Akadeemia kirjades: Ants Orase ja Ivar Ivaski kirjavahetus 1957-1981.

Terras, Victor

Ants Oras, Ivar Ivask. Tartu, Estonia. Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum. 1997. 379 pages. ISBN 9985-9088-7-2.

Ants Oras (1900-82) and Ivar Ivask (1927-92), who represent the acme of two generations of Estonian intellectuals in emigration, are extraordinarily similar and yet amazingly different in many ways. Both were strong Estonian patriots. Both were outstanding philologists who devoted most of their time to foreign letters (Oras was a professor of English, Ivask a professor of German and editor of Books Abroad / World Literature Today). Both were fine comparatists, well versed in world literature and fluent in a number of languages. Both also wrote a great deal of critique du jour, not exclusively on Estonian literature.

Oras applied his extraordinary poetic talent almost exclusively to translation from many languages into Estonian, German, and English, as well as from Estonian into German and English. Ivask, a lesser poetic talent, wrote a great deal of poetry in Estonian and German and English. Oras was an esthetic conservative and valued form-conscious art. Ivask was a modernist who preferred free verse. Oras stood uncompromisingly for Western values. Ivask was willing to enter a dialogue with Estonian intellectuals behind the Iron Curtain. Their correspondence, collected and commented upon by Sirje Olesk, offers background information on Estonian intellectual life in emigration, critical opinions on a vast array of authors and works of Estonian and world literature, often highly original and always knowledgeable, and insights into the mindset, esthetics, and personalities of both men of letters. It also allows us to follow Ivask's development as an Estonian poet under the benevolent tutelage and with the friendly encouragement of his elder colleague.

The correspondence of these two professors of literature has the exceptional virtue of presenting two outstanding men of letters who lived literature and were actively involved in literary life, combining erudition with genuine passion. It is to be hoped that more similar collections will be undertaken soon - for instance, of the letters of Aleksis Rannit (1914-85), whose name appears frequently in the letters of Oras and Ivask. This will expand the Estonian reader's horizon with regard to the achievements of Estonian emigres, a desideratum in view of some telltale lacunae in the editor's comments. For instance, she does not seem to know that George (Yuri) Ivask was a) Estonian and b) a major Russian poet.

Victor Terras Brown University