Lennart Meri

Lennart Meri (1998)

Lennart Georg Meri [ ˈlennɑr̺t ˈg̥eɔrg̥ ˈmer̺i ] (born March 29, 1929 in Tallinn ; † March 14, 2006 ibid) was an Estonian writer, filmmaker and politician. From 1992 to 2001 he was President of Estonia . His cousin was Arnold Meri .

Life

Early years

Meri was born in Tallinn as the son of the Estonian diplomat and later Shakespeare translator Georg Meri . His family soon left Estonia, Meri attended a total of nine different schools in four different languages. In addition to Estonian , he also learned Finnish, French, German, English, Russian and Latin.

At the time of the Soviet occupation of Estonia in June 1940, however, the family was back in Estonia. In 1941 she, like thousands of other Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians , was deported to Siberia . The heads of families were separated from their loved ones and taken to camps where there were few survivors. At the age of 12, Meri had to work as a lumberjack. He also worked as a potato peeler and river rower to help support his family.

During his time in involuntary exile, he developed an interest in the Finno-Ugric language family, which includes various Siberian languages ​​in addition to Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian. The kinship of the Finno-Ugric ethnic family was a lifelong motif in his works.

The family survived and came back to Estonia, where Lennart Meri graduated from the History and Language Faculty of Tartu University in 1953 . The Soviet power did not allow him to practice the profession of historian; However, he found work as a playwright in Vanemuine , Estonia's oldest theater, and later as a producer of radio plays for the Estonian Radio . Several of his films have received critical acclaim.

Artistic work

After a trip to the Tianshan Mountains in Central Asia and the early Islamic sites of the Karakum Desert, Lennart Meri wrote his first book in 1958, which was received with public interest. He had been able to earn a living writing as a student after his father was arrested for the third time by the Soviet authorities. With the help of his younger brother, who had been forced to drop out and worked as a taxi driver, Meri was able to take care of his mother and complete his own studies. Since 1963 he was a member of the Estonian Writers' Association. In the 1970s he was elected honorary member of the Finnish Literary Society (SKS).

Tulemägede Maale (1964) was a chronicle of Meri's trip to Kamchatka in the 1960s. The expedition included geologists, botanists, a photographer and the artist Kalju Polli . "Traveling is the only passion that need not be ashamed of the intellect," wrote Meri. He did not underestimate the disadvantages of mass tourism, but believed that "science will free us from the chains of big cities and lead us back to nature".

The book about Meri's journey to the Northeast Passage , Virmaliste Väraval 1974, was a great success in the Soviet Union. It was translated into Finnish in 1977 as part of a series on Soviet literature. In this work Meri combined the present with the historical perspective and used material from explorers and researchers such as Cook , Forster , Wrangel , Dahl, Sauer, Middendorff and Cochran.

Meri's best known work is probably Hõbevalge 1976. The book reconstructs the history of Estonia and the Baltic Sea region. As in his other works, Meri combines historical sources and scientific research with creative imagination. "If geography is prose, maps are iconography," he wrote. Hõbevalge is based on a variety of material about early seafaring and gradually reveals the secret of the legendary Ultima Thule . This name was given in Classical times to a land mass in the north that is reported to be six days' journey from Britain. Several places have been linked to the historical lore by scholars, including the Shetland Islands , Iceland and Norway . Meri suspects that the name Thule may have come from Estonian folk legends describing the formation of the Kaali , Saaremaa crater lake . In his essay Tacituse tahtel 2000, Meri examines early encounters between Estonians and the Roman Empire and describes that fur, amber and, in particular, kiln- dried grain were among the most important contributions made by Estonians - the grain served as seed throughout Europe in years of drought.

The film The Winds of the Milky Way , an international production in collaboration with Finland and Hungary , was not shown in the Soviet Union, but won a silver medal at the New York Film Festival. Meri's films and texts were used as study material in Finnish schools. In 1986 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Helsinki . Meri founded the Estonian Non-Governmental Institute (Eesti Instituut) in 1988 to promote cultural encounters with the West and student exchanges.

Meri as a politician

After more than twenty years of being banned from leaving the country, the Soviet authorities issued travel permits for the first time in the late 1970s, and Meri repeatedly used the opportunity to make the democratic states aware of Estonia's existence from Finland. He made numerous contacts with politicians, journalists and Estonians in exile. He was the first Estonian to publicly announce the protests against the Soviet plans to mine phosphate in his homeland, which would have made a third of the region uninhabitable.

The environmental movement soon turned into a political movement against Soviet domination in Estonia: the “Singing Revolution”, led by Estonian intellectuals. A speech by Meri, which dealt with the existential problems of the Estonian nation, met with a great response abroad. In 1989 Meri founded the Estonian Institute, which served as the predecessor of both the later Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Estonian Cultural Institute . Meri was a founding member of the Estonian Popular Front, which worked with the relevant movements in Latvia and Lithuania. After the first free elections, Meri became the first foreign minister in the new era of Estonian sovereignty. He promoted the development of a young, educated and English-speaking elite to promote communication with the West while making Estonia more effective on the international stage. He took part in the CSCE conferences in Copenhagen , New York, Berlin and Moscow as well as in the founding conference of the Baltic Sea Council, met numerous American and European heads of state and was the first politician from the former Eastern Bloc to give a lecture at NATO headquarters in Brussels .

After a brief interlude as the Estonian ambassador to Finland , Meri became the second President of the Republic of Estonia on October 6, 1992. Even though Arnold Rüütel , former chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR , had the most votes in the first ballot with 42%, the parliament, which was responsible for the final decision, elected Meri as president with a majority of the Pro Patria Alliance. During the election campaign, nationalists tried to attribute Meri ties to the KGB . However, these accusations could not harm Meri's reputation and public image. On September 20, 1996, Meri was re-elected for his second and final term.

Meri's grave in Tallinn

On October 3, 1995, Lennart Meri gave a highly acclaimed speech in Berlin on the Day of German Unity , in which he critically examined the self-image of today's Germans. The Germans, according to Meri, showed little respect for themselves, Germany had become “a kind of Canossa republic”, a republic of repentance. One cannot trust a people who practice intellectual self-contempt around the clock. His remarks culminated in the sentence: “For me as an Estonian, it is difficult to understand why the Germans make their own history so taboo that it is extremely difficult to publish about the injustice against the Germans without being viewed wrongly - but not for example from the Estonians or Finns, but from the Germans themselves! "

Meri caused a scandal at the Matthiae feast in Hamburg in 1994 : Meri , who was invited as the guest of honor, spoke of Russia's renewed striving for supremacy in the east in the presence of Vladimir Putin , who was then the first vice mayor of Hamburg's twin city St. Petersburg . Putin then left the room loudly.

On the “Homeland Day” of the German Association of Expellees in 1999, Meri turned to the Baltic Germans , who were forcibly resettled in 1939, and called on them to return to Estonia: “All of you who have your roots in Estonia, I say sincerely: From the whole Hearts welcome! "

Lennart Meri was married twice. His first wife Regina emigrated to Canada in 1987. The second Ms. Helle was a stage actress until 1992. At the time of his death, Lennart Meri had four grandchildren in addition to three children.

Meri was a member of the jury of the Franz Werfel Human Rights Prize , which is awarded by the Center against Expulsions . In 1999 he received the plaque of honor from the Association of Expellees .

Awards

• 1986: Kreutzwald commemorative medal
• 1997: Order of Freedom of the Republic of Slovenia in gold
• 1999: Plaque of honor from the Federation of Expellees
• 2000: Small State Prize from the Herbert Batliner European Institute in Salzburg
• 2004: Four Freedoms Award , in the category of freedom of expression

literature

• Andreas Oplatka: Lennart Meri, a life for Estonia. Dialogue with the President. Verl. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 1999. ISBN 3-85823-762-0 .

Web links

Commons : Lennart Meri  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Lennart Meri in the catalog of the German National Library
• Official website of President (1992–2001) Lennart Meri
• Article in the Ostpreußenblatt

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Marc-Oliver Rehrmann: A dinner like in the Middle Ages. NDR , February 11, 2016, accessed on February 11, 2016 . 
2. ^ The Ostpreußenblatt: 50th Homeland Day: No more looking away - BdV honors Estonia's President Meri / Steinbach criticizes Naumann and praises Schily. Message dated September 11, 1999, accessed March 11, 2010.
3. ↑ Europainstitut ( Memento of the original from May 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed June 28, 2010. 
4. ↑ Roosevelt Institute, List of Prize Winners ( Memento of the original from March 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 14, 2012.