The Role of Popular Science Literature in Shaping Estonians’ World Outlook MAIT TALTS Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia;
[email protected] The paper gives an overview of the development of Estonian popular scientifi c literature in the fi eld of life sciences from its beginning until the end of 19th century. A special attention has been given to the infl uence of the popular science onto the formation of new world outlook based on natural sciences. The appear- ance of early educative books was largely infl uenced by the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment and Rationalism. Almost the whole 18th and early 19th century have been strongly infl uenced by the spread of ideas opposite to Rationalism, Pietist and Charismatic ideas of the Moravian brotherhood. However, the 1840s saw a development, which can be described as a “reading revolution”. A great many Estonian peas- ants learned to read, and religious literature lost its previous signifi cance. The following decades off ered already a wide range of Rationalist non-fi ction. The Lutheran tradition of a critical approach to the scrip- tures, the adopted reading patterns, as well as the popularity of Rationalist non-fi ction contributed largely to the adoption of a scientifi c worldview. As a result of this development, Estonians have become one of the least religious nations in Europe in traditional sense (only 14% of Estonians admit that religion plays a certain role in their lives). Keywords: popular science literature, reading, the scientific world outlook, religious patterns, natural sciences, cultural contacts, Estonia. Introduction One cannot say that the early history of Estonian popular science literature in fi eld of natu- ral sciences has been totally un-investigated are (see e.g.