On February 27th, the annual Estonian Evening brought together faculty, students and guests to celebrate the 108th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia (Feb. 24) and the ongoing Year of the Estonian Book. Organized by IU Baltic and Finnish Studies Association and IU Estonian students, with sponsorship of CEUS and IAUNRC, and under the leadership of CEUS' Dr. Piibi-Kai Kivik, our Senior Lecturer for Estonian, the evening featured poetry recitals, music, traditional Estonian food and conversations.
To mark the Year of the Estonian Book (500 years since the first book in Estonian language), IU Librarians Veronika Trotter and Akram Habibulla had put together a pop-up exhibition from the substantial collection of Estonian literature housed at Wells Library. Guests could see originals and translations into English and other languages, including the national epic and a book of poetry by the first Estonian poet as well as very recent publications. Literature and language were the themes of this year’s program. Long before the Estonian language became a written and literary language, there was the ancient folklore tradition that has come down to us in songs and stories. The program opened with a folk song in South Estonian, performed by the IU Slavic Choir and BaFSA singers, lead by Iryna Voloshyna. BaFSA current president Claire Kinderwater recited a folk verse about the words that cats in Häädemeeste parish used to purr, taking us back to the times when even animals knew Estonian. Ryan McCrea and Jack Rosswurm read verses from the 1800s that exhorted the Estonian language aspiring to become a language of poetry and fiction and breaking free from the dominance of German. Claire then took us to the present time with Kristina Ehin’s poem where children speaking Estonian and Russian (Claire studies both at IU) overcome the language gap to build their playground tower. Multilingualism and foreign languages were also prominent in a poem by translator and poetess Ly Seppel. We recruited help from guests for this recital, and the CEUS Chair Oner Ozcelik, a Turkish linguist and our Finnish instructor Jeanne McGill read the Turkish and Finnish parts.
The program concluded with Jack reading from the 1918 Declaration of Independence, the “Manifesto to the Peoples of Estonia,“ which, naturally. concludes with poetry, the final verse of the national anthem.
The evening proceeded with lively conversations (in various languages), meeting new people and old friends, and trying some traditional Estonian food.
