Gatherings of translators, Käsmu, Hiiumaa
The belief is vague, but broadly held, even by prodigious intellectuals like Alexander Solzhenitsyn who became acquainted with Estonians in the GULAG. One of his first cell-mates there was Arnold Susi, a prominent lawyer and independent Estonia’s last Minister of Education. Solzhenitsyn later wrote that Susi “breathed a different sort of air” and his surrepticious exchange of ideas with Susi, during exercise periods in the prison yard, moved Solzhenitsyn to question his Marxist upbringing.
Years later, Solzhenitsyn described Estonians as remarkably congenial, unassuming, hard-working and true to their word. While that’s very flattering, neither Solzhenitsyn, Mõttus, nor others like-minded, can plausibly describe national character in any detail, nor account for exceptions to broad generalizations.
Communists are hostile to the idea of national character. Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, all dogmatically assert that consciousness is determined by life, not the reverse. Consequently, prominent Estonian communists, like Viktor Kingissepp, shunned their national identity. Another one, Johannes Lauristin, grovelled before Stalin as he begged him to admit Estonia into the Soviet Union. Decades later, his daughter Marju advocated re-independence for Estonia, but only as a transfer of political control. As the chief Soviet censor, Marju’s mother Olga banned Estonian literature. She remained a devout communist party member until her death in 2005, many years after witnessing the recovery of Estonia’s freedom and prosperity. Marju’s step-father, Hendrik Allik, remained a devout communist until death in 1989 in free Estonia. Arbitrary imprisonment in Siberia had no impact on him. Arnold Meri, who had a hand in deporting Estonians to Siberia, denied there was ever a Soviet occupation. He died as he was about to face a trial for war crimes. In her book, Punane ja sinine, Marju Lauristin describes such people as “sinisilmsed idealistid”.
Christopher Moseley
From his native Australia, Christopher Moseley moved to London to study linguistics and the languages surrounding the Baltic; including Livonian, an endangered language once spoken in the Estonian-Latvian border area. The last native-speaker died some years ago, but Christopher Moseley and his kind have saved it from extinction.
Upon graduating, he served the BBC’s Monitoring Service as a translator. He taught linguistics at the University of Turku; Latvian and Estonian at the University College in London. Among his numerous publications are, A handbook of Colloquial Estonian, and many important translations, including: Indrek Hargla’s, Apteeker Melchior ja Rataskaevu Viirassus; Andrus Kivirähk’s, Mees kes tundis ussisõnu; Tammsaare’s, Põrgupõhja uus vanapagan, Ma armastasin sakslast, and the second volume of the classic, Tõde ja õigus. This list is illustrative, not exhaustive. A complete list would include translations from yet other languages and scholarly papers in linguistics.
While chess masters and mathematical geniuses are famous for their eccentricities, I can testify that Christopher Moseley is, in other respects, perfectly ordinary. I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with him face to face at gatherings of translators, most recently in the charming resort village of Käsmu on the north coast of Estonia, where 43 translators from every country between Norway and Bulgaria; from Utah and Taiwan, gathered to savour the Estonian language.
Without denying that every language has its appeal, there’s something uncanny, even bewitching about Estonian. Alas, it can’t be appreciated before a period of intense study. Essentially, it’s useless beyond Estonia’s borders. Nonetheless, some go to a great effort to learn it. The language thrives, even after a half-century of Soviet occupation with aggressive Russification and corruption by Marxist-Leninist cant.
Writers in the USSR were called ‘cultural workers’ and were compelled to serve as cheer-leaders for the Communist Party. Literature as an art form suffered. An example of dreck awarded a Stalin Prize for Literature in the early 1950’s describes workers failing to call the fire brigade when a fire broke out. Instead, they ran to the the Communist Party Executive Committee for help. That can’t be called ‘writing’, although we might call it ’typing’.
Marju Lauristin has dropped her old ‘scientific socialist’ identity. She’s a ‘democratic socialist’ now, although the miasma of her former self remains as close to her as stench on excrement. ‘Democratic’ locates her geographically in the Estonia of today, while ‘socialist’ describes her pretentions to omniscience and authoritarian inclination.
Jaan Kaplinski, the poet, cultural critic and Nobel Prize nominee, was repelled by this obnoxious mannerism and reacted, commendably, by shunning academic Estonian. He retreated into the Võru dialect. The gesture should have been temporary, in order to make a statement: that the inherent poetry and mellifluous quality of the Estonian language should be respected and preserved. Alas, Kaplinski died in 2021. Now, we left wondering who might carry on with his noble endeavor.
Languages can endure. The Catholic Church has preserved Latin. Zionists revived and modernised Hebrew. The French spoken in Quebec, once parochial, is now being modernised, particularly with the vocabulary required by digital technology. It’s commanding respect, moreover, even among effete snobs in the French Academy.
In 1800, there was no such thing as a literate Estonian. By 1900, literacy was ubiquitous and soon afterwards, the language was modernized by the linguist, Johannes Aavik. This scholar and polyglot enriched Estonian vocabulary with words appropriated from both local dialects and foreign languages; Finnish, for the most part. He also invented vocabulary with a convincingly idiomatic ring and standardized spelling and grammar, all with the aim of lifting peasants’ idiom to a level ranking with the literary languages of the world. Today, cutting-edge sciences and classic literary works can all be studied in Estonian translation. That’s hasn’t been the work of a day.