Andrei Hvostov: writing in dying tongue of a dying nation

Photo: Peeter Langovits

On this plot of ground, Estonians seem to be dying out; however, this doesn’t imply dying out spiritually, meditated writer and journalist Andrei Hvostov at Postimees opinion leaders’ luncheon.

I’ve been thinking about Estonia’s survival a lot, ever from regained independence. Whatever is happening at the moment is inevitable. In spite of the mandatory optimism, here in Estonia we are dying out. Which doesn’t mean we could not survive someplace else.

Right now, it’s not Estonia leaking, but rather Estonians relocating. What is important: where will the new Estonian communities settle? What will be their country of location? What city? I have a feeling that Estonians moving to some large North-American or Western-European city will quickly lose their national identity and essence.

The Tenerife community appears to be kin to the Tsarist time’s colonies in Caucasus, Crimea or Siberia. I hear tell that on Tenerife, we have a hundred or so families with their children, about to open a Sunday school. Maybe they have something there that’ll last. Maybe there’ll come a day when, from thence, they will return and birth a new Estonia. However, the bunch that we have left right now – their brains have crashed real bad.

As an Estonian writer I’m aware that I’m writing in the dying language of a dying nation, but physical demise doesn’t necessarily imply dying out spiritually. Creators of Estonian culture have to be busy as long as they have any strength left. Creating something impossible to bypass and overlook in world culture. So that when the land leaks empty and speakers of other tongues come, some day, to take up the space, they would develop an interest in our cultural heritage. A cultural transfusion – that’s what is needed.