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The Background and Poetry of Gustav Suits

A Study in Estonian Symbolism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

W. K. Matthews
W. K. Matthews*
Affiliation:
School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London
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Extract

      Since then, you absent, I have turned slow pages—
      “Fire of Life,” “Windlands,” “Childbirth,” “Only Dreamscape,“
      Down to the veined complexity of “Stray Leaves,“
      Critics find baffling.
      Rapt and plumed splendour of the risen spirit,
      Staking its all on foreign revolution;
      Blackest eclipse of promised land in exile,—
      So run the rhythms.
      White love and pangs of birth in ancient symbols,
      Impulses, probings of the years of anguish,
      Last, the terse wisdom, grateful for survival,
      Knowing no conquest.
    W. K. Matthews, “Candles.“

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 1950 , pp. 116 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1950

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References

1 Estonian spelling is almost phonetic, and the unpointed vowel signs have their Latin values. The name Suits is pronounced “sooits.“

2 Mihkelson, F., “Gustav Suits Noor Eesti algajul,” Kriitika, Vol. II, No. 2 (Tartu, 1935).Google Scholar

3 Suits translated Jarnefelt's novel Isänmaa into Estonian in 1903.

4 She too, like many other Estonian intellectuals, now lives in Sweden.

5 See the Introduction to Suits’ anthology, Eesti nüüdislüürika (Tartu, 1929).

6 Elu tuli can also mean “life came.“

7 Ridala, V., Eesti kirjanduse ajalugu (Tartu, 1922).Google Scholar

8 Leino admittedly inspired “Kevade laul.” Cf. his “Päivänpoika.“

9 Both titles are taken from characteristic originals by these writers: Käkimäe kägu is a novelette by Liiv, Üks ennemuistene jutt, the subtitle of Kreutzwald's epic Kalevipoeg.

10 See Suits’ Sihidja vaated (Helsinki, 1906) and Noor Eesti nöhakult (Tartu, 1931).

11 A version of the entire poem is quoted in my article “The Estonian Sonnet,“ Slavonic and East European Review, XXV, No. 64 (November, 1946), 162.

12 Suits’ name means “smoke” in Estonian.

13 The interdialectal line separating the northern (literary) dialect from the southern, starts from the Estonian-Latvian frontier, west of Möisaküla, and runs to Viljandi, then skirts the northern shores of Lake Vorts and bends north-eastwards to Lake Peipsi, leaving Tartu to the south.

14 Literally “sleepy cuckoos.“

15 A literal version of mctsavennad, the Estonian name for “partisans” or guerrilla fighters.

16 This appears in the title of his qualitatively and historically significant anthology of modern Estonian poetry Logomtmcers (Arbujad) (Tartu, 1938), which introduces the last literary grouping in independent Estonia.