Universitas Tartuensis Enn Põldroosi maalil

Abstract

Universitas Tartuensis in the painting by Enn Poldroos The painting Universitas Tartuensis was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture of Soviet Estonia from artist Enn Poldroos in 1982 as part of the celebration of the University’s 350th anniversary. Closely imitating the conversation depicted by Raphael in his most famous fresco in the Vatican from 1511, “The School of Athens,” Poldroos translated Raphael’s scholars of the ancient world into thirty-seven of the greatest students and professors across three and half centuries from Tartu University. This brief essay describes the relationship among the figures depicted in the painting to evoke the tension between two visions of Tartu University. On the one hand, Tartu University is an “imagined community,” bringing various strangers into conversation with one another across time and space, creating selves out of others. But it is also an “ivory tower of Babel,” creating others out of selves, isolating its students and scholars from one other and the wider world by its deep internal disciplinary and linguistic divides. In the silence of Universitas Tartuensis hovers the unanswered question: what common language could these scholars possibly be speaking to one another?