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Lea Pild. Tuglas and Dostoevsky: on Tuglas's Poeet ja idioot ("Poet and Idiot") |
2006, nr. 1 |
The paper is focused on an essential moment
in the literary development of Friedebert Tuglas, dating from
the early 1920s. Discussing the short story Poeet ja idioot
(1924) the author analyses its ideological and thematic layers,
their formation, and certain parallels between the story and Tuglas's
essays from the two first decades of the 20th century. The conclusion
reads that during the first years of the young Estonian Republic
Tuglas was keen on redefining certain basic principles of the
aesthetic programme of the Young Estonian (Noor-Eesti)
literary grouping, including their interpretation of Evil, or
the demonic element. Evil as a positive, constructive element
active in the process of creating a new culture (which had been
Tuglas's idea manifested in his essays Põrgu väravas
("At the Gates of Hell"), Kalevipoeg and Kirjanduslik
stiil ("Literary Style"), as well as in the so-called
"Devil's Apology" of 1908) is revaluated in the short
story "Poet and Idiot" as well as in his writings on
current affairs and in his correspondence. Readers can find an
important literary code for Tuglas's story in the novel "Demons"
(1872) by F. Dostoevsky, while some of its characters (Nikolay
Stavrogin, Pyotr Verhovensky) can be regarded as literary prototypes
of the protagonists of the story.
Keywords: Estonian literature, Russian
literature, reception, literary relations.
Lea Pild (b. 1959), PhD, University of Tartu,
Chair of Russian Literature
lea.pild@ut.ee
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