Estonian LiterarY Museum
Exchange of two literary classics of the National Awakening
Correspondence of the classics of Estonian literature, Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald and Lydia Koidula, from the years 1867–1873 is preserved in the Estonian Cultural History Archives of the Estonian Literary Museum. A total of 94 letters have been preserved in the archive.
This correspondence forms an epistolary novel between the “Father of Song” and Koidula, who was several generations younger than him. The exchange holds both literary and cultural-historical value, and the letters are authentic sources on Estonian cultural life during the 19th-century National Awakening (including the publication of Postimees, editorial work, the organization of the Song Festival, the birth of Estonian theatre, poetry, the Estonian language, and many other topics). Kreutzwald, a town physician in Võru, referred to Koidula’s letters as the light of his life, and the entire correspondence is exceptionally emotional.
The correspondence was published by the Estonian Literary Museum Press in 2023 (456 pages), though this edition is based on the 1962 publication of the letters. The texts have been linguistically edited where necessary. Originally, the letters were written in a mixture of Estonian and German; the German-language passages have been translated.
