Entangled Literatures: Discursive History of Literary Culture in Estonia
"Institutional Research Funding" project IUT28-1 (2014–2019)
The emergence and development of literary culture on the Estonian territory is seen as an entangled process (histoire croisée), reflecting intertwined relationships between manifold ethnic, colonial, cultural, etc. impulses, involving criss-cross patterns, resistances, and inertias. The character of investigation is predominantly discourse-based and follows the lines of important ‘territories of speech’ (history, religion, environment, intimacy) apparent in multilingual society. A comprehensive rewriting of the literary history of Estonia in the 13th–19th cc. is aimed at, while integrating into it the rich German component. Modernity is examined in tension with national strivings as a time of diverse emancipations; attention is paid both to the social figures (decadent, upstart, artist) as well as the figures of thought (autonomy, time, infinity). In the post-Soviet period, the ‘multidirectionality’ of memory culture is exemplified by fiction and theatre.
Principal investigator
- Jaan Undusk, PhD
Senior personnel
- Aare Pilv, researcher, MA
- Eneken Laanes, senior researcher, PhD
- Mirjam Hinrikus, senior researcher, PhD
- Ulrike Plath, senior researcher, PhD
- Martin Antonius Klöker, senior researcher, PhD
Team members
- Cornelius Hasselblatt, PhD
- Thomas Hoffmann, PhD
- Katre Kaju, PhD
- Linda Kaljundi, PhD
- Piret Kruuspere, MA
- Liina Lukas, PhD
- Anneli Mihkelev, PhD
- Aija Sakova-Merivee, PhD
- Elle-Mari Talivee, PhD
- Rein Undusk, MA
- Kristi Viiding, PhD