Kristi Viiding’s Keynote Lecture at the Estonian Annual Conference of Humanities

In her keynote lecture at the Estonian Annual Conference of Humanities on Thursday, Kristi Viiding, Director and Research Professor of the Under and Tuglas Literary Institute, shed light on previously unexplored aspects of Early Modern literature in Estonia and Livonia.

Kristi Viiding

Dracones Mordaces: Literary Layers of Early Modern Estonia and Livonia

Chair: Pille Runnel

Over the past decades, Early Modern studies in Estonia have expanded considerably, both in terms of research questions and disciplinary approaches, as well as through growing collaboration among research groups. The publication of national bibliographies and the discovery and scholarly editing of previously unknown manuscript and printed sources have enabled a broader understanding of the multilingual literature of the period, moving beyond the Baltic German perspectives that long dominated the field and incorporating sources from the Polish era. As recently as a decade ago, little was known about whether, how, and on what subjects people in Early Modern Estonia and Livonia joked or expressed satire. Owing to frequent shifts in political power and the caution of their authors, satires, epigrams, and parodies were rarely printed and circulated mainly in manuscript form among elite audiences. Within a few generations, these texts lost their immediate social relevance and gradually became difficult to understand linguistically—especially those written in Low German and Latin—and eventually faded into obscurity. This presentation examines this overlooked dimension of the region’s past, asking whether, despite the disappearance of individual texts, elements of their humour, satire, and worldview may have endured through processes of cultural transmission and continued to shape later literature and mentalities in the region.

Read more and watch the recording of the presentation „Dracones mordaces: Literary Layers of Early Modern Estonia and Livonia“ on ERR Novaator.