Tallima Paap

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Tallima Paap (* around 1710 in Tallima , then Haanja parish , Livonia ; †  1768 in Rõuge , Livonia) was an Estonian lay preacher .

Live and act

Tallima Paap ("Paap from Tallima" - the Estonians of the lower classes only received family names in the 19th century) came from a rural background. Between 1730 and 1742 he worked as a landlord on various estates in Virumaa and Järvamaa . There he came into contact with the pietistic ideas of the Moravians .

In 1742 the charismatic paap returned to his homeland. There he preached to the Estonian rural population in what is now southern Estonia. He saw himself following Christ and his disciples and called himself a prophet . One of his radical ideas was the demand that man must completely free himself from his sins . He refused to smoke and swear, demanded (also from married couples) the complete renunciation of sexual intercourse and extensive asceticism and scourged himself and others with the aim of purification.

Paap and his partly fanatical followers emphasized the core Christian message that all people are brothers. All property also belongs to them together. In doing so, Paap questioned the existing property relations in Estonia and Livonia , which were dominated by the feudal Baltic German upper class. The Estonian and Livonian peasants were still unfree . It was precisely the connection between religious awakening and criticism of social grievances that made Paap's ideas fall on fertile ground among the rural population.

The social revolutionary approach worried the ruling classes in Estonia. In 1742 the tsarist authorities arrested him, brought him to court in Tartu and arrested him along with about fifty supporters. In November 1742 the Livonian knighthood declared the teachings illegal. In 1743 the Russian Tsarina Elisabeth forbade the Moravian people's activities in her territory and had her writings burned.

Paap was not given amnesty until 1745 . He then no longer appeared in public.

literature

  • Ülo Valk: "Tallima Paap as a Popular Prophet of the Eighteenth Century. Looking beyond his teachings. ”In: Jürgen Beyer, Albrecht Burkardt, Fred van Lieburg, Marc Wingens: Confessional Sanctity (c. 1500 - c. 1800). Mainz 2003, pp. 357-371

Individual evidence

  1. ^ WR Ward: The Protestant Evangelical Awakening , p. 153 ( online at Google Book Search ).
  2. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 1, 2009 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / depts.washington.edu
  3. ↑ Eesti elulood. Tallinn: Eesti entsüklopeediakirjastus 2000 (= Eesti entsüklopeedia 14) ISBN 9985-70-064-3 , p. 507
personal data
SURNAME Paap, Tallima
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Estonian peasant preacher
DATE OF BIRTH around 1710
PLACE OF BIRTH Tallima , then the municipality of Haanja , Livonia
DATE OF DEATH 1768
Place of death Rõuge , Livonia