Mait Metsanurk (born Eduard Hubel, 19 November 1879 – 21 August 1957) was an

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

n writer who led the neo-realist school of Estonian literature.

Early years

Mait Metsanurk was born as the youngest of eight children in a peasant family in Saare farmstead, Metsanuka (now

Tartu Parish Tartu Parish ( et, Tartu vald) is a rural municipality in Tartu County, Estonia. It has a population of 12,725 (as of 1 December 2022) and covers an area of . The population density is . It has one borough ( Raadi), six small boroughs (Äksi, Kõ ...

), in the Kreis Dorpat of the Governorate of Livonia. He attended elementary school in Orge and a Russian-speaking city school in

Tartu Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after the Northern European country's political and financial capital, Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 91,407 (as of 2021). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of ...

. He worked in various positions, first as an office clerk, then as a schoolteacher and from 1906 as a journalist. He is buried at the Metsakalmistu cemetery in

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ' ...

Career

Mait Metsanurk reached his literary breakthrough in 1908 with his realistic portrayal of Estonian town and country life at the time. In particular, social contradictions and tensions were used in his work. He became one of the most prolific and popular writers and playwrights of his era. Together with

A. H. Tammsaare Anton Hansen (18 (O.S.)/30 January 1878 – 1 March 1940), better known by his pseudonym A. H. Tammsaare and its variants, was an Estonian writer whose pentalogy '' Truth and Justice'' (''Tõde ja õigus''; 1926–1933) is considered one of ...

(1878–1940), he is considered one of the most outstanding representatives of Estonian neo-realism of the interwar period.Kevin O'Connor, ''Culture and customs of the Baltic states'', Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006, p128 His main work, the historical novel '' Ümera jõel'' (On the Ümera River) (1934), depicts the struggle of the pagan Estonians against the Danish and German conquest in the thirteenth century. In addition, he worked as a literary critic and translator. In 1924-25 and from 1930 to 1936 Metsanurk was chairman of the Estonian Writers' Union. With the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Metsanurk was sidelined politically and expelled from the Writers' Union. He was rehabilitated in 1956, after the death of Stalin. Nikolai Triik TKM 1553B

Literary work

Prose

* (narrative, Tallinn 1908) * (novel, Tallinn 1909) * (short stories, Tallinn 1910) * (novel, Tallinn 1912) * (novella, Tallinn 1916) *''!'' (Novel, 1918) * (narrative, Tartu 1920) * (narrative, Tallinn 1921) * (novel, 1922) * (novel, Tartu, 1925) * (novel, Tartu, 1926) * (short story collection, Tallinn 1927) * (novel, Tartu, 1928) * (stories and novellas, Tartu 1929) * (novel, Tartu, 1930) * (short story collection, Tartu, 1931) * (narrative, Tartu 1932) * (short story collection, Tartu, 1933) * (youth narrative, Tartu, 1933) *'' Ümera jõel'' (novel, Tartu, 1934) * (novel, Tartu, 1936) * (diary novel, Tartu, 1937) * (novel, Tartu, 1939) * (Memories, Tallinn 1946) * (novel, Tallinn 1957)

Plays

* (Comedy, Tallinn 1908) * (Comedy Tartu 1923) * (Drama, Tartu, 1925) * (Drama, Tartu, 1929) * (Comedy, Tallinn 1931) * (Comedy, Tallinn 1932) * (Drama, Tartu, 1935) * (Comedy, Tallinn 1938)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Metsanurk, Mait 1879 births 1957 deaths People from Tartu Parish People from Kreis Dorpat Estonian People's Party politicians Members of the Estonian Constituent Assembly 20th-century Estonian novelists Estonian male novelists Estonian male short story writers Estonian dramatists and playwrights Burials at Metsakalmistu