ACROSS THE BORDERS: UNFOLDING THE PERSONALITY OF CREATIVE INTELLECTUALS THROUGH THEIR CORRESPONDENCE – THE EPISTOLARY HERITAGE OF TUUDUR VETTIK

Abstract

The arrival of a letter or two is still event, It is read twice or three times, Put in pocket and looked at again. Richard Jefferies (1884:201) 1. Introduction Correspondence is a common literary genre. It denotes texts that bridge seen and unseen borders throughout history, be they geographical, ideological or social. Like all literary activities, it derives its meaning and significance from how it is situated within cultural beliefs, values, and practices. Despite its prevalence, however, little is known about meanings and uses of letter reading and writing in diverse cultural contexts (Kendrick Hissani 2007:195). In their research, Barton and Hall say, the importance of letter-writing can be seen in that phenomenon has been widespread historically, being one of earliest forms of writing, paying attention not just to topic of letters but also to role of writer in this process. Historically, distinct roles around letter-writing have developed, including idea of someone who writes (and reads) letters for someone else (Barton and Hall 2000:1-7). There is no doubt that letters make interesting, yet a complicated source material in psychological and socio-political meaning. Firstly, reasons behind writing are always different, arising from circumstances under which letters were born. Letters can be addressed to authorities, public, a sweetheart, a friend, acquaintance etc. Letters can be petitions to government, or scientific disputes between like minds, or discussions between writers, musicians or politicians. Letters can be sent from a battlefield (war letters) or from prison. The nature of letters can also be very deceiving and unreal. Hence letters must be analysed as a dialogue between two, several or many people, at same time seeing and understanding relations they reflect between a person, family and society. Depending on context, namely on familiarity or lack of knowledge of it, a letter can give contradictory signals to outsiders of facts, words, pictures and thoughts. Cecile Dauphin has suggested that letters should be considered an experimental form, a meeting place between social and inner being, between conventions and their use in practice, between private and political (Dauphin 2002:44). Eve Annuk says, that the conceptions, created by printed texts circulating in public, can drastically differ from conceptions gathered from unpublished written texts on a phenomenon, person or era (Annuk 2003:838). When studying correspondence, it is therefore crucially important to rely on frame questions and--arising from peculiarity of each individual correspondence--to observe more specific topics. World literature knows many fascinating correspondences between creative intellectuals; letters kept in court archives, plus private and professional correspondence between presidents can be of great interest. However, prevailing tendency is to publish discovered sources without delving into their context and background. More often than not, correspondence has been analysed from a rather narrow point of view, Toon van Houdt and Jan Papy say (Van Houdt 2002). However, analysis, research and studying of letters as a primary source is methodologically dealt with at several history faculties (e.g. Walbert s.a. and Schrag s.a.), providing a systematic framework i.e. questionnaires for using primary sources. The institutions of higher education exploring epistolary heritage are located mainly in USA and Great Britain. The theoretical aspects of letter-writing have been studied by Charles Bazerman, who focuses on history of writing and demonstrates how letters have served as a source of various literary genres; Konstantin Dierks discusses historical correspondence in 18th century America etc. Analysing correspondence, source must first be placed in its historical context, asking questions such as who was author, who was recipient, what was historic background, are there many facts in text to rely on, and is there any hidden meaning between lines. …