Keywords: usage-based linguistics, corpus linguistics, language planning, corpus planning, verb government, Estonian
For over a century, attempts have been made in Estonian language planning to standardize the oblique case selection of verbs (traditionally: verb government), but variation persists in actual language use. In this paper we look at the case selection patterns of a number of verbs, with which variation is said to occur without any semantic difference.
We look at the historical process of how corpus planning has decided on the “right” case-selection and compare it to actual language use from 1900–1939 and 2019–2021. Our analysis shows that variation is still…

Keywords: autobiographical writings, modernity, nature, vernacular literarcy
The article looks at nature references in texts written in the 1890s by two men born in the middle of the 19th century: namely, the autobiographical writings of farmer and school teacher Paulus Paurmann (1850–1903), and the diary of miller Märt Siipsen (1846–1916). Paurmann and Siipsen can be called vernacular literati – despite their poor education they were eager to participate in the modern literary sphere as both readers and writers. Both men depended on nature in their livelihood – this combined with their interest in contemporary literary matters makes them good examples of…

Keywords: 21st century literature, eco-fiction, citizen science, ornithology
The article compares birdwatchers’ experience of nature with the natural environment as conveyed in literary fiction. The source materials comprise, first of all, interviews conducted with (mostly amateur) Estonian birdwatchers and, secondly, contemporary Estonian and Swedish literary fiction: Maarja Pärtna’s prose poetry collection “The Living City” (Elav linn, 2022), Andrus Kivirähk’s book “Flight to the Moon” (Lend Kuule, 2022), Tõnis Tootsen’s novel “Pâté of the Apes: One Primate’s Thoughts and Memories” (Ahvide pasteet, 2022) and Kerstin Ekman’s novel “The Wolf Run” (Löpa varg, 2021; Estonian translation 2022). The focus is on whether and…

Keywords: Estonian literature, curricula, literary education, Soviet schools, ideology, identity
The article looks at changes in the literature curriculum throughout the Soviet occupation. It discusses the content of the curricula, the ideological context, as well as the proportion of the curriculum dedicated to literary education. Due to the sheer volume of the material available, the article limits itself to mapping out the topic: whether and how the ideological emphases evolved during different periods (Stalinism, the Khrushchev Thaw, the Era of Stagnation); the ratio of Russian (Soviet) to Estonian authors covered in the literary curriculum; the educational system paradoxes involved in literature…

Keywords: 1960 Song Festival, exile, Eduard Tubin, cultural relations, splitted society, Soviet influence measures
Khrushchev’s policy of building cultural relations with the West opened up a possibility for communication between Estonians home and abroad in the late 1950s. From the Soviet perspective, this contact was aimed at weakening the anti-Soviet attitudes of refugee organizations and splitting the community that fled to the West. As a consequence of the non-recognition of the annexation of the Baltic states, a portion of the community was determined not to visit their homeland until it was free. Another part, however, did not see much wrong with…

Keywords: Soviet literary policy, collaboration with security agencies, foreign travel, Estonian writers in exile, Soviet writers, travelogues
After World War II, the free communication of Estonia, now under Soviet occupation, was closed off by the Iron Curtain. However, despite the strict censorship, correspondence with the West could still be maintained under the Stalinist regime up until the deportation of 1949. The Iron Curtain began to be lifted by Stalin’s death in 1953 and the denunciation of his personal cult in 1956. Unlike ordinary people, a number of cultural figures, including writers, enjoyed open borders already in 1956.
This article draws light on…

Keywords: Albert Schweitzer, Jaan Kaplinski, naturecultural selfhood, natural environment, environmental ethics, sensuous place experience
People develop their sense of self partly as a social self-consciousness, but also through the way their immediate perceptual world registers upon consciousness. This primary place perception of the self is, at the same time, inseparable from the circulation of ideas within culture more broadly. This article considers the relationship between a sense of self and the natural environment during the Soviet period, as it appears in the fiction and nonfiction of that era. More particularly, the art­icle analyzes the role of the natural environment in…

Keywords: image studies, gender studies, Soviet studies, everyday literature
The article looks at the figure of the woman philologist in the 1970s–1980s Soviet Estonia. Although philology (defined as the study of language, literature, and folklore) was itself a reputable discipline, the character of the woman philologist stands out as ridiculous in the literary fiction of the era. She is depicted as an embittered, aging single woman who has failed to create a nuclear family and is disappointed in her career. The analysis underlines the motif of sexual coldness: male authors (Oskar Kruus, Mihkel Mutt, Juhan Viiding) ridicule women philologists as frigid,…

Keywords: Soviet cultural policy, theatre history, repertoire
This article looks at the work and various management strategies of the long-term director of Vanemuine Theatre Kaarel Ird (1909–1986). The article is largely based on materials from the Cultural History Archives of the Estonian Literary Museum (EKM EKLA, f 307). Ird headed the Vanemuine Theatre for about 40 years (1940–1986, with brief hiatuses) and his file includes a remarkable number of instructions issued to theatres by the Party and government authorities during those times. The­atres as institutions of ideological work were under strict multilevel control in the Soviet Union; the regime demanded that theatres…

Keywords: cultural politics, literary consultants, Estonian SSR, ideology
Literature was a major ideological tool in the cultural policy of the Soviet Union. Literature played an important social role, as it facilitated the upbringing of a new kind of people – Soviet people. Due to the importance of literature, writers, as representatives of the cultural elite, were also considered major cultural influencers. Writers’ work was guided by the Writers’ Union, which was deeply interwoven with the rules of the Soviet cultural policy. The ideological role of the Writers’ Union is evidenced, among other things, by the fact that from 1945 onwards…

Keywords: communist instruction, Communist Party, literary policy, creative unions, Writers’ Union, censorship
During the Soviet era, literature was one of the main tools of communist propaganda. Consequently, writers were assigned a crucial educating, guiding and influencing role within the ideological project. As “engineers of the human soul” they were expected to not only communicate the ideological message, but also to construct and disseminate the Soviet worldview and help bring up “Soviet people.” One example of ideological guidance and direction in literary life is the interaction between the Communist Party and the Writers’ Union of the Estonian SSR. This interaction mostly consisted…

Keywords: Estonian SSR, nomenklatura, Writers’ Union
This article looks at the meaning of the term nomenklatura, the positions within the Soviet Estonian literary life that were included in the Communist Party nomenkla­tura, the day-to-day practices used when dealing with “nomenklatural writers,” and the most prominent “nomenklatural writers” during the post-Stalin era.
The term nomenklatura has a number of meanings in the Soviet context. Firstly, it was a (secret) list of key positions to which people were appointed and from which they were removed by a decision of a specific party committee; secondly, it was a set of bureaucratic procedures; and thirdly, the…

Keywords: the Stalin Prize, Hans Leberecht, Writers’ Union of the Estonian SSR, Soviet Estonian literature, Sovietization of literary life
The Stalin Prize (established in 1939) was awarded in two broad fields: for (1) groundbreaking scientific achievements and inventions, and (2) outstanding literary and artistic achievements. The procedure for selecting and nominating the candidates and making the final decision was overseen by the party apparatus and by Joseph Stalin personally. The prize was an instrument of exerting control over intellectual life as well as an important link in the system of social etiquette (recognition, perks and privilege) of the time. Especially noteworthy…

Keywords: Estonian literature, Soviet studies, North-East Estonia, natural resources
The focus of the article is on the depiction of oil shale mining, which had intensified after the occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union in 1940, in Looming magazine during the first decades of the occupation. It also provides a brief overview of the coverage of the extraction of this natural resource during the Republic of Estonia: from the second half of the 1930, in particular, literature, art, film and photography began to be urged to cover topics deemed to be of national importance, while the exports of shale oil increased…

Keywords: linguistic ideology, Stalinism, Marrism, environment, heredity, Lamarckism
The battlefield of linguistic policy in the 1920s to 1950s Soviet Union centred around two authoritarian figures: in Saint Petersburg the orientalist and active member of the Academy of Sciences Nikolai Marr, and in Moscow the dictator of the workers’ empire Joseph Stalin, an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences since 1939. Both spoke Georgian as their mother-tongue.
Marr’s “new theory of language,” which was at times reminiscent of Medieval kabbalism (the descent of all languages from four original words, etc.), aspired to the status of the official linguistic doctrine of the Soviet…

Keywords: standard language, language norm, codification, language change, ­orthology, orthography, Estonian ortographic dictionary ÕS
The article provides an insider’s personal view on the satus, composition and operating principles of the language committee of the Mother Tongue Society, and summarizes its decisions.
The language committee does not deal with language learning or teaching, nor with issues of language status: its sole concern is corpus planning. In an advanced democracy, the purpose of such activity is to guarantee, on the one hand, the comprehensibility of Estonian texts over time and all over Estonia and, on the other hand, the unambiguity and clarity of business…

Keywords: corpus planning, language codification, Institute of Language and ­Literature, orthographic dictionary, Estonian Orthological Committee
As far as Estonian language planning is concerned, the 45 years after World War II, when Estonian was ruled by Soviet power, were not all of equal weight. The first post-war decade was spent in an effort to make Estonian a “Soviet” language by following the guidelines coming down from the leadership of the Academy of Sciences, the state publishing house and other government agencies. For the next quarter of a century, i.e., up to the late 1970s, Estonian corpus planning was the responsibility of conservative…

Keywords: Estonian language planning, language standardization, corpus planning, vernacular
The early 20th century brought an awareness of a dire need for the standardization of Estonian. The article discusses the trends and views characteristic of Estonian corpus planning at that time, focusing on the role of the approach based on actual language use, which is the most prominent principle in language planning in Estonia today. In the beginning of the last century, when most Estonians still spoke their local vernacular, it was known as the vernacular approach. Although the language reform initiated by Johannes Aavik and the language-regulation led by Johannes Voldemar…