August Gailit

August Gailit

August Gailit (born January 9, 1891 in Kuiksilla, today the village of Lossiküla, Sangaste municipality , Valga district / Estonia ; † November 5, 1960 in Örebro / Sweden ) was an Estonian writer .

Life

August Georg Gailit was born the son of a carpenter near Sangaste and grew up on the Laatre manor (today the Tõlliste municipality ). His father was Latvian or a Latvian Live, his mother Estonian, whose parents were largely Germanized, so that the boy grew up practically in four languages: Latvian, German, Estonian and Russian. That he eventually became an Estonian writer was his own conscious choice.

From 1899 he attended the parish and town school of Valga and from 1905 to 1907 the town school in Tartu . From 1911 to 1914 he worked as a journalist in Riga ( Latvia , at that time in the province of Livonia and like Estonia part of the Tsarist Empire) and from 1916 to 1918 in Estonia. In the Estonian War of Independence against Soviet Russia he took part as a war correspondent .

In 1920 he became a press attaché at the Estonian embassy in Riga. From 1922 to 1924 August Gailit lived in Germany , France and Italy . Then he settled as a freelance writer in Tartu and from 1934 in Tallinn . From 1932 to 1934 he was director of the Vanemuine Opera House in Tartu.

In 1932 August Gailit married the actress Elvi Nander (1898–1981), in 1933 their daughter Aili-Viktooria was born.

With the occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union , Gailit and his family fled into exile in Sweden in September 1944 , where he remained active as a writer.

writer

In May 1917 August Gailit founded the Siuru literary group together with Friedebert Tuglas , Marie Under , Artur Adson and Henrik Visnapuu , to which Johannes Semper later joined as the sixth. With literary appearances and their sometimes erotic and scandalous poems, the group caused a sensation all over Estonia. Gailit's early prose also often has an erotic content. The situations and characters described are often presented in a drastic or grotesque manner. Especially until the mid-1920s, Gailit leaned heavily on neo-romanticism ; Oswald Spengler and Knut Hamsun had a formative influence on his work . In addition, August Gailit worked as a well-known columnist .

His most famous and successful novel is Toomas Nipernaadi (1928, filmed in 1983), which is composed of seven short stories, some of which had previously appeared in Looming magazine . This classic picaresque novel tells the story of a writer called Toomas Nipernaadi, who sets out on a journey summer after summer in search of inspiration and only returns to his wife and family in late autumn, when the first snow covers the land. In the process, he gets to know young women and, thanks to his charm, his imagination and his love of tales, takes them so far that they fall in love with him. Shortly before something “happens” between them - for example a mutual escape - Nipernaadi tries to escape himself. Even so, Nipernaadi is no stray impostor who awakens illusions and leaves broken hearts behind. Rather, he opens the hearts of women and thus the view for other things, for alternatives, for fantasies and dreams, in short for another world. In the end, the enthusiast Nipernaadi himself is the “victim”, because he has to return to the city melancholy.

Political issues played an increasingly important role in his later novels. The novel Isade maa (1935) deals with the Estonian War of Independence 1918-19. In his novel Üle rahutu vee (published in Gothenburg in 1951 ) Gailit also deals with the tragic loss of his homeland.

Reception in Germany

After Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald , whose collection of fairy tales was published in Halle in 1869 , August Gailit was the first Estonian writer to find a publisher in Germany. This made it important for the reception of Estonian literature in German-speaking countries. In addition to Jaan Kross and Anton Hansen Tammsaare , Gailit is also one of the most translated Estonian authors in Germany.

Nippernaht and the seasons

→ Main article : Toomas Nipernaadi

In 1931 the - abbreviated - translation by Arthur Behrsing appeared in the Propylaen publishing house belonging to the Ullstein publishing house.

The island of the seal hunters

→ Main article : Karge meri

In 1939 the first translation was published by Propylaen-Verlag, in 1985 a new translation by Maximilian Dietrich Verlag (Memmingen) under the title Das rauhe Meer .

Other novels

The second novel in German came out in 1938, Lied der Freiheit . It was translated by Erna Pergelbaum and published by WG Korn-Verlag in Breslau. Since the novel is set in the Estonian War of Independence, which was waged against the Red Army, the theme fit into the Nazi concept. In 1944, a so-called "front book edition" was even printed from this, that is, in a narrow sentence and as a paperback, so that the book could fit in the soldiers' luggage. Nevertheless, this novel is humorous and absurd in places and by no means an example of Nazi military literature.

Publications in magazines and newspapers

The publication of preprints in newspapers or novels in magazines was also important for reception. The Nippernaht was published in 28 deliveries in the Vossische Zeitung's entertainment paper (October 14– November 12, 1931, No. 241–268.) One year later, the magazine Uhu (7/1932, pp. 91–103), who also belonged to Ullstein, Gailit's story Petrus Kuppelwaar finds the right woman. A peasant story from Estonia . IM Trotsky was again given as the translator, although this translation was most likely also by Arthur Behrsing.

Trivia

In the case of Nippernaht und die Jahreszeiten IM Trotsky, i.e. the mediator, is given as the translator, although it can be proven that the translation was made by Arthur Behrsing. It is not ruled out - but ultimately cannot be proven - that the agent was rewarded for his work in this way.

Works

• "Kui päike läheb looja" (story, 1910)
• "Saatana carousel" (collection of short stories , 1917)
• "Muinasmaa" ( novel , 1918)
• "Klounid ja faunid" (feature section, 1919)
• "Rändavad rüütlid" (collection of short stories, 1919)
• "August Gailiti surm" (collection of short stories, 1919)
• " Purpurne surm " (novel, 1924)
• "Idioot" (collection of short stories, 1924)
• "Vastu hommikut" (collection of short stories, 1926)
• "Aja grimassid" (feature section, 1926)
• "Ristisõitjad" (collection of short stories, 1927)
• " Toomas Nipernaadi " (short story novel, 1928; German: Nippernaht und die Jahreszeiten , 1931)
• " Isade maa " (novel, 1935; German: Lied der Freiheit , 1938)
• " Karge meri " (novel, 1938; German: Die Insel der Seehundjäger , 1939; newly translated Das Rauhe Meer , 1985)
• " Ekke Moor " (novel, 1941)
• " Leegitsev süda " (novel, 1945)
• " Üle rahutu vee " (novel, 1951)
• "Kas mäletad, mu poor?" (Prose, 3 volumes, 1951–1959)

Single receipts

1. ↑ Cornelius Hasselblatt : History of Estonian Literature. From the beginning to the present. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter 2006, pp. 472–473.
2. ^ Bernard Kangro Noor Gailit, in: August Gailit 1891-1960. Mälestusteos. Lund, 1961, p. 84.
3. ↑ Cornelius Hasselblatt: Estonian literature in German translation. A reception story from the 19th to the 21st century. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2011, pp. 121-131.
4. ↑ Cornelius Hasselblatt: Estonian Literature in the German Language 1784-2003. Bibliography of primary and secondary literature. Bremen: Hempen Verlag 2004, pp. 38–39.

Web links

• Literature by and about August Gailit in the catalog of the German National Library
• Life, work, pictures (Estonian)
• About August Gailit (Estonian Literary Magazine, English)