“I Am Like Green Firewood – Not Going Out, Not Catching Fire!” A Prisoner’s Self-Portrait in Letters

Abstract

This article provides an overview of letters written by Fromhold Veidenberg (1906), a communist who entered the Republic of Estonia from the Soviet Union in secret in December 1932, to his relative from Võru, Johanna Eisen (1910–2002). Veidenberg’s intelligence mission failed: he was caught at the border and detained. The suspect’s interview revealed he was a student at The Communist University of the National Minorities of the West in Leningrad, and was sent across the border for a secret mission. After capturing, he was sentenced to six years at the Central Prison in Tallinn. Over four years in prison, in the period 1934–1938, he exchanged letters with several people, including Eisen, who initiated the correspondence. This article is based on 22 letters sent by Veidenberg from prison – he destroyed most of Eisen’s letters before being released in 1938. I will regard Veidenberg’s letters as biographical material, shedding light on the person writing them, to find out how Veidenberg depicts himself in his letters and which strategies he uses to create emotional intimacy with the addressee.