan
that every mother wears tracksuit bottoms at home and is slimming
that every mother is happy and every mother ready for motherhood
that postnatal depression is a mere trifle compared with the greater joy
which will come in twenty years' time when life has become six times more expensive

that every mother is healthy and strong and can manage life without moonshine
that every mother has a stable nervous system and avoids injections
that every mother knows at least in the sixth month that she is pregnant
that every mother is older than eighteen years of age
that every mother loves little children
that every mother is a good boss to her children
that every mother sticks her children on the front page of Women's Own
at the first opportunity
that every mother takes her children to some children's activity
don't let them fucking-well play with those young criminals in that sand-pit
that every mother gives her children vegetables and boiled beef for lunch
that every mother has got on damned well in life
and has not been warped by police thrillers on TV
that every mother has a retired grandfather and a grandmother who dandles the children on her knee
so that she doesn't ever have to put it in the crèche as people usually do

that every mother is in fact a human being and every mother is a woman

and that every mother dreams of nothing else but becoming a mother
that every mother takes part in the family forum on the net
that every mother has something to give her child
that every woman regards her offspring as her primary duty
that every woman lives for others and never for herself
that every woman wants to serve her country and her people
that every woman wants to get up early in the morning
that every woman can be bothered to wake up six times a night
that every woman has a bad conscience if she can't produce enough milk
so necessary for the immune system take a look at the scientific research
which divides children up into breast-fed ones and sick ones
that every woman conceives naturally and that every woman is fertile
that every woman wants to give birth in a maternity home
that every woman manages to combine a career with motherhood
that every childless woman regards her life as empty and incomplete
that every woman rushes headlong to buy a pregnancy test
when the right time comes when the biological clock rings relentlessly
she grabs the first best reasonably suitable father
that every woman only wants to talk about her pregnancy
that every woman afterwards wants to teach the non-pregnant
that birth is a special experience not especially unbearable pain
that the three months after birth need to be got used to
that pregnancy isn't an illness, just simply a natural state of affairs
that hormonal changes don't affect our psyche that much
that hormonal changes are sometimes even enjoyable

that every woman likes her primary biological function
that every woman's behaviour is governed by her primary biological function
that every woman's existence is governed by her primary biological function

that every woman thinks of this as a trifling problem
if anyone makes a big thing about motherhood
which is so natural
then every problem is, believe you me,
easy to solve by the government and the mothers themselves

that every supermarket wants
that children honour their mothers
make your mother happy and give her something cheap
something which costs less than 500 crowns
because your mother deserves it
because of you dear child don't buy wrinkle cream
but load some yoghurt, cornflakes or muesli
into your shopping basket
go and ask her for those 300 crowns gift money
and buy her a nice rejuvenation emulsion
every mother enjoys the bargain prices around Mothers' Day
and doesn't pay the January rent because of Christmas presents

and every child wants to say thank you
for its existence
a childishly guilty thank-you
and wants say
to the prime minister
thank you that I'm alive

every mother wants to be sublime and noble
and feel that a child's life depends on her
every mother wants to be selfless and not to belly-ache
every mother manages to cope
whenever she wants don't forget whenever she wants
and every mother believes that those who aren't mothers
should be obliged to feel bad about it
because they have nobody simply nobody who in their old age
will treat them as well as they do now
in a word to pay them back for their trouble
you should always live with recompense in mind
you should always expect recompense

thanks to mothers

as soon as every woman reads women's literature and dreamy prose
as a time of peace arrives dear people
as no one has claims any more
as we are many and we have plenty of serotonin and endorphine
as we all get under one another's feet and jump for joy thanking god
as no one gets irritated any longer or drive people to despair
then our dear mothers will have fulfilled their mission

and even women writers will get their just rewards
when they have children and when when they are nicely buried
when their creative endeavours are good beautiful and safe
and when they agree nicely with their readers
or when they suddenly become children's writers
when they are finally steered onto the right way
when they are translated into several languages
and invited to attend seminars
in whose breaks you can eat a sausage roll
and drink coffee from a plastic cup

even the prime-minister knows
that no woman any longer reads poetry
especially that which is inhuman and subversive to society
and for which no prizes or medals are given
and especially if it is written by quasi-women
and especially when they do it well
yet no one of us can admit it, let's be honest
better write or do something useful

what, let them think for themselves, come on, time to guess yourself

On Mothers' Day every child should sing
and give their mothers flowers and prime-ministers know
that mothers are the only ones who listen to their speeches
because they are mothers

***
Translated from Estonian by Eric Dickens

Fear behind everything

A couple of translated extracts here from Bjarne Nitovuori's review in the Finland-Swedish daily Hufvudstadsbladet of a book about the Soviet occupation of Estonia called Kaiken takana oli pelko (Behind Everything Lay Fear), a book of essays on the subject compiled by Finnish author Sofi Oksanen and Estonian filmmaker Imbi Paju. I hope to receive the book soon (allowing for the vagaries of the Dutch post office) so that I can read it myself. But here is a foretaste, part of the review:

The Estonian ethnologist Terje Anepaio describes how, during the late 1980s and early 1990s rekindled the memory of the two Estonian deportations, in 1941 and 1949, on a grand scale. This began with an article by Evald Laasi in [the cultural weekly] Sirp ja Vasar, published in 1987, when the Soviet Union still existed. But according to Anepaio, interest soon cooled off in the early 1990s as it didn't represent the image that Estonia was aiming for. The new young élite did not wish to represent Estonia as a suffering, unhappy nation, but as one that would soon be able to integrate with the West.

(...)

Lauri Mälksoo shows in a convincing manner that the annexation of Estonia (and the other Baltic states) was an occupation. It is disputed amongst researchers as to whether the Baltic leaders gave in to Soviet pressure to house Soviet military bases on their territory in 1939. But it is completely impossible to regard what happened in summer 1940 - the change of government under military threat, elections held in an unconstitutional manner and an equally illegal decision to join the Soviet Union - as other than a crime against international law, and as an occupation.

(...)

Translated from Swedish by Eric Dickens

Nitovuori goes on to mention other articles by the Finn Jukka Mallinen, the ex-prime-minister of Estonia and historian Mart Laar, and others. I will look more closely at some of the essays, once I have received and read the book myself. The book in question was published earier this year by the WSOY publishing house in Helsinki, and is 565 pages long.

Suffice it to say that the importance of this book is that it is appearing in Finland, a country where attitudes to the occupation of the Baltic countries by Russia have varied over the years, not helped by bouts of self-censorship under the period of Finlandisation (originally a German expression "Finlandisierung", then becoming "suomettuminen" in Finnish) which means the cautious way that Finland dealt with criticism of neighbouring Russia during the Cold War.

Tartu book festival and Umberto Eco

On 6th May 2009, semioticist Umberto Eco will receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Tartu, Estonia. He is, of course, better known for his novel "The Name of the Rose", but is also an academic in a field shared by, for instance, the late Yuri Lotman, one of the founders of the Moscow-Tartu School of Semiotics.

The visit by Eco coïncides with the Tartu book festival, called the Prima Vista, which will be in Tartu from 7th-9th May, then spend a day in nearby Viljandi, and a day in Pärnu, hosted by poet Doris Kareva. This year's patron in Tartu itself will be the poet Andres Ehin, whose daughter Kristiina's poetry has been translated into English.

Unfortunately, they haven't really developed the English-language part of the Prima Vista website, so that there is a chatty article about vowels, but no programme. For it to become truly international, the organisers must see to it that there are more contacts with abroad in future years. A flying visit by Umberto Eco, plus one by the "Russian Agatha Christie" Alexandra Marinina are not yet enough to put this Tartu book festival on the map. There is some simultaneous interpretation between Estonian and Russian, as a number of Estonia-Russian poets will read their works. And there is a bit of a Finnish presence too. But all the events described still remain very much ones by Estonians for Estonians. A good deal of reaching out and coordination will be needed in future years if this festival is to become truly international. But maybe the Estonians are happy to keep it the way it is.

London Book Fair - subjective comments by a visitor

As David mentioned in an earlier posting here, the London Book Fair has been, and has now gone. I was there for varying lengths of time on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so I had a good look around, and not only at things Nordic.

The book fair is principally a market: buying and selling. It is hugely bustling and crowded. So it is good to book appointments ahead with specific individuals. Translators are always in a curious position, in that they are neither authors, nor publishers, nor literary agents. They fall between three stools (if that is physically possible). But with a little judicious planning, you can get an "audience" with publishers. Authors often speak at various events, often inconveniently held at some stand in the middle of the book fair, so people listening and people trying to get past have conflicting aims. The publishers lurk spider-like at the stands while the literary agents are a more ephemeral presence. And translators?

My goals this year were specific. First, I wanted to tell the Finns that I am improving my reading knowledge of Finnish and moving in the direction of seriously being able to translate from that language. Also that my re-integration with the Finland-Swedes at a literary level is advancing apace. And I want to expand into Norwegian, specifically nynorsk (aka New Norwegian, a written version of an amalgamation of various dialect traits). So I had a chat there with a friendly person from NORLA (the Norwegian literary promotional agency) and an equally friendly and helpful nynorsk publisher. A Norwegian literary agent was, alas, much more stand-offish. And I had a little business at the Estonian stand, as most of my recently published book-length translations are from that language. Plus appointments with British and American publishers.

The Nordic stands varied in size and scope, but both the Norwegians and Finns had substantial ones. (I never actually discovered the Danish one, I'm afraid!) The Norwegians and Finns did their business right there at the stand. The Swedes were in this strange, exclusive cordoned off area called the International Rights Centre. So their own stand in the open area was of minimal scope. This segregation hardly makes for joined up promotion, because if you have the display books, publishers and promotional organisations all together you have more joined up activity. There is a risk that you may get nuisances disturbing you, but most people attending book fairs are decent people who have the intuition to know when people are talking business, so as not to interfere.

The books on display are very useful for the browsing translator who is not absolutely up to date with the very latest authors and books. I also had a look at the German, Polish and other stands, to see what's going on there. When you can read several languages, you can even browse through the originals.

The drinkies dimension (termed: reception) can help people make new acquaintances. But I am not a dab hand at the ritual courtesies of gliding in and out of little huddles. You are expected to interrupt, but my upbringing makes me feel this is infradig. I attended three such gatherings, two Nordic, one Estonian.

The first of these was the annual Nordic reception near the stands. I did make a good contact with someone from a Finland-Swedish publishing house but in the main this event was rather exhausting. Badge-peering becomes a ritual, as sometimes the most innocuous-looking person turns out to be someone you've wanted to meet for years.

The second was the annual book presentation at the Estonian Embassy. This is a fairly informal gathering, and always interesting because the Estonian Ambassador himself is a historian and reads Robert Creeley. This year an Estonian publisher (who has herself translated Harry Potter, along with her daughter!) interviewed the publisher from the Norvik Press (London) and one from the Dalkey Archive Press (Illinois) about recently published books in English translation by Tammsaare, Unt, Ehin, and so on.

The third was a more formal reception at the Swedish Ambassador's residence in Portland Place, an elegant building on the inside, with much turquoise plasterwork, stucco, 18th century atmosphere, and old or reproduction furniture. Gustaf III would have felt at home there. To my surprise, I met an old university friend from about 30 years ago. In those days she was a student of English & American literature, but had recently taken up Norwegian. Both the Swedish Ambassador and the Swedish Cultural Attaché were friendly and humorous people, something of a pleasant surprise.

So, all in all, I had a good book fair. But I thank my lucky stars that I am not obliged to attend several such fairs every year, as publishers are doomed to do.

Jaan Kross: "Uncle" - excerpt

Jaan Kross (1920-2007) was undoubtedly one of the most significant Estonian authors of the 20th century. His numerous novels have been translated into many languages, including English. Kross even wrote around a dozen short stories.

My chief work-in-progress at present is the forthcoming story anthology The Dedalus Book of Estonian Literature for the Dedalus publishing house in Sawtry, UK. This will contain 15 stories by various Estonian authors from the 1890s to the present day, plus an excerpt from Karl Ristikivi's novel Night of Souls, as described elsewhere on this blogsite.

Here is a short excerpt from the draft translation of a Kross story called Uncle (1989), which will be included in the anthology. The main part of the story tells of Estonia just after the Soviets have occupied the country for the second time in 1945, but reaches back in the excerpt here to the German occupation in 1941, when the Germans were picking all the goodies out of Estonian libraries and museums, to send to the Reich as war booty. The excerpt deals with the way the Estonians sought to confuse the German efforts at theft, by muddling the numbers on the crates of, in this instance, books.

The rest of the story tells the fates of Hilda Meigas and her husband, two fairly ordinary Estonians caught up in the maelström of the war and postwar Soviet life. By 1945 Hilda is working as a village schoolteacher, the schoolhouse being what was once Mardimäe manor house, because she was disgraced in Soviet eyes when her late husband changed sides and fought for the Germans. But here we go back to 1941, to a description of book storage as one method of preserving the national heritage.

Nazi Reichskommissar Karl Sigismund Litzmann was running Estonia in 1941. His surname, if not his actions, caused much hilarity in Estonia, as "lits" is the Estonian for "whore". The style of this excerpt is typical of Jaan Kross.

*

The chain led back to the spring of 1941, that is to say when the order had arrived in Tartu from a certain adviser to Herr Litzmann at the General Commission in Tallinn to swiftly pack together and transport, in part to Tallinn, in part to country manor houses, such-and-such valuable collections housed in the University Library. Those items most valuable from a German cultural (and, consequently, global cultural) point of view were to go to Tallinn, those of lesser importance to the stone cellars of suitable manor houses throughout the Province of Tartumaa.

The order to set to work the appropriate librarians plus those assistants they had come from the Vice-Chancellor of the university. Carpenters had begun (swearing as always) knocking together crates, heads of department (anxious as always) bustling about and directing operations, bibliographers (critical and whispering as always) making book inventories and packers-cum-bearers (sweating and sniffing as always) lugging piles of books and manuscripts down creaking flights of stairs. Each, of course, according to his nature. Perfunctorily and smoothly, assiduously and laboriously, thoughtlessly and twitteringly, inquisitively and mutteringly. Some hurried, others dawdled, some made sure the order was carried out to the letter while others again tried to find the easiest way of wriggling out of it. For there were two, even three attitudes for the order and as many reasons for carrying it out.

Some wished to do everything correctly. More rapidly or more slowly but above all, correctly. Others were indifferent to results as long as they got the mark notes and penni coins at the end of the day to pay for the items printed on their ration coupons. A third group which formed after much cursing and whispering among themselves, a group which grew even larger after the thin cigarettes and dishwater coffee of the lunch break, well, this third group began to hatch their own plans. Why should the most valuable items be packed in the first place? To save them from air raids? All well and good. But not only for that reason. To also send them out of Estonia at the first opportunity! And why the hell should they have any interest in that? To rescue them from the impending battles in Tartu. Fine. But encouraging their theft?! No! The order the librarians had received was a monolithic order from a monolithic robot. Like the majority of orders at the time. Any attempt to sabotage it could in itself prove deadly. But a deadliness which may, in fact have spurred on rather than scared off. Lord knows. The order came from Berlin to Tallinn and Tallinn to Tartu like a vehicle speeding along on caterpillar tracks. Armoured, targeted and utterly merciless. Like most orders at that time. Resistance to the order shot up like so much grass (weeds, they would have said in the other camp). Victorious grass. Whose existence always presented the risk of a thickening of the blood, but which thrives and grow rank over everything. The result: the contents, numbers and addresses of the crates became all of a jumble.

Where what ended up, whether in Germany, Tallinn, Haapsalu or in the manor houses of the Province of Tartumaa, no one there ever found out for sure. Even now, in August '45, no one had a complete overview. But one thing was clear: some of the crates, about two or three lorry loads, had ended up at Mardimäe Manor in the cellars of the present schoolhouse. And now that the order had been given to return evacuated books to Tartu, these too had to be returned. Lorries drove out, to that end, from locations in Tartu, including the University, to seven or eight places that week. So the chain split off in seven or eight different directions. It was therefore pretty unlikely that anything had been left to chance.

Translated from Estonian by Eric Dickens