Maarja Vaino: «Truth and Justice» showed Estonians as a people with their own worldview

In a commentary published by Estonian news portal ERR, Maarja Vaino notes that the novel «Truth and Justice» by Estonian writer Anton Hansen Tammsaare came out in October 1926. A hundred years later, she describes it as one of the foundational texts of Estonian culture. In her view, works like this shape a shared consciousness and tradition, without which cultural continuity is impossible.

The novel's place in culture

Vaino says «Truth and Justice» is the most frequently staged and most extensively studied work of Estonian literature, as well as one of the most widely read novels. It was read before the war and during it, in Siberia and in exile, in grey Soviet everyday life and in restored independent Estonia. A 20th edition of the novel's first part has recently been published. Only Oskar Luts's novel «Spring» has gone through slightly more editions.

According to the author, it is the first philosophical work in Estonian literature to treat human existence in a broader sense. Tammsaare created a setting that is both domestic and existential, in which he played out the problems that interested him. The novel showed that Estonians are a people with their own traditions, world, aspirations and worldview.

A call to keep it on the compulsory reading list

Vaino believes the novel should remain on the list of compulsory reading for schoolchildren. She stresses that the purpose of such a list is not only to get people to read good books but also to build cultural continuity. In her view, if school graduates no longer know authors such as Kreutzwald, Liiv, Koidula, Luts, Tammsaare, Alver, Tuglas, Under, Kross, Luik and Kivirähk, a gap would open between the younger generation and its cultural surroundings.

She also argues that more demanding literature should not be replaced with lighter fare merely for convenience. She quotes Jaan Undusk, who described a foundational text as one whose motifs and character structures have become so deeply absorbed into the national consciousness that removing them would destroy the national psyche itself.