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Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald

Estonian writer, author of the national epic Kalevipoeg

Summary

Estonian writer, author of the national epic Kalevipoeg

Field	Value
name	Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald
image	Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald.jpg
birth_place	Jömper Manor, Jömper, Kreis Wierland, Governorate of Estonia, Russian Empire
(in present-day Jõepere, Lääne-Viru County, Estonia)
birth_date
death_date	(aged 78)
death_place	Dorpat, Kreis Dorpat, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire
(present-day Tartu, Tartu County, Estonia)
resting_place	Raadi cemetery
occupation	Writer
movement	Estonian national awakening

(in present-day Jõepere, Lääne-Viru County, Estonia) (present-day Tartu, Tartu County, Estonia) Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald ( – ) was an Estonian writer who is considered to be the father of the national literature for the country. He is the author of Estonian national epic Kalevipoeg.

Life

Kreutzwald reading a manuscript of ''[[Kalevipoeg]]'' by [[Johann Köler]] (1864).

Kreuzwald Memorial in [[Võru]] by [[Amandus Adamson]] (1926).

Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald's parents were serfs at the Jömper estate, Governorate of Estonia, Russian Empire (in present-day Jõepere, Lääne-Viru County). His father Juhan worked as a shoemaker and granary keeper and his mother Anne was a chambermaid. After liberation from serfdom in 1815, the family was able to send their son to school at the Wesenberg (present-day Rakvere) district school.

In 1820, he graduated from secondary school in Dorpat (present-day Tartu, Tartu County, Estonia) and worked as an elementary school teacher. In 1833, Kreutzwald graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at the Imperial University of Dorpat.

Bust of Kreutzwald by [[August Weizenberg]], 1881

Kreutzwald married Marie Elisabeth Saedler on 18 August the same year. From 1833 to 1877, he worked as the municipal physician in Werro (present-day Võru). He was the member of numerous scientific societies in Europe and received honorary doctorates from a number of universities.

Works

Kreutzwald is the author of several moralistic folk books, most of them translated into German: Plague of Wine 1840, The World and Some Things One Can Find in It 1848–49, Reynard the Fox 1850, and Wise Men of Gotham 1857. In addition to these works, he composed the national epic Kalevipoeg (Kalev's Son), using material initially gathered by his friend Friedrich Robert Faehlmann; and wrote many other works based on Estonian folklore, such as Old Estonian Fairy-Tales (1866), collections of verses, and the poem Lembitu (1885), published after his death.

Kreutzwald is considered to be the author of the first original Estonian book. He was one of the leaders of the national awakening, as well as a paragon and encourager of young Estonian-speaking intellectuals.

References

A. Plakans, ''A Concise History of the Baltic States'' (2011) p. 210
"F. Reinhold Kreutzwald {{!}} Estonian Writer, Nationalist & Father of Estonian Literature {{!}} Britannica".
J. D. Rateliff, ''The History of the Hobbit'' (2007) p. 181
T. Miljan ed., ''Historical Dictionary of Estonia'' (2004) p. 236

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1803-births 1882-deaths people-from-kadrina-parish people-from-kreis-wierland physicians-from-the-russian-empire estonian-physicians estonian-male-poets epic-poets collectors-of-fairy-tales estonian-folk-song-collectors 19th-century-estonian-painters 19th-century-estonian-male-artists 19th-century-estonian-poets 19th-century-musicologists 19th-century-male-writers burials-at-raadi-cemetery

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