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Toomas Haug. Tõusik (Parvenu). Some Notes on Pre-History |
2007, nr. 2 |
The urbanization of the Estonian people at
the early 20th century engen dered certain new human types and
life attitudes. That process was reflected in the Estonian lexis
and the widening thematics of fiction. This was also the background
to the first appearance of the word tõusik (parvenu)
in Estonian usage around 1910–1920. The notion comes into
use almost simultaneously in the political, cultural-ideological
as well as literary critical discourses.
The word tõusik (parvenu) for a human type was introduced
in Estonian by journalist and social figure Ado Grenzstein who,
living in Paris, published a pamphlet Tõusikute vastu
("Up against the parvenu", 1911). A decisive role in
the establishment of the new word belongs to the members of the
modernist movement "Noor-Eesti" ("Young Estonia")
(above all Friedebert Tuglas), who see upstart mentality as a
brake on the mental development of the ethnos. In fiction the
notion takes firm root owing to two novels Orjad ("Slaves",
1912) and Ennäe inimest! ("Ecce homo", 1918)
by Mait Metsanurk, both levelling sharp criticism on the Estonian
mentality. On the plane of identity history, however, such critical
approach to the upstart speaks of a crisis of the previously dominant
peasant identity, accompanying the birth of the Estonian Republic.
Keywords: urbanization identity,
language renewal, parvenu/upstart mentality, Taara faith, Ado
Grenzstein, Friedebert Tuglas, Mait Metsanurk.
Toomas Haug (b. 1956), magazine Looming, editor
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