Autumn 2013

Members of the Estonian Writers' Union in Sweden and Finland in 1970
Perhaps something personal about him as
well. Thanks to a grant from Lund University, I
had an opportunity in 1994 to study Estonian
exile literature for four months at the very same
Finno-Ugrian Institute previously headed by
Valev Uibopuu. On several occasions I visited
the writer’s home at Tunnbindaregatan, where
Valev, his wife Malle and I had long chats about
literature, life in exile and life in general. In
warm weather we sometimes sat on the veranda
facing the garden and admired the blooming
apple trees grafted by Valev Uibopuu himself.
In the southern Estonian dialect area where
he grew up, his name means apple tree. Uibopuu’s
same trees are still going strong today.
These chats confirmed Valev’s deep
humanity, and a keen interest in the world
and everything going on at home. Political
refugees often live a very introverted life,
with their eyes always turned to the past.
Uibopuu tried to understand the motives
behind human action, but never hastened to
condemn anyone. This perfectly harmonised
with his whole work. He warned against too
much ideology in literature, of which there
were examples in works published both at
home and abroad. He kept to his principles
and never once visited his homeland before
the independent Republic of Estonia had
been re-established and the Soviet army had
left. As a linguist, Valev Uibopuu considered
the Estonian language to be the foundation
of Estonian independence and this conviction
unites his entire legacy. During one of
my later visits to Lund, we managed a longer
interview, published in the literary journal
Looming (1997, nr 1). This was not an easy
task, because for Uibopuu what mattered in
creative work was mankind, and not the
writer, who was supposed to stay in the
background.
“The Creator has given him his living
breath”, wrote Uibopuu’s friend and colleague
in Sweden, the writer Karl Ristikivi, about
Uibopuu’s books. It is a worthy acknowledgement,
the more significant as it was written
when Uibopuu was still alive. We can safely
repeat the sentence now that we are celebrating
the one hundredth anniversary of the
writer’s birth.