Koidula, Lydia (1843–1886)

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Koidula, Lydia (1843–1886)

Estonian poet and playwright who was a major figure in the Estonian national awakening of the 19th century. Born Lydia Emilie Florentine Jannsen in Vändra (Pärnu), Estonia, on December 24, 1843; died in Kronstadt, Russia, on August 11, 1886; daughter of Johann Voldemar Jannsen (1819–1890), a teacher; married Eduard Michelson.

As the Soviet Union was crumbling in the late 1980s, the people of Estonia voiced their desire for national independence through poetry and music, creating what many would later call their "singing revolution." Among their favorite patriotic bards was the 19th-century poet Lydia Koidula, whose verse provided inspiration to make sacrifices for freedom. At times it appeared as if the entire Estonian nation was singing Koidula's words, "My love is my native country to whom I've devoted my heart."

The road to Estonian independence was long and difficult. Although independent in prehistoric times, the small Baltic nation fell under the domination of German and Danish feudal lords in the 13th century. While a rich folk culture of songs, fairy tales, proverbs, sayings and riddles flourished in the villages, a literary language and literature did not exist for many centuries and the urban intelligentsia was under strong German and later Russian influence. Poverty and ignorance stalked the countryside while foreign tongues and traditions took over the towns of Estonia.

Inspired by traditional Estonian folklore and Finland's Kalevala epic, Friedrich Robert Fählmann (1798–1850) and Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (1803–1882) spent three decades collecting their nation's ancient legends, myths and songs. By this time Estonian intellectuals, influenced by the spirit of Romantic nationalism, had called on scholars to "give the nation an epic and history; [then] the rest will be won." Encouraged by the Estonian Learned Society (founded in 1838), during the years 1857–61, Kreutzwald published the epic work in its final form of 18,993 verses under the title Kalevipoeg (The Son of Kalev). Powerful and stirring, Kalevipoeg ends with the prophecy that one day the son of Kalev, the father of heroes, will be freed by a fire from the rock that holds him prisoner, and Estonians will once again be a contented and prosperous people.

Lydia Koidula was born in 1843, the daughter of teacher Johann Voldemar Jannsen, and, as a precocious young woman, assisted her father in editing the country's first weekly newspaper, The Postman of Pärnu, founded in 1857. In 1864, Jannsen moved his newspaper to the larger city of Tartu and renamed it The Estonian Postman. Estonian cultural life flourished in Tartu, and Lydia responded enthusiastically to the spirit of the day. Her father was a leading cultural nationalist, and both he and Lydia took pride in his lyrics for "My Native Land," which were set to a melody by Finnish composer Fredrik Pacius and first sung at the Estonian Song Festival in 1869. (After 1918, both Finland and Estonia would adopt this song as their national anthems, Estonia's with J.V. Jannsen's lyrics.) As a sign of her patriotic fervor, Lydia changed her name from the Swedish-sounding Jannsen to the more Estonian Koidula.

In 1866, translating and adapting German poetry to the Estonian language, Koidula published her first volume of verse, entitled Meadow Flowers. The next year, she published a volume of original verse in Estonian, The Nightingale of Emajögi (1867), a work with strongly expressed nationalism. Over the next decade, she would publish a large number of verse works revealing her hatred of feudal oppression, social backwardness and national apathy.

Convinced that the stage could serve as an effective weapon in the struggle to win the national soul, Koidula began to write plays in the late 1860s. In rapid succession from 1870 to 1872, she wrote several plays including The Cousin from Saaremaa, The Wooing Birches, or Maret and Miina, and Such a Mulk, or a HundredBarrels of Coarse Salt. First presented in Tartu in the building of the Vanemuine Society—the nation's leading musical and cultural organization—in June 1870, The Cousin from Saaremaa was performed in Estonian, whereas all of the city's other theaters presented plays in the German language. Both this play and The Wooing Birches were adapted by Koidula from standard German plays, but Such a Mulk, a sharp social commentary on the educational backwardness of Estonia's peasants, was a completely original work. Koidula not only wrote but also produced and directed Such a Mulk at a theater soon to be called "Koidula's Theater." In this work, she gave voice to her hope that the Estonian nation would one day be free, prosperous and part of a world based on progressive ideals. Throughout the 1870s, her plays were performed in all of Estonia's cities and towns, and by 1880 performances were also given in the rural areas, usually in schoolrooms or threshing barns. By this time, many of Koidula's poems were rapidly being transformed into widely beloved popular songs.

A difficult change took place in Koidula's life in 1873. That year, she accompanied her husband, the physician Eduard Michelson, to his post at the imperial Russian naval base at Kronstadt near St. Petersburg. Over the next years, she longed to return to her native home, but Lydia Koidula died at Kronstadt on August 11, 1886. Her poems, however, lived on, continuing to inspire the people of Estonia. During her lifetime, when Estonia was part of a tsarist Russia determined to stamp out autonomous linguistic and cultural traditions in its Baltic Provinces, Koidula's nationalist sentiments often had to be expressed in veiled terms. Some two decades after her death, Estonia freed itself from the Russian yoke in 1918 and became an independent republic. Koidula's poems could then be read and enjoyed freely by all.

A new Soviet occupation, in 1940–1941 and 1944–1991, again pained Estonian nationalists, virtually all of whom drew inspiration from Koidula's verse. Most Estonian symbols were banned under Soviet rule, but during these years Koidula's poem "My Fatherland is Dear to Me," as set to music by Gustav Ernesaks, became a powerful means of expressing Estonian feelings. This was, and continues to be regarded as, an unofficial anthem, while her father's "My Native Land" is the official national anthem of post-Soviet Estonia. More than a century after her death, Lydia Koidula remains a revered Estonian author. In Tallinn, Lydia Koidula Street appears to have a particular magnetic appeal for women poets, for on this street have lived at least two major poets, Betti Alver (b. 1906) and Anna Haava (1864–1957). On December 14, 1993, Estonia honored Koidula by depicting her on a commemorative postage stamp.

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