Estonian Folklore as A Source of Baltic-German Poetry

Abstract

Estonian folk tales form a common element in Estonian and Baltic-German (lyro)epic poetry. Baltic-German interest in Estonian folkloric heritage originated in the eighteenth century, when J. G. Herder first encouraged the collection of Estonian and Latvian folk songs. Systematic collection began in the 1830s, and peaked in the Estonian language area with the Estonian epic Kalevipoeg (1857–1861). Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald implemented this epic, but it was also influenced by many collectors and adaptors and was published in both German and Estonian. The myths of Friedrich Robert Faehlmann, presented in the Learned Estonian Society between 1840 and 1852, have had the biggest influence on the German-speaking audience. Literary adaptations of folk tales quickly found their way into journals, newspapers, poetry collections, and anthologies, often in the popular form of a ballad. This paper seeks to explore the role of Estonian folklore in Baltic-German lyroepic poetry.