authors who tried to be, as it was said, close to life and among whom quite many wrote The images of town and countryside in the in accordance with the official propaganda poetry of of Estonian government, praising physical Katrin Ennus labour and the brave farmers and in this Ülikool way trying to strengthen national con‐ sciousness of Estonians.

It is quite arguable how justified it is to see Heiti Talvik (1904‐1947) was a member, of‐ in Heiti Talvik and his adherents only the ten even called the intellectual leader of a pupils of the French Parnassian poets such circle of young Estonian poets called Arbu‐ as Théophile Gautier and others striving to jad (the Soothsayers). were not uni‐ perfect, sculpturally calm forms as, despite ted by an explicit literary manifesto but of Talvik’s unconditional subjection to the considered themselves modestly a group of severe demands of art, he nevertheless friends who – regardless of their in some starts to see the aims of art outside the art aspects quite different literary production – itself. For him art becomes sort of an shared some basic principles on the nature epistemological tool to sense the true mea‐ of literary art, its functions and the role of ning and depths of life and being a poet poet. They mainly stressed that a poet must acquires so an ethic value. be completely free in his expression, he But even more frequent and obviously more should neither follow the subjects of daily justified are the cases of comparing Heiti politic life nor should he put himself at the Talvik with another legendary French poet, service of some distinct ideology. The only Charles Baudelaire; so far the most exten‐ rules the poet must obey are the intrinsic sive, although too general treatment of this rules of poetry itself. In the name of perfect subject is Aleksander Aspel’s lecture aesthetic achievement the poet may even “Baudelaire and the poetry of Heiti Talvik” sacrifice his life, as has written , held in the academic year 1968‐1969. Talvik another distinguished poet of this circle: in himself has admitted that when he started one of her poems she depicts an artist who to write he was under great influence of in a desire to get a perfect painting of a lion, Baudelaire, but later his interests changed, decides to enter the lion cage not knowing if as he himself said, his preferences turned he will survive or not.1 from decadent authors to classics, for e‐ In those aspirations this group of poets is by xample Dante.2 This evolution and Estonian literary critics sometimes consi‐ movement in his thought and expression – dered somewhat of an equivalent to the from decadent anxiety and self‐torturing to European art for art’s sake movement and a much more balanced and harmonious an opposition to another tendency in the view of life – is also traceable in his poetry. of the 1930s, namely to the more or less realistic or naturalistic

1 ALVER 2005, 132. 2 KAELAS 1936, 8.

SymCity 1 (2007) 1 Katrin Ennus, The images of town and countryside in the poetry of Heiti Talvik

Talvik and the other members of Arbujad 1912 when he wrote that the time of realism are considered to represent in Estonian depicting the farm and village life is over literature the same phenomenon which in and a new, urban and intelligent culture is Europe is called modernism, but it stems about to be born, but he admitted that Esto‐ from quite different contexts. Modernism is nians are only theoretically Europeans unanimously seen as being essentially because the urban atmosphere and city related to urban and industrial environment moods are here known indirectly, through but we can’t speak of real cities in in education and foreign literature.4 During the 1920s and 1930s. The urbanization had the next decades the situation changed of taken place and was slowly continuing (in course noticeably, both with regard to the 1934 29 % of Estonian population lived in socio‐economic sphere as well as the towns) but Estonian towns, which didn’t respective developments in the artistic have high buildings and consisted mostly of sensibility, psychology and use of language, 1‐2–storeyed wooden houses, are not but still it is obvious that Estonian towns comparable with the European cities with did not reach the same intensity of virtues populations of several millions, for example and vices accompanying urbanization in in 1934 Tallinn was the only town in Estonia great cities like Paris, London or New York. that had more than 100, 000 inhabitants, in What concerns Heiti Talvik, it is not known Tartu this number was 58, 876 and in Pärnu, that he had travelled abroad. He lived the hometown of Talvik, 20, 334.3 Besides, if mostly in two Estonian towns: in Pärnu, a to rely on contemporary fiction, moving beautiful small resort town by the Baltic Sea from the countryside to the towns didn’t where he was born, and in Tartu where he always have the most enviable reputation came to study in the university and where among the farmers: for example in one of he staid for the rest of his life. Bernard the most important epopee in Estonian lite‐ Kangro, one of Talvik’s fellow young poets, rature, A. H. Tammsaare’s “Tõde ja õigus”, remembers that Talvik liked hiking very written at the same epoch, one of the leit‐ much. For example in the beginning of motives is the ironic assertion that sending summer he often walked from Tartu to his one’s son to town means that he will beco‐ hometown Pärnu, which is 178 km away, me a horse thief. and not always choosing the most direct Consequently, when speaking of moder‐ way.5 Impressions gathered from those nism in Estonian literature from Noor‐Eesti tours have inspired some of his most to Arbujad the intertextual contexts, as optimistic poems. reading Baudelaire for example, have an In Talvik’s first poems the representation of important role, the experience of the real location is more concrete than in his later city life comes more through the texts than poems, it means, when speaking of his early through personal experience. The fact was poems – poems written before 1934 – the already claimed by in 4 TUGLAS 1996, 445. 3 PULLAT 1978, 78; 81‐83; 118. 5 KANGRO 1981, 77.

SymCity 1 (2007) 2 Katrin Ennus, The images of town and countryside in the poetry of Heiti Talvik question “where it takes place” has an dary” (“Legendaarne”, 1925)) physical answer and makes more often sense then movement and openness. For example in when speaking of his later poems. the poem “Spring song” (“Kevadelaul”, Regarding the aspect of location and its 1924) he says that while in the woods and connection with the moods of lyrical I, we mountains the pain inside of him abates.7 can in general distinguish 5 types of poems. Or when describing the girl who he loved First the poems which give us no indication so much the source of all the metaphors or of location, they treat several more or less comparisons is nature: the girl’s limbs smell abstract themes without putting them in like white birches, her look is clear as a concrete surroundings. The number of that spring where the lyrical I can still his thirst sort of poems in Talvik’s creation grows in like a lark etc.8 time. These poems don’t contain explicitly the Secondly the poems which are near to the opposite negative pole, the freedom and first group, namely, in quite a lot of poems hope felt walking in the countryside is not we can from some hints deduce that the directly opposed to anything although it is speaker isn’t a farmer or a miner but quite easy to add this negative counterpart somebody who lives in the town, for implicitly because in his most depressed example in the poem “Pihtimuskilde” texts – so to say – the “action takes place” in (“Fragments of a Confession”, 1928) it is the town. But in this group of poems, which mentioned that when looking out of his would be the fourth in my division, we window he sees the roofs of other would neither meet the trivial, perhaps buildings,6 sometimes the lyrical I is positio‐ even expected town‐countryside ned in a town by the sea, like in “Before the opposition. In fact, in one of his earliest Thunderstorm” (“Eel äikest”, 1924 ) – it poems “Dusk” (“Videvik”, 1924) which is seems to be a similar person to the real not included in either of his collections of Talvik himself –, but in this group of poems poems but what is in this aspect very the town is only the modest and discreet exemplary, Talvik dismisses this as too decoration, it is not thematisized and naive. The lonely, physically sick and doesn’t acquire independent importance. extremely sad speaker is positioned in the Thirdly, some poems which are written in a park somewhere in the suburbs from where youthfully light and cheerful mood. They he glances at the gloomy town down in the are few because young Talvik is mostly valley and depicts it, mentioning the noise tormented by decadent spleen and anguish, of the factories covered with fog that re‐ but if there are some optimistic moments, sembles to a snake, the stench of the alcohol which are only slightly touched by melan‐ store and the screams of drunkards. This choly, then such moments are always introduction is followed by the existential connected with the countryside (often question whether he should return into the specially with the sea, like in the “Legen‐ 7 TALVIK 1988, 11. 6 TALVIK 1988, 87. 8 TALVIK 1988, 18.

SymCity 1 (2007) 3 Katrin Ennus, The images of town and countryside in the poetry of Heiti Talvik black throat of the town where even the the revolution” (“Järel revolutsiooni”, 1930‐ light is filthy and hitting the eyes or should 1931), he gives the markers that start crea‐ he turn around and leave the town, but – ting this scenery of antiquity, and what the unfortunately there is no solution in this di‐ reader would expect to be something happy rection either, because all he sees there is a and harmonious, but then shows all that in grave for him in the swamp or in the ditch.9 ruins too.11 Like in the earlier mentioned texts the op‐ But one is sure, if in Talvik’s poems the ur‐ timism, the pessimism here is equally o‐ ban surroundings are explicit and themati‐ verwhelming. Another Talvik’s early poem, zised, the lyrical I is not feeling well in this “Vision” (“Nägemus”, 1924), contains a environment. The town is most certainly constitutive opposition but this is not spati‐ ugly, foggy, noisy and spleen generating, al, contrasting town and countryside, but not offering solutions or remedies to the temporal, opposing the present state of intrinsic problems. The most the town has things to the lost golden past. And the pre‐ to offer is some moments of forgetfulness sent is of course presented in the example of which can be reached by the aid of alcohol, the unfriendly and spleen generating town cigars and cruel and indifferent women where we would meat no human being, on‐ wearing red high‐heeled shoes. But the pri‐ ly carriages, cars, cranes that make a lot of ce for those sensual, self‐forgetful and deli‐ noise and smog. Suddenly, in the middle of rious tango parties is high: when waking up all this oppression and dimness the speaker in the next morning the closeness of death gets a vision of the order of things in the and final fall has become more evident.12 past: long time ago there used to be an idyl‐ When looking at the relationship of the lyri‐ lic valley with the silvery spring, limes and cal I and the town, one more aspect can be oaks, large blue skies over them, an at‐ noticed. In his first poems it is obvious that mosphere absolutely calm and serene, even the speaker doesn’t feel himself part of the solemn.10 In this early poem Talvik introdu‐ urban environment, certainly he lives in ces the opposition that he uses in several town, yet he stays somehow on the di‐ later and more mature poems: the present stance, contemplating it from the sides, for urban decadence versus the nostalgia of the example, as it was in the aforementioned lost golden age which, relying on some gi‐ poem “Dusk”, where the speaker walks in a ven hints – Talvik mentions temples and suburban park feeling that he doesn’t be‐ market places – could be recognized as so‐ long neither to the town nor to the country‐ me antique Greece or Roman city‐state. But side. This image of the park on the edges of even this dichotomy – the present lowness the town repeats itself in several of Talvik’s and decadence and the vital and valuable poems, being an ambivalent space: not qui‐ past – doesn’t remain always untouched te the town anymore nor the rural fields because in one of his cycle of poems, “After and woods, being so in accordance with the

9 TALVIK 1988, 16‐17. 11 TALVIK 1988, 41‐42. 10 TALVIK 1988, 15. 12 TALVIK 1988, 43.

SymCity 1 (2007) 4 Katrin Ennus, The images of town and countryside in the poetry of Heiti Talvik ambivalent and confused identity of the he is tangled and that suffocates him but he speaker who has reached the limits of eve‐ has moved to a more abstract level and is rything known to him and standing there dealing with more general problems. For on the edge, disappointed, tormented and example in one of his cycle of poems (“Dies not knowing where to turn to find solutions irae”, 1934) he is not dealing so much with a and new values to admire. In slightly later suffering individual but pointing at the ge‐ poems where his depression and anguish neral threats over the world and humanity; are about to culminate, like in “Pariah” the city jungles are here seen as the bearers (“Paaria”) the speaker is already definitely of the bloody sun of the revolution.14 And part of the town, completely ruined by ur‐ perhaps it is worth mentioning that now he ban vices: he has spent all his money in the uses the word “city” (suurlinn) instead of brothels, has got syphilis and lots of scars “town” (linn), obviously being himself awa‐ from the knife fights, he has long ago lost re that in Estonia we didn’t have them at his job and now the only way to get some this epoch, so he is consciously speaking money is to steal it on the streets. He is no not any more on such a personally local but more the contemplative and lonely walker on the more universal level. in the parks but he sneaks in the biggest Before reaching the conclusion the last, fifth crowd as a pickpocket and later drinks in group of poems must be shortly described. the hotel bars in the centre of a town.13 As mentioned before, we don’t meet in Tal‐ This close connection with the town will vik’s poetry the simple spatial town and loosen in the course of time, to the point of countryside opposition, where the town completely disappearing. As already men‐ would have all kind of negative connotati‐ tioned, in Talvik’s later poems we often ons and rural life would offer the redempti‐ don’t meet the concrete details that would on. As already hinted in the poem “Dusk” let us determine exactly the space. And pa‐ the lyrical I would not find a new life in the rallel to this is the abating of the internal fields and woods, instead they could only turmoil, the opening of horizons, un‐ offer him a wet grave. This subject is treated derstanding that after the grim autumn and in more detail in the third part of Talvik’s the freezing winter follows inevitably the first collection of poems. Here the decadent spring with new and fresh blossoms. Not moods have not disappeared yet, on the that Talvik would completely change his contrary, in some way they are reaching pessimistic view on the human nature and their climax, but now the sufferings of an history and its perspectives but he finds in individual are not merged with the gloomy himself the strength to defy it. When in tho‐ atmosphere of the town, towns are not men‐ se new contexts he here and there mentions tioned here by a word, instead the personal cities, his relationship with them isn’t per‐ anguish grows here step by step up to the sonal any more. The city is no more the point that all the country is seen in the concrete surroundings of his lyrical I where grasp of death and demise: the windmills

13 TALVIK 1988, 48‐49. 14 TALVIK 1988, 108.

SymCity 1 (2007) 5 Katrin Ennus, The images of town and countryside in the poetry of Heiti Talvik have stopped working because there has come, for example through moving to the been a crop failure, the villages are attacked countryside. We can’t say that he has by maddened rats, the farmhouses are full completely lost contact with country life be‐ of dying hungry people and on the fields cause in his early poems and in some of his are lying dead bodies which are collected very last texts he gets there his rare joyful and burnt on huge stakes. The lyrical I, ad‐ experiences but it is obvious that he himself ditionally tormented by his personal crises, doesn’t belong there essentially, he is only is looking at all this and decides to leave all the passing traveller, on his way from one the miseries of the world and to die alone town to the another. And more importantly, somewhere in the cold waters of a foggy he explicitly says in his poems that his tor‐ swamp. So, to the third group of poems mented soul wouldn’t find peace in the which offered some gentle and cheerful pic‐ woods and fields, where he can’t see the i‐ tures of country life, met by the lyrical I dyllic calm scenes but instead, a few of his mostly by passing not by belonging to it, we most powerful visions of complete disaster have here the heavily depressed counter‐ are staged in a rural environment. part. Consequently, Talvik can’t see the way To conclude it has to be said that in general from his decadent and urban anguish to the the poetry of Heiti Talvik reflects the world‐ redemption in the simple movement in view of the urbanized person who is unsa‐ space. As mentioned, rather than opposing tisfied with the present order of things in town and country in his poems, the explicit the world. But we can’t say that he would opposition is generated between the present see urbanization as the main reason for this and the lost age. But as it is obvious that we dissatisfaction. This is neither the case in his can’t get back the days gone, besides, as early poems, where he presents his personal shown, their perfection may be more the pain, nor in his later texts where he deals result of our imagination than a historical with more general topics. We wouldn’t find fact, so the solutions must be found inside in his poetry the simple spatial opposition the lyrical I itself, regardless of his location of town and countryside, the latter bringing in concrete space. In Talvik’s case it means solutions to the problems generated by the that one day he discovers that the autumn, former. Of course, it is true that when he his preferred season in early poems, isn’t depicts a town he sees nothing pleasant: only the culmination of fall and decadence towns for him are noisy, unfriendly, dim, but also the season of fruits. foggy and often corrupt places, and as he And finally, if to compare what has been has mentioned in several poems, surroun‐ said about European modernist poetry and ded by walls, it means closed, clearly defi‐ what occurs when reading Talvik, an inte‐ ned areas where free movement is limited. resting discord appears which also happens The countryside may sometimes offer tem‐ to slightly undermine the current conviction poral relief but at the same time it may be in Estonian literary criticism which consi‐ the decoration to the utmost doom. Soluti‐ ders Talvik as some sort of local equivalent ons to the problems of the lyrical I don’t to Baudelaire. In Talvik’s case, as his de‐

SymCity 1 (2007) 6 Katrin Ennus, The images of town and countryside in the poetry of Heiti Talvik pression grows so grows his consistency on him and the only alternative to it seems with the concrete town, and when he finds to be death. Baudelaire, often considered as solutions to his intrinsic turmoil, the mar‐ the first poet to express the really modern kers of (urban) environment would leave sensibility, will remain in this unstable and his texts: the more concrete the pain, the confused and also frightened state as for more concrete are the spatial images. This example in the end of the aforementioned characteristic trait of Talvik’s poetry is poem “Seven old men”: completely contrary to the European mo‐ Vainement ma raison voulait prendre la barre; dernist poetry of the city with its great La tempête en jouant déroutait ses efforts, founder Charles Baudelaire, because, as Et mon âme dansait, dansait, vieille gabarre claims G. M. Hyde, in modernist poetry Sans mats, sur une mer monstrueuse et sans bords!18 “Cities get less real as they get closer: or as one gets closer to them.”15 Or, as has written In Talvik’s poetry, in accordance with the Claude Pichois commenting Baudelaire’s already mentioned movement from concre‐ poem “The Swan” (“Le Cygne”), which is teness to abstraction on the level of spatial one of the key texts in European modern images, runs the more general shift from urban poetry, Baudelaire moves from clari‐ anxiously decadent moods to the more ty to mysteriousness.16 In those contexts re‐ harmonious and, as Talvik himself said, ference is usually made to Baudelaire’s ver‐ classic (and as could be inferred from this se from “The Swan”: “Vieux faubourgs, specification, obviously less modern) world tout pour moi devient allégorie” (Baude‐ view. The moment when he finds this abili‐ laire 1975: 86). The beginning of the poem ty to defy all the chaos around him and ex‐ “Seven old men” (“Les sept viellards”): presses his belief in the poet’s ability to “Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rèves”17 work out the order and sense from it, is de‐ has the same explanatory and illustrative picted in the last part of his cycle of poems power. The objects Baudelaire meets in the “Dies irae” which is sometimes also consi‐ city activate his imagination that he will ve‐ dered as a sort of manifesto of Arbujad. ry soon dive into his inner world of perso‐ When Baudelaire’s boat is bobbing with no nal memories, associations and hallucinati‐ direction because the reason is incapable of ons to the extent that it is completely im‐ grasping the steering wheel, Talvik whoops possible to speak of a clear line between and demands the contrary: them and of a so called objective reality. In Hädalipp kas vinnata varda Talvik’s poetry we would not meet that sort või alandlik selga küür? of interfusion of (urban) reality and imagi‐ Ei! Kõhklejad kõik üle parda nation, on the contrary, in his most depres‐ ja kindlamalt pihku tüür! sed texts the reality has the strongest grasp Trotsides katastroofi tormipuskarit rüüpab me laev. Meie kohus on sundida saledasse stroofi 15 HYDE 1991, 337. elementide pime raev.19 16 PICHOIS 1974, 1004. 18 17 BAUDELAIRE 1975, 87. BAUDELAIRE 1975, 88.

SymCity 1 (2007) 7 Katrin Ennus, The images of town and countryside in the poetry of Heiti Talvik

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALVER, B., Koguja, compiled and edited by Ele Süvalep, Tartu 2005.

BAUDELAIRE, C., Œuvres complètes I, Paris 1975.

HYDE, G. M., The Poetry of the City. – Moder‐ nism 1890‐1930, edited by M. Bradbury and J. McFarlane, New York 1991, 323‐348. Talvik. Dekadendist klassikalise luule poolda‐ jaks. [Intervjuu Heiti Talvikuga] – Vaba Maa, 25. IV, nr 93 (5306) 1936, 8.

KANGRO, B., Arbujad, Lund 1981.

PICHOIS, C., Notices. Notes et variantes, in: C. Baudelaire, Œuvres complètes I. Paris 1975, 787‐1539.

PULLAT, R., Linnad kodanlikus Eestis, Tallinn 1978. LANGE, A., Six Estonian Poets in translation of Ants Oras. Tallinn 2002.

TALVIK, H., Luuletused, Tallinn 1988.

TUGLAS, F., Kogutud teosed. 7. Kriitika I. Krii‐ tika II. ‐ Kirjanduslik stiil, Tallinn 1996, 413‐ 457.

19 TALVIK 1988, 111: Shall we flash on SOS? Shall we cower, defeaed and humble? No! Let go by the board those who flinch with distress And steer straight through the rough-and-tumble! No catastrophe made us yet squirm. It takes stronger storm-brew to stay us. We were born for stanzas, slim-built and firm, To impreson the fury of Chaos. Trans. by Ants Oras (Six Estonian Poets 2002, 105)

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