![Ado_Grenzstein](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Ado_Grenzstein.jpg)
Ado Grenzstein, pseudonym A. Piirikivi (5 February 1849 – 20 April 1916) was an Estonian journalist, writer and teacher, brother of . In 1881 he founded the ''
Olevik
''Olevik'' (Estonian: ''Present Time'') was a weekly newspaper published in Tartu, Estonia. The paper existed between 1882 and 1915.
History and profile
''Olevik'' was established in 1882. The paper was owned and edited by Ado Grenzstein. It was ...
'' newspaper, which become one of the most important Estonian newspapers of the period. The purpose of the paper was "weaning the Estonian peasant readership away from the 'firebrands and madcaps' who edited ''
Sakala''.
He soon broke with the Estonian national movement and became an apologist of Russification. He even went further, expressing doubt whether the loss of the Estonian nation would be of any consequence to man-kind. His views have been characterized as "national
nihilism
Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...
". In 1901 he left Estonia and settled first in
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...
, and then later in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
.
In an attempt to revitalize the
Estonian language
Estonian ( ) is a Finnic language, written in the Latin script. It is the official language of Estonia and one of the official languages of the European Union, spoken natively by about 1.1 million people; 922,000 people in Estonia and 160,0 ...
, Grenzstein tried to coin words out of nothing (see
ex nihilo lexical enrichment) and introduced
neologisms
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
such as ''kabe'' "draughts, checkers" and ''male'' "chess".
[ Ghil'ad Zuckermann, Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2003), ]Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew
''Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew'' is a scholarly book written in the English language by linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann, published in 2003 by Palgrave Macmillan. The book proposes a socio-philological framework for the an ...
. Palgrave Macmillan
Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains off ...
.
p. 149.
References
Estonian non-fiction writers
Estonian journalists
1849 births
1916 deaths
Estonian emigrants to France
Estonian male writers
Estonian publishers (people)
Male non-fiction writers
19th-century Estonian writers
19th-century newspaper founders
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