In the late 19th-century atmosphere of Russification, one poet emerged whose tragic life and feverish creativity, alternating with mental instability, has had a profound impact on Estonian poetry as a whole – Juhan Liiv (1864–1913). His prophetic talent is evident primarily in his poems predicting the birth of the Estonian state. The precision of the imagery in Liiv’s nature poetry, the tenderness and originality of his love poems, his finely-tuned perception of social relations and impressive command of language were all quite unprecedented, both against the background of epigonic poetry of the time, as well as a century later.

Liiv’s influence on the whole of subsequent Estonian literature is vividly illustrated by the following story: the ailing poet donated the only thing he possessed – his jacket – for the construction of the first Estonian theatre, the “Estonia”. Ivar Grünthal, poet and brilliant essayist, drew from the story a comparison with Estonian poetry in its entirety, which to this day gleans material and themes from Juhan Liiv’s work. It is a testament to Liiv’s influence that since 1965 a poetry prize named after him is awarded at his birthplace, Alatskivi Manor on the shores of Lake Peipsi, to the author of the most outstanding poem of the preceding year.

During the last decade of the 19th century, a contemporary of Liiv’s, Eduard Vilde (1865–1933), who led an adventurous life in Germany and Denmark, introduced a realistic direction into Estonian prose. Having learnt the fashionable trends in Berlin, the social democrat Vilde was the first professional Estonian writer whose socially critical historical novels depicted life in 19th century Estonia, corvée and the Peasant Revolt of 1858, large-scale religious conversions, together with the mass exodus of peasants to Russia, and the waiting for the mythical White Ship. This widespread motif with its diverse meanings in later Estonian literature originated from a sectarian religious movement in 1861, whose adherents were promised a better life if they emigrated to the Crimea: the White Ship, which crowds of people near Tallinn waited for in vain, was supposed to take Estonians to the promised land. Against the background of the 20th-century intelligentsia’s aspirations towards Europe, Vilde ridiculed cultural and economic upstarts and the cult of mammon in his plays.

Estonian literature gained a new intellectual impetus in 1905 with the formation of the group Noor-Eesti (Young Estonia), led by the poet Gustav Suits (1883–1956) and the short story writer Friedebert Tuglas (1886–1971). Together with the linguist and poet Grünthal-Ridala and the reformer of the Estonian language Johannes Aavik (1880–1973), the members of the group deliberately cultivated their aesthetic programme by following French, German, Scandinavian and Italian trends and Finnish literature and trying to raise Estonian criticism and aesthetic thinking to a corresponding level. Their aspirations can be summed up in the words of Suits: “Let us remain Estonians, but also become Europeans!”

The 1905 Russian Revolution scattered the members of Young Estonia and their social-democratically-minded contemporaries into exile, although it was still possible to publish their work at home. For Tuglas those years of moving around, which lasted almost until the time of the first Republic of Estonia, formed a highly instructive period that is clearly reflected in his work. Besides realism, his short stories display neo-Romantic trends – Impressionism, Symbolism and later, inspired by the mood of war, Expressionism. The form of both Tuglas’s short stories and Suits’s poems is extremely refined, revealing deep reflection and impulses gained from Modernist currents. Both writers remained in the limelight of Estonian literature for decades: for his leading role and critical doctrine, Tuglas was even dubbed ‘the Pope of Estonian literature’; Suits excelled as a poet and an academic and university lecturer.

In his historical novel Maapagu (Exile, 1988) which has all the characteristics of an essay in cultural history, Estonian writer and anthropologist Ilmar Talve – himself a writer in exile after the Second World War – describes the Young Estonians in exile as shepherd boys in Europe, eager to learn. This comparison entails a typical shift in the literature of Estonia in relation to the rest of the world: wishing to have arrived at its destination and be contemporary, and at the same time, lagging one step behind developments elsewhere. A good example of just such a shift in feeling was the magazine and movement Tarapita that first appeared in the 1920s. Tarapita poetry quite definitely imitated the motifs of German expressionism that began in 1910 and the accompanying programme of the Clarté group.

Of course, early 20th-century literature was not just a variety of movements and groups. The most prominent prose writer of the time, still widely read today, was Oskar Luts (1887–1953), especially his popular lyrical school novel Kevade (Spring, 1912–1913). Another significant author was Jaan Oks (1884–1918), an impulsive talent who wrote naturalistic short stories and fragmentary poetry. The poetry of Ernst Enno (1875–1934), unjustly neglected in his lifetime, gained popularity much later. Drawing inspiration from Buddhism and Taoism and their western popularisers, Enno introduced oriental meditativeness into Estonian poetry.


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The rationality of the Young Estonians was to be counterbalanced by the group of writers gathered in the Siuru movement, established in 1917. This movement, tired of the mood instilled by the First World War, brought emotions and an erotic sincerity into poetry. The central poets of Siuru were Henrik Visnapuu (1890–1951) and Marie Under (1883–1980). The latter, known in society as the ‘Siuru Princess’, was later nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature on several occasions. The tradition of well-received Estonian women poets, as mentioned in connection with Koidula, is clearly evident in Under’s work. Her poems were at first dominated by sensuality and eroticism, quite scandalous for their time, for which the poet was censured by conventional critics, though her works were read in secret by schoolgirls. Later her serene poetry tackled both the popular subject matter of ballads and universal metaphysical motifs. Visnapuu’s poetry varied greatly, from an early provocative manner which challenged the gods and was inspired by Futurism to elegies and nature poetry with special emphasis on the musicality of verse. The turmoil of the Second World War carried both poets into exile and their last books expressed the prevailing mood of living in a foreign country, with links with their homeland severed – in the case of Visnapuu this was expressed more directly, in Under’s poetry it was metaphysically mediated.