2003
| December | Jaan Tõnisson - Estonian
statesman, journalist and public figure - was born as a son of Jaan Tõnisson, owner of Mursi farmstead, in Viljandi parish in Viljandimaa in December 22nd (10th), 1868. He studied in Tusti village school in 1878-1881, from 1881 onwards in Viljandi parish school where he, as an admirer of C. R. Jakobson, was forced to leave when running into conflict with the teacher. Jaan Tõnission continued his studies in Viljandi City Elementary School under the guidance of teacher J. Kuhlbars, then in Viljandi County School and finally in the senior class of Gymansium of Tallinn, which he graduated in December 1888. |
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| He pursued his further schooling in the
Department of Law at the University of Tartu from January 20th, 1889.
Jaan Tõnisson's student dossier contained also his diploma
from Gymnasium of Tallinn. |
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| November |
St. Martin's Day is approaching and merry Martinmans will be soon afoot. Jolly popular tradition has significantly interwoven with the church calendar: November 10th is Martin Luther's birthday. A letter from Martin Luther to Georgius Scarnburs from February
6th, 1540, is being preserved in the fond of St. John's congregation
of Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church. However, Georgius Scarnbrus's
personality and his part in the ecclesiastical history are unfamiliar,
so is the originality and credibility of the document put under
the question. Apart from this fact, it is worth reading. |
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| October | Kiek in de Kök and Langer Hermann in Tartu? | ||
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Indeed, according to the reconstruction (1918) of Tartu's prehistoric
castle and its medieval city wall by the local expert of Tartu's
history, Richard Otto, both abovementioned towers exist (# 22 and
23). |
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| named Kiek in de Kök, in Hansa
town Danzig (Gdansk). Might be that similar towers can be found even
elsewhere where sentinels, from high above, had a chance to glance
into the kitchens of their fellow citizens. EAA 1405-1-60, l. 29 |
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| September | School time is for sure something
great and memorable. However, there are always problems present, which,
in the course of history, have been showing certain similarities. Today, when talking about school, we are coming more and more across to the issues of school violence and growing drop-out of pupils. It has become so serious that the matter has drawn the personal attention of ministers of education and social affairs. Now they are calling for "zero tolerance" against school violence and skipping from school generally. Apparently there are violent pupils and those who avoid going to classes in every school. Contrary to the current situation, schoolmasters 100 years ago could express their attitude concerning pupils' deviant behaviour freely and write it down as well. |
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Here is the extract from the book of school attendance and grading
of Samliku parish school in Pärnumaa from 1876-1896. It seems
that this little school had extraordinary number of children with
unacceptable behaviour. |
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| one can find numerous epithets such as
"scoundrel (kaabakas),
indecent, obnoxious (nurjatu),
murderous (mõrtsuka
meelega), shameless and disobedient (sõnakuulmatu)".
One can only take pity on the schoolmaster and hope that of these
children finally decent people grew up. EAA 4724-1-97, l. 98p-99 |
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| August | Under the guidance of Lieutenant Commander
Adam Johann von Krusenstern (b. November 19, 1770, in Hagud; d. August
24, 1846, in Kiltsi; buried at Tallinn Cathedral), Russian sailing
ships "Nadezhda" and "Neeva" (Commander J. Lisjanski)
set out to the first Russian round-the-world voyage from Kronstadt
in August 7, 1803. The voyage lasted until August 26, 1806.
During the entire trip, cartographical, hydrographical, astronomical
and oceanographical surveys were conducted. |
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In the Historical Archives, the diary of the round-the-world voyage, composed by Lieutenant Herman Gustav von Löwenstern, is preserved in the family archive of von Krusensterns (2 volumes: EAA 1414-3-3, 1414-3-4). In addition, it contains drawings of Swiss natural scientist Dr. Tilesius, participant in this voyage, of houses, ships, people and ethnographical items. |
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| In December 22, 1804, A. J. von Krusenstern and his companions visited the fleets of Nagasaki's governor and prince Chikosen. | |||
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EAA 1414-3-3, l. 155 |
EAA 1414-3-3, l. 179 |
EAA 1414-3-3, l. 209 |
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July |
12 instructions for the horse vehicle driver |
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It is summer time again and the season of vacations has begun.
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| Yet if somebody wishes to wander around
with the horse vehicle, it would be wise to get acquainted with the
relevant notebook or 12 instructions for the horse vehicle driver.
EAA 3994-1-19, l. 67 This visual teaching material was sent to schools in 1939 and was meant as an aid to carry through the "traffic week" course. In addition to this material, there were also instructions for pedestrians and bicyclists. |
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| June | This year 85 years will be passed from
the beginning of Estonian War of Independence. The battles, most of
which took place in 1919, gave Estonians - from volunteering students
to generals - the chance to demonstrate their courage and bravery.
In a war there will always be victims. During the course of Estonian War of Independence, 6127 sons and daughters of the fatherland were lost: killed in action, wounded fatally or put to the death by terror acts. (Vabadussõja mälestusmärgid. 1. Compiled by M. Strauss, J. Pihlak, A. Krillo, R. Viljat. Tallinn, 2002.) |
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This June we celebrate the Victory Day for the 84th time. Today, as we live in the independent state, the War of Independence could be hailed as our most important historical event in the 20th century. |
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| Metrical books of church or parish registers
not only regularly record births, marriages and deaths but give also
information on the events taken place in people's lives and history.
While bringing into order the parish registers of EELK (Estonian Evangelical
Lutheran Church), parish register of Peetri congregation from 1919
caught the interest. Registrations from June, July and August contain
the list of names of fallen soldiers - mainly killed in the battle
of Võnnu or in the front of Pskov - by several pages. Among
them are soldiers from all over Estonia: from Rakvere, Pärnu,
Saaremaa and elsewhere. Majority of them are buried at Priimetsa (today
Metsa) cemetery in Valga. In 1925, the statue of the War of Independence
was erected in that cemetery. The inscriptions on the statue tell
that more than 300 soldiers have found their final rest there; 154
of them are known by names, 152 are not identified. Many names on
the statue coincide with the names found in the metrical book. EAA 5282-1-18, l. 32p, 33 |
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| May | The list of students of Nyen town school from 1640 | ||
| During the military operations in the Great
Northern War in 1702-1703, Russian forces invaded Ingria. Swedes lost two important fortifications on the waterway of River Neva that connects Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland. In October 1702, Nöteborg on the upper course of the River Neva fell to Russians. On May 1st, 1703, Russians took Fort Nyenskans that situated on the mouth of River Neva and on the shore of the tributary Ohta. Nyen was captured, too. |
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| Resulting from these events, czar Peter
the Great decided to set foundations to Fort Peter-Paul at the River
Neva on May 16th (27th), 1703. Shortly after, a town to be called
Petersburg (Sankt-Peterburg) was built at the foot of Fort Peter-Paul. This May, a large-scale celebration will take place to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Saint Petersburg. Only couple of decades ago one could read the legend from schoolbooks on how Peter the Great set up a new town in the midst of wetlands. However, there was no mention of the fact that, in the 17th century, at the very place at the tributary Ohta, a town Nyen, Nevanlinna in Finnish, was already there before. Nyen as a place of trade was obviously active even at earlier times as it embraced the connection from the Baltic Sea to Lake Ladoga. In 1611, Swedes started to build a fortification to the mouth of the tributary Ohta. On June 17th, 1632, Swedish king Gustaf II Adolf made a decision in the military camp near Hersbruck in Germany, to build towns at the River Neva and to other suitable locations in Karelia and Ingria. This date should be considered as a birthday of Nyen. However, to some degree it was projected as an economical experiment on behalf of Swedish central authorities in order to relocate the centre of Russian foreign trade from Archangel back to the Baltic Sea. Also, it was to expand the mercantile hinterland of Swedish towns in Russia. Nyen had the makings to fulfil the state's interests in economic policy due to its extraordinarily good location in the starting base of Russia's inland waterways. And that came despite Nyen's relative distance from the leading West-European seaports and the difficult access from the Baltic Sea. Nyen, apart from its short history, developed into the transit centre of trading between towns of north-western Russia and Stockholm, but also with other West-European cities (Amsterdam, London). The list of students of Nyen town school from 1640 was selected to be the archival of May. This is to provide a further proof to any "doubting Thomas" that there was an earlier urban environment in the location of future capital of imperial Russia. The list also shows Nyen's hinterland where people were drawn into the town from. The document exhibits that pupils mostly originated from Nyen, and to a large degree also from Viborg, Käkisalmi, Savolahti, Karelia and elsewhere. EAA 278-1-XXIV:82, l. 427, 427p |
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| April | Tori parish court judges visiting tavern | ||
| For ordinary Estonian taxpayers today who
constantly have nightmares about selfish and prodigal officials, it
would be proper to glance at the past and get convinced that the issue
is not that novel at all as they have probably thought. Abuse of rights
granted upon the officials has a history dating back centuries. The
problem will most likely stay persistent in the future too, as there
will always be people who can not resist temptations. A fine example
to portray the case is a court record found among the materials of
Pärnu I parish court from 1875-1876. It contains a grotesque
incident of Tori parish judges in Äädika (Vinegar) tavern
in Pärnu where they decided to spend some parish tax money on
two whores. To quell the concern of every decent citizen, it has to
be said in advance that these officials caught in the action were
deservedly punished and new judges elected. |
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| Reading the story, one is instantly overtaken
by the juicy and captivating way of its presentation that characterises
most of the parish court records of the time. It could be suitable
reading material even for those who are not taking keen interest in
state matters but would like to skim through the "yellow press".
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| March | Has Reform Party really been active
here already over 100 years? |
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| Among the material of Vastseliina Estonian
Evangelical Lutheran Church, an interesting title caught the eye:
Programm der livländischen Reformpartei (dated to 1880?).
Has Reform Party really been active here already over 100 years? We have to do here with the Baltic-German party. The first part of its program expresses the constant emphasis of Germans' privileges and the protection of German culture from any intruding factor. The article number five can be considered curious as it touches upon the national movement of Estonians and Latvians. It says that the national aspiration of Estonian and Latvian peasantry shall not be hindered (yet to be kept in check) as long as it is beneficial to our country. Obviously, the above mentioned document is dating to the earlier period - to1860s, when the national movement was slowly rising to prominence. EAA 1271-1-149, l. 1 |
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| February | The plan of the border line between Rõuge and Kasaritsa manor | ||
| Signed by the land surveyor M. Joachim
Schelenius in 1644, it belongs to one
of the oldest cartographic documents stored at the Estonian Historical
Archives. The item is made unique by the oval-shaped magnification
of the possibly disputable border section, placed underneath the wind
rose sign, and the filigree work of the drawing (black ink). In connection
with the separation of Nursi manor from Rõuge in 1688, the
existence of the designated border was short-lived. EAA 567-3-195, l. 1 (800 x 1064, 1280 x 1703) |
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| January | Year of the Sheep is approaching! | ||
| A page from Sophie Christine Gertrutha
von Benckendorf's (1775-1818) conspectus of natural history; drawn
during her study at Gatshino Institute for noble ladies in 1788. EAA 2471-1-162, l. 15p-16 |
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