Keywords: literary studies, Estonian literature of the 1980s, late socialism, decadence, fin de siècle, postmodernism, Alexandrianism
This essay explores the emergence and evolution of a literary and artistic trend in Soviet Estonia from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. During this period, young philologists, poets, artists and essayists re-discovered the decadence of the fin-de-siècle and its Estonian expressions as a significant source of inspiration. Generally, in the official Soviet jargon, ‘decadence’ was a highly derogatory term, used during Stalin’s rule to stigmatize all of Western bourgeois culture. Consequently, patriotic scholars, even in the face of easing circumstances, were hesitant to associate early 20th century artists with decadence, as that would have meant condemning them. By the late 1970s, the atmosphere had liberalized enough to make engaging with the motifs and attitudes of decadence less perilous. This shift also provided a means to counter the activism of the 1960s generation, whether loyal to the authorities or dissident. In 1978, Germanist Linnar Priimägi marked the initial steps of the neo-decadence trend with the theoretical manifesto “Decadence as a Cognitive Constant” and the generational manifesto “Tartu Autumn”, co-written with art historian Ants Juske. The former text associated decadence with the appreciation of dispassionate beauty, while the latter expressed refined indolence as the main characteristic of the young generation. References to the decadents of the early 20th century became common among the younger generation of poets, including Doris Kareva, Aado Lintrop, Indrek Hirv, Ilmar Trull, and Hasso Krull. This was accompanied by the rehabilitation of Estonian and Russian decadence in academic literary studies. The emergence of the neo-decadence trend may be attributed to late-Soviet social fatigue and stagnation, the generational desire to distinguish from the dominant 1960s generation, and the growing influence of postmodernism as a departure from the international constructivist and austere style of high modernism. Contemporary criticism occasionally discussed signs of Stoicism, Skepticism, and Epicureanism in culture, sometimes drawing parallels between the emerging postmodernism and Hellenistic imperial culture.
Märt Väljataga (b. 1965), editor of the cultural magazine Vikerkaar and independent scholar of literature (Voorimehe 9, 10414 Tallinn), mart@vikerkaar.ee
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