Papers by Elle-Mari Talivee
Põlevkivitööstuse kujutamisest ajakirjas Looming aastail 1940–1956
Keel ja kirjandus, Feb 10, 2023
Methis. Studia humaniora Estonica, Dec 9, 2019
In: Finch, Jason; Ameel, Lieven; Salmela, Markku (Ed.). Literary Second Cities. (151−172)., 2017
Narva, Estonia, has been a second city to Stockholm and to St. Petersburg, and it is also a borde... more Narva, Estonia, has been a second city to Stockholm and to St. Petersburg, and it is also a border city in multiple senses. Including an overview of the history of Narva, this chapter discusses different manifestations of the borders in literature. The texts about Narva, an eccentric city in Juri Lotman’s sense, represent it as a kind of palimpsest with a layered history (to use Aleida Assmann’s term). Recent depictions of the city in literature and modern architecture both express the need to remember the old, demolished city hidden underneath the post-war architecture, showing that it is not possible to build a new town on the ruins of the old one without continuing to talk about the lost one.
Methis. Studia humaniora Estonica, 2019
Methis. Studia humaniora Estonica, 2019
Artiklis on vaadeldud Narva ja Sillamäe linnast inspireeritud kirjandust ja üht mängufilmi, mis t... more Artiklis on vaadeldud Narva ja Sillamäe linnast inspireeritud kirjandust ja üht mängufilmi, mis tegelevad lähemalt maastikuloomega ning kohamälu tekitamisega pärast II maailmasõda. Sõjajärgse Kirde-Eesti ülesehitamine tööstuspiirkonnana on peegeldunud memuaristikas, tagasivaatelistes omaeluloolistes tekstides ning oma kaasajas ehitust kajastavates allikates. Vaadeldud näited avavad seda, kuidas on kirjeldatud nõukogude perioodi tööstuslinna, alustades sõjajärgsest taastamistööst ning lõpetades Andrei Hvostovi tagasivaatega nõukogudeaegsele lapsepõlvelinnale. Tekstide analüüs võimaldab märgata sõjaeelse maastiku transformeerumist tööstusmaastikuks, selle kajastuste vastuolulisust ning sõltuvust kirjutamisajast.
TThe article observes literary depictions of two towns in North-East Estonia, Narva and Sillamäe, both of which were reconstructed as industrial towns after World War II, in fiction, life writing and a film script, as well as in a feature film made on the basis of the latter. The texts are simultaneously engaged in the making of landscape and creation of local memory after the region’s dramatic change caused by the war.
Ida-Virumaa became an industrial region in the second half of the nineteenth century; the Kreenholm Textile factory was one of the world’s largest by the end of the century. In 1916, industrial mining for oil shale was started in North-East Estonia. Oil shale was a strategic resource in World War II as well. In 1944, with the second occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union, uranium mining was started as a secret object of interest for the military industry.
The historical town of Narva was almost completely destroyed in World War II. Few buildings were restored, while the city was filled with blocks of flats typical of the Soviet period and the historical street network was transformed significantly. Still, Narva did not become a utopian Stalinist city – in Estonia, the only example of the latter is Sillamäe, a closed city built according to an all-Union standardised project, that attempted to embody an image of Communist happiness.
Postwar literary depictions of Narva have often proceeded from the baroque city centre that has become a separate symbolic site of memory. In the more recent past, different genres have started to complement one another, different periods have been compared and, as a result, representations of various spaces have received a more analytic artistic treatment that connects the pre-war period with the post-war one.
The first set of texts discussed here consists of POW memoirs of the immediate post-war reconstruction works, set down some decades later. After that, contemporary reflections of the reconstruction in Soviet Estonia in the 1950s-1960s are considered. Finally, attention is paid to texts that comment on the reconstruction era from a larger temporal distance: a backward look at Soviet-time Sillamäe from 2011 (expanded edition 2014) by Andrei Hvostov, a journalist with a degree in history, who spent his childhood in the town. Hvostov’s memoirs and his short stories on similar topics that were published earlier serve as attempts at parallel interpretations of several possible local memories. A work that in a way unites all three periods is Vladimir Beekman’s novel The Narva Waterfall (1986). Its protagonist Stiina was born and grew up in Narva, left the war-ravaged city and criticises harshly the changes that have taken place in the city.
The examples of memoirs, retrospective autobiographical texts and sources reflecting their contemporary period also reveal how industrial cities of the Soviet era have been depicted in different periods. An analysis of the texts discloses the transformation of the prewar landscape into an industrial one, the contradictory nature of its descriptions, as well as dependence of the latter on the time of writing. Examples are given of the possibilities of representing large-scale industrial constructions that significantly also involve not just the creation of new values but also the way of doing this – reflecting the work of the udarniki of the Young Communist League. According to Katerina Clark’s typology of Stalinist novels, one of the texts observed, the film script concerning the shock workers’ building of the Balti Thermal Power Plant to which the youth from the Young Communist League contributed, can be categorised as the most widespread and ritualised type of Soviet fiction, the so-called production novel.
The selection of texts discussed in the article is by no means exhaustive and the Ida-Virumaa region may offer fruitful material for future studies using the categories of space and memory, both as regards ways of describing a real region in literature as well as analysing the stories clustered around a site of memory. The notion of a literary city emerging in the texts is broad, as areas and objects with different functions form part of it. The observed texts display an interesting conflict in spatial memory: a deliberate loss of memory induced during a certain period and the creating of something new as if into a void can be emphasised as can be using rhetorical devices to bring forth a new spatial representation, a site of memory in its own right.
Études finno-ougriennes, 2014
In the following article, similarities between two novels, one by an Estonian and the other by a ... more In the following article, similarities between two novels, one by an Estonian and the other by a Khanty writer, are discussed while comparing possible resemblances based on the Finno-Ugric way of thinking.
Les romans Marqué (1980) d’Arved Viirlaid, un écrivain estonien de l’émigration, et La mère de Dieu dans les neiges de sang (2002) uisent leur inspiration l’un comme l’autre dans l’histoire. Ils racontent deux itinéraires : celui de l’artiste estonien Eigo Arget, qui a combattu dans la guerre de continuation, et de son épouse finnoise Irja, qui ont pu passer dans le monde libre d’une part, et celui de la Mère des Enfants, une femme khantye, allant jusqu’à un village khanty pendant la guerre du Kazym. En chemin, l’un comme l’autre perdent tout ce qu’ils ont, tout ce en quoi ils croyaient. Pourtant, un rayon de soleil apparaît à la fin des romans : même pour les petits peuples pris en tenaille dans les rouages de l’histoire, l’espoir est permis. Cet article compare les univers de ces deux romans, les systèmes de croyances, leur description et leur évocation, la spécificité du rôle des femmes, et s’interroge sur les traits communs éventuels entre littératures finno-ougriennes.
Acta Architecturae Naturalis, 2012
Looming, 2014
Inimene tundub sündivat ja seejärel haarduvat oma ümbrusse, ümbritsevasse, mida õpib tundma ja os... more Inimene tundub sündivat ja seejärel haarduvat oma ümbrusse, ümbritsevasse, mida õpib tundma ja oskab lugeda hiljem ka kinnisilmi. Neid nõnda hästi tajutavaid maastikke koguneb enamikul elu jooksul mitu; ühe kaudu defineeritakse end ehk pisut rohkem, see on sageli lapsepõlvekodu ümbrus, mis ongi selgeks õpitud samm-sammult ja teiselt vaatekõrguselt kui hilisemad. Kodukanti tulles võiks otsekui oma ümbrusesensorid välja lülitada: pind on veres ja sammus, siin ei ole võimalik komistada ning igal tuulesabinal või varjul on oma kindel teadaolev või vähemalt tõlgendatav tähendus.
„Nils Holgerssoni” ja „Väikese Illimari” kolm olulist ühisjoont, 2015
Looming
1 F. T u g l a s, Eduard Vilde. Tema 80-nda sünnipäeva puhul. " Looming" 1945, nr. 3, lk. 282. Li... more 1 F. T u g l a s, Eduard Vilde. Tema 80-nda sünnipäeva puhul. " Looming" 1945, nr. 3, lk. 282. Livia Viitol osutas Vilde 150. sünniaastapäeva konverentsil õigusega, et kirjaniku ajalooliste romaanide ringi tuleks arvata ka "Raudsed käed" (1898). 2 E. V i l d e, Artikleid ja kirju. Teosed. Tallinn, 1957, lk. 272. 3 J. L o t m a n, Semiosfäärist. Tallinn, 1999, lk. 11-12. 4 J. L o t m a n, Semiosfäärist, lk. 15-17.
Methis. Studia humaniora Estonica, 2011
Eduard Vilde’s modernisms and modernities: moving towards an urban Estonia
This is an online version of the text which appeared under the same title in print in Estonian Li... more This is an online version of the text which appeared under the same title in print in Estonian Literary Magazine for Autumn 2015. It's now been published on the website of the Estonian Literature Centre, which is run by the Estonian Ministry of Culture and exists to build up awareness and understanding of Estonian literature internationally.
Section headings:
Two Modernities: Uses of Vilde the Personality
Modernisms and Border Crossings
Multiple Cityscapes and Communities
The paper argues for Vilde as a reason why 'Modernism' should be reconsidered as multiple 'modernisms' and detached from certain stylistic features and from certain Metropolitan cultural centres.
An examination of the work of the Estonian novelist, essayist and man of letters Eduard Vilde (18... more An examination of the work of the Estonian novelist, essayist and man of letters Eduard Vilde (1865-1933) gives powerful support to a view of modernisms as multiple and inherently connected with moments of mass urbanisation in different specific spatial contexts. It also leads to a globalized view of modernity with less emphasis needed on supposedly leading metropolitan sites such as Paris than has usually so far been the case in scholarship on modernism. This is not to confuse modernism as a movement with modernity as a phenomenon but rather to say that the two are one, with what is commonly identified as modernism in fact a late phase in socially-driven trends stretching back to the eighteenth century and coming to an end in the late twentieth century. This article reaches such conclusions via readings of the uses of Vilde's personality in Estonian culture, and of the dynamic function of borders and peripheries in his 1903 novel Kui Anija mehed Tallinnas käisid ('When the men of Anija went to Tallinn').
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Papers by Elle-Mari Talivee
TThe article observes literary depictions of two towns in North-East Estonia, Narva and Sillamäe, both of which were reconstructed as industrial towns after World War II, in fiction, life writing and a film script, as well as in a feature film made on the basis of the latter. The texts are simultaneously engaged in the making of landscape and creation of local memory after the region’s dramatic change caused by the war.
Ida-Virumaa became an industrial region in the second half of the nineteenth century; the Kreenholm Textile factory was one of the world’s largest by the end of the century. In 1916, industrial mining for oil shale was started in North-East Estonia. Oil shale was a strategic resource in World War II as well. In 1944, with the second occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union, uranium mining was started as a secret object of interest for the military industry.
The historical town of Narva was almost completely destroyed in World War II. Few buildings were restored, while the city was filled with blocks of flats typical of the Soviet period and the historical street network was transformed significantly. Still, Narva did not become a utopian Stalinist city – in Estonia, the only example of the latter is Sillamäe, a closed city built according to an all-Union standardised project, that attempted to embody an image of Communist happiness.
Postwar literary depictions of Narva have often proceeded from the baroque city centre that has become a separate symbolic site of memory. In the more recent past, different genres have started to complement one another, different periods have been compared and, as a result, representations of various spaces have received a more analytic artistic treatment that connects the pre-war period with the post-war one.
The first set of texts discussed here consists of POW memoirs of the immediate post-war reconstruction works, set down some decades later. After that, contemporary reflections of the reconstruction in Soviet Estonia in the 1950s-1960s are considered. Finally, attention is paid to texts that comment on the reconstruction era from a larger temporal distance: a backward look at Soviet-time Sillamäe from 2011 (expanded edition 2014) by Andrei Hvostov, a journalist with a degree in history, who spent his childhood in the town. Hvostov’s memoirs and his short stories on similar topics that were published earlier serve as attempts at parallel interpretations of several possible local memories. A work that in a way unites all three periods is Vladimir Beekman’s novel The Narva Waterfall (1986). Its protagonist Stiina was born and grew up in Narva, left the war-ravaged city and criticises harshly the changes that have taken place in the city.
The examples of memoirs, retrospective autobiographical texts and sources reflecting their contemporary period also reveal how industrial cities of the Soviet era have been depicted in different periods. An analysis of the texts discloses the transformation of the prewar landscape into an industrial one, the contradictory nature of its descriptions, as well as dependence of the latter on the time of writing. Examples are given of the possibilities of representing large-scale industrial constructions that significantly also involve not just the creation of new values but also the way of doing this – reflecting the work of the udarniki of the Young Communist League. According to Katerina Clark’s typology of Stalinist novels, one of the texts observed, the film script concerning the shock workers’ building of the Balti Thermal Power Plant to which the youth from the Young Communist League contributed, can be categorised as the most widespread and ritualised type of Soviet fiction, the so-called production novel.
The selection of texts discussed in the article is by no means exhaustive and the Ida-Virumaa region may offer fruitful material for future studies using the categories of space and memory, both as regards ways of describing a real region in literature as well as analysing the stories clustered around a site of memory. The notion of a literary city emerging in the texts is broad, as areas and objects with different functions form part of it. The observed texts display an interesting conflict in spatial memory: a deliberate loss of memory induced during a certain period and the creating of something new as if into a void can be emphasised as can be using rhetorical devices to bring forth a new spatial representation, a site of memory in its own right.
Les romans Marqué (1980) d’Arved Viirlaid, un écrivain estonien de l’émigration, et La mère de Dieu dans les neiges de sang (2002) uisent leur inspiration l’un comme l’autre dans l’histoire. Ils racontent deux itinéraires : celui de l’artiste estonien Eigo Arget, qui a combattu dans la guerre de continuation, et de son épouse finnoise Irja, qui ont pu passer dans le monde libre d’une part, et celui de la Mère des Enfants, une femme khantye, allant jusqu’à un village khanty pendant la guerre du Kazym. En chemin, l’un comme l’autre perdent tout ce qu’ils ont, tout ce en quoi ils croyaient. Pourtant, un rayon de soleil apparaît à la fin des romans : même pour les petits peuples pris en tenaille dans les rouages de l’histoire, l’espoir est permis. Cet article compare les univers de ces deux romans, les systèmes de croyances, leur description et leur évocation, la spécificité du rôle des femmes, et s’interroge sur les traits communs éventuels entre littératures finno-ougriennes.
Section headings:
Two Modernities: Uses of Vilde the Personality
Modernisms and Border Crossings
Multiple Cityscapes and Communities
The paper argues for Vilde as a reason why 'Modernism' should be reconsidered as multiple 'modernisms' and detached from certain stylistic features and from certain Metropolitan cultural centres.