One of the manifestations of Soviet cultural policy involved spectacular congresses of the creative unions, held according to a traditional scenario. Such congresses (of composers, artists, writers, as well as, e.g., of collective farmers) were always very ceremonious, with a lot of rhetoric eulogizing the authorities; some, if not all members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were elected to the Honorary Presidium of the congress, a letter was addressed to the congress by the Bureau of the local (Estonian) Communist Party or by some other such organ, a congress resolution was adopted, containing…

In his paper „Estonian word prosody in the Southern Finnic context” (Keel ja Kirjandus 2014, No. 8–9, pp. 575–589) Karl Pajusalu has recently  analysed the prosodic differences and peculiarities of North Estonian, Votic, Livonian and South Estonian. In both North and South Estonian, Pajusalu prefers the concepts of foot and foot isochrony as the most adequate model of Estonian word prosody. However, there are many unsolved problems connected with the calculation of the duration ratio of the first and second syllables of a word. Pajusalu’s paper and a lot of research conducted during the last decades fail to pay due…

The focus of the article is an analysis of the main character of „Rakvere romaan“ (A Rakvere novel) (1982) by Jaan Kross. Although literary scholars have not yet captured the structure and detail of Berend Falck’s inner world, a little has been achieved by critics upon the appearance of the book. J. Kross has has turned serious attention to the books read by this Enlightenment character. Although we get no direct access to Falck’s interpretation of his reading, its influence can be guessed from his way of thinking and acting. Berend Falck, who is fluent in German and French, mainly…

The article attempts to find out what factors could possibly affect the grammatical number of the Estonian words käsi ‘hand’, jalg ‘foot’ and suu ‘mouth’. The material investigated comes from the Electronic Base Dictionary of Estonian Phrases (FES), the Corpus of Modern Estonian Metaphorical Phrases (MetafK) and the Estonian Web Corpus (etTenTen). The article aims to determine (1) the possible differences in the frequency of occurrence of singular and plural forms of the body-part words in idiomatic and non-idiomatic phrases in modern and older language; (2) the possible factors behind the deviations from the normal syntactic and distributional logic of…

The article observes the depiction of home as an intimately experienced spatial node in three works by Jaan Kaplinski: a collection of poetry entitled Evening Brings Everything Back (1985); a piece of poetic prose Through the Forest (1991); and a contemplation written in South Estonian dialect Into the Forest and Back (2014). The framework against which the texts are read is informed by the phenomenologically minded school of human geography (Yi-Fu Tuan), merged with insights from architecture (Juhani Pallasmaa) and semiotics (Juri Lotman, Kalevi Kull) as well as from points of convergence of sensory perception studies with anthropology (Tim Ingold)…

The article discusses the works of Estonian Russian author Andrei Ivanov. Although he has been publishing only since 2007, he has already received a number of local and international awards, while his books have been translated into Estonian and German; also, a play based on his novel has been staged in Hamburg. Never before has an Estonian Russian author attracted so many Estonian sympathizers as evidenced by professional criticism as well as by numerous literary blogs. The article makes an attempt to analyse some specific features of Andrei Ivanov’s  writings, pointing out his alien or non-belonger status, writing as his…

The 19th century following the industrial revolution developed into a technological era, which evoked humanist protest in arts (symbolism, decadence) as well as humanities (Freud, anthropology). Literary theory was also affected as scientific logic borrowed from technology was applied to human semiotic and figurative thinking (Saussure, Wölfflin). Russian formalists had to overcome two traditions in the 19th-century literary studies, namely, a positivist adherence to facts and vulgar psychologism, neither having to do with a work of literature. Their studies addressed the author, the person behind the text. However, for them the author was not so much a person of flesh…

The article deals with the problem how to represent the morphological composition of the paradigmatic simple forms of the Estonian verb with a view to good theoretical justification and practical suitability for computer and corpus linguistics. The major issue here is systematic homonymy and underspecification. The article discusses the possible influence of paradigmatic representation on the understanding of the system of categories, comments on the imperative and jussive moods, makes an original suggestion of how to place certain morphological forms in the paradigmatic table, and points out some forms ending in -kse, which do not fit in the traditional framework.
The…

 
The article gives an overview of young scientists conferences, with a focus on the representation and participation of young folklorists. The tradition of such conferences dates back to 1974 (Institute of Language and Literature) and 1978 (Estonian Literary Museum). The overview reflects changes both in conference organization and presentation technology. It also points out the changes in research focus throughout the 40 years period. The article is based on the recollections of the participants and organizers as well as on published  sources.

 
The article discusses three literary characters inspired by historical Estonian politician Aleksander Kesküla, found in the novels „Tõde ja õigus” III (Truth and Justice III, 2009 [1936]) by Anton Hansen Tammsaare, „Dr. H. Rejsende i revolution” (Dr. H. Traveler in Revolution, 1986) by Tørk Haxthausen, and „Volta annab kaeblikku vilet” (The Plaintive Whistle of the Volta Factory, 2001) by Aarne Ruben. In all three novels, Kesküla is a secondary character, yet  fulfills a significant role in the context of the author’s more general ambitions. The depiction of Kesküla, stressing mysteriousness as his main characteristic trait, is relatively realistic in the…

 
The article addresses some etymological issues of the place names of Setumaa, which have hitherto received insufficient attention, if any. Those issues include Baltic substrate names. Attention is drawn to those names of Russian origin that reflect sound changes enabling relative dating. The article emphasizes the necessity of a systematic in-depth investigation of the stratigraphy of the whole toponymic material recorded from Setumaa, with a view to obtaining new reliable information on the settlement history of the region.