Methis. Studia humaniora Estonica

Mustas meres pole pärleid / There are no Pearls in the Black Sea

Liina Siib — 2026-06-15

Mütoloogilised olendid vee all ja vee peal / Mythological Creatures under and above Water

Ott Heinapuu — 2026-06-15

Nõukoguliku avaliku diskursuse eripäradest 1940. lõpu ja 1950. aastate džässialaste kirjutiste näitel / Characteristics of Soviet Public Discourse: The Case of Jazz-Related Writings in the Late 1940s and 1950s

Heli Reimann — 2026-06-15

Teesid: Artikkel analüüsib nõukoguliku diskursuse eripärasid 1940. aastate lõpul ja 1950. aastatel Eesti ajakirjanduses ilmunud džässi käsitlevates tekstides. Fookuses on kuni 1953. aastani kestnud ideoloogilise jäikuse ja kultuurielu range kontrolliga iseloomustatav hilisstalinismi periood, mil džässi kujutati vaenulikku ideoloogiat esindava dekadentliku nähtusena. Muutused keelekasutuses leiavad aset seoses 1950. aastatel alguse saanud sulaga, kui džässi püütakse uutele tekkinud oludele vastavalt kohandada.

The article examines writings on jazz published in the Estonian press during the late Stalinist period, more particularly in the second half of the 1940s and the early 1950s. This was a period characterised by ideological rigidity and tightening of control over cultural life. At that time, a forceful anti-jazz rhetoric prevailed, reflecting the postwar Soviet authorities’ efforts, in the context of the Cold War, to distance themselves from the West and to assert their identity through their opposition to it.

Following Stalin’s death, a significant discursive shift occurred in jazz-related rhetoric. Anti-jazz polemics were gradually replaced by texts that sought to adapt jazz music to the Soviet cultural model under the ideologically relaxed conditions of the Khrushchev Thaw. Jazz was no longer approached primarily through political antagonism; instead, attempts were made to integrate it into the existing cultural institutions and discursive frameworks governing cultural life.

The article addresses the following questions: What linguistic strategies characterised the public jazz discourse in Estonia during the late Stalinist period, how were these strategies used to construct jazz, and how did this relate to the Cold-War-era anti-Western discourse? What discursive shifts occurred in the treatment of jazz at the beginning of the Khrushchev Thaw in the 1950s? How did jazz-related texts published in the Estonian press reflect all-Union ideological models?

The detailed analysis focuses on the article ‛On Contemporary American Jazz Music’, published by Valter Ojakäär in the weekly Sirp ja Vasar in 1949. In addition, the study examines sharply satirical and openly mocking anti-jazz texts published in the early 1950s. A key marker of changing attitudes toward jazz was Leonid Utyosov’s 1954 article, that was also published in Estonia, while jazz-related discussions published in the newspaper Edasi in the mid-1950s serve as examples of the transformed discourse.

This study is based on the premise that Soviet language functioned not merely as a means of communication but as an ideological technology of power through which Soviet reality was constructed, value judgments normalised, and collective consciousness shaped. Such language use was characterised by ritualisation, abstraction, an abundance of ideological clichés, and a strict binary opposition between good and evil, one’s own and the foreign.

One of the central linguistic strategies employed in these writings was animalisation of jazz. The music was attributed animalistic and inhuman characteristics and associated with uncontrolled noises and instinctive behaviour. Through such vocabulary, jazz was removed from the sphere of conscious and cultured artistic creation and positioned as a hostile and primitive phenomenon.

Attacks on jazz were closely intertwined with anti-capitalist rhetoric. This is particularly evident in Valter Ojakäär’s 1949 article, where jazz is portrayed as ‛barbaric entertainment’ and an expression of a ‛degenerate mentality’ within American society. Music was evaluated not according to aesthetic criteria but through moral and ideological ones, with profit and monetary value serving as the primary measures by which music was judged. The article also highlights the Soviet discourse’s tendency toward semantic flattening of ambiguity. Irony, humour, and parody were either ignored or deliberately misinterpreted in order to neutralise their polysemic potential. In Ojakäär’s writing, titles of jazz compositions and band names are ridiculed, with humorous wordplay interpreted literally and subjected to ideologically motivated readings. This ‛wooden-language’ interpretive practice demonstrates the system’s inability – or unwillingness – to perceive the ambivalence inherent in artistic expression.

Finally, the article emphasises the role of emotions in Soviet discourse. Anti-jazz texts employed strategies of evoking fear and revulsion in order to shape negative attitudes toward the West and the United States. Through emotionally regimented discourse, ideologically sanctioned feelings were reinforced, guiding readers to perceive jazz as the sonic embodiment of a hostile world.

Keha ja kehalisuse kujutamine Eduard von Keyserlingi romaani „Lained“ naistegelaste näitel / Representation of the Body and Corporeality on the Example of Female Characters in Eduard von Keyserling’s Novel Waves

Kateriina Rannula — 2026-06-15

Teesid: Artikkel käsitleb keha ja kehalisuse kujutamist Eduard von Keyserlingi romaanis „Lained“, keskendudes peategelase Doralice’i kogemustele. Analüüs näitab, kuidas naise keha kirjeldamise kaudu väljendatakse identiteedikriisi, liminaalsust ja ühiskondlike normidega konfliktis olemist. Tuginedes fenomenoloogiale ja feministlikule teooriale, tõlgendatakse kehalisust nii enesetaju kui ka sotsiaalse surve väljendusena. Artikkel eristab kehalisuse kujutamise kolme funktsiooni. Alustatakse meeleseisundite kehaliste väljenduste väljatoomisest, liigutakse liminaalsuse kujutamise juurde ning lõpetatakse loodusega ühtesulamise igatsuse kirjeldamisega.

Eduard von Keyserling (1855–1918), a Baltic German writer originating from Latvia, is regarded as an outstanding representative of German literary impressionism and landscape prose. His works reflected the rapidly changing social reality and spirit of the age and were praised by contemporary German authors. In Estonia, the reception of his works was also positive during his lifetime. Although attitudes towards Baltic German culture among Estonian intellectuals were often reserved at the beginning of the 20th century, Keyserling’s works were translated into Estonian and widely appreciated. This article examines the representation of the body and corporeality in his novel Waves (Wellen, 1911), focusing on the experiences of the protagonist, Doralice.

The analysis demonstrates how descriptions of the female body are used to express identity crisis, liminality, and conflict with social norms. Drawing on phenomenology and feminist theory, corporeality is interpreted as an expression of both self-perception and social pressure. The article identifies three distinct functions of corporeality along a continuum extending from the human to the natural world. It begins by examining bodily expressions of mental states, proceeds to representations of liminality, and concludes with an exploration of the longing for fusion with nature.

Nature occupies a central position in the novel, acting as a continuation of the human body. Life unfolds in waves, and corporeality expresses not only emotions but also the individuals’ place within the surrounding environment and the constraints imposed on them by status and gender. Like the sea that governs the life in the fishing village that serves as the setting, waves shape the lives of the novel’s characters, driving them from fixed states into motion and disrupting established customs and social norms. As in many of his other works, Keyserling uses the protagonist’s experiences to depict the values and social atmosphere of the Baltic German nobility in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The novel is characterised by multilayered symbolism and nuanced psychological portrayal. It presents Doralice’s corporeality as an expression of her aspiration to understand herself and establish for herself a place in society independent of the role assigned to her by her husband. Through Doralice’s body, Keyserling depicts the spiritual atmosphere and social reality of the era. Doralice’s corporeality functions not only as a reflection of her inner experience but also as a means of challenging the social expectations imposed upon her. Through bodily movement and perception, she negotiates the boundaries of the role assigned to her by society. The body functions on several levels in the novel: beyond expressing mental states, it also serves as a metaphorical device and a marker of liminality.

The lives of the Baltic German aristocracy at the turn of the 20th century were characterised by an effort to preserve long-established customs and social structures and to avoid external influences that might disrupt the framework that had endured for centuries. By voluntarily stepping outside this secure framework, Doralice enters a new and uncertain existence. Yet rather than bringing peace of mind or a sense of belonging, this transition leaves her in a liminal space marked by nostalgia and anticipation. The inability to embrace transition gives rise to the characters’ ambivalence and melancholy towards both their present circumstances as well as the past and the future. They are unable to endure the present, yet no clear escape or alternative way of life appears possible.

Liberation from existing conventions represents a vision of the future for Doralice; however, society ultimately fails to support her. Her liminal condition is portrayed as simultaneously expansive and confining: the surrounding social order is experienced as unbearable, yet abandoning it entirely proves equally impossible. This tension extends to the relationship between mind, body, and nature. Encounters with nature transcend bodily perception, yet fusion with nature remains ambivalent, as the crossing of boundaries is accompanied by a fear that is both alluring and unsettling. Like the waves that continuously reshape the shoreline, Doralice is displaced from fixed identities and social positions, remaining in a state of perpetual transition. Doralice’s liminal condition may also be read in a broader historical context. Like Doralice, whose past persistently returned and whose existence was marked by recurring memories, Baltic Germans themselves experienced an enduring sense of liminality in relation to body, space, and time. A few decades later, in 1939, many stood in Baltic harbours awaiting ships that would carry them to territories under German control as part of the Heim ins Reich resettlement programme, leaving behind the lands their families had inhabited for generations and a world that was rapidly disappearing. Resettlement became a transformative storm that could be neither resisted nor controlled, sweeping both individuals and their historical era into the unknown.

Laev kui tehnika. Maailma tunnetamine laeva juhtimise kaudu / Ship as Technics: Cognising the World via Operating a Ship

Ave Mets — 2026-06-15

Teesid: Laev ja tema juhtimine (navigeerimine) on tehniliselt keerulised ja mitmetahulised, toimides üpris keerulises keskkonnas, kus neile mõjuvad paljud tegurid. Neid hoomama ja valdama õppimine on pikaajaline protsess. Laevajuht peab laeva kui kompleksse tehnika kaudu õppima tunnetama teda mõjutavat maailma ja selles õigesti toimima. Ameerika tehnikafilosoofi Don Ihde käsitluses on tehnoloogia loodud suhteid inimese ja maailma vahel nelja sorti: kehastus, tõlgendus, teisesus ja taust. Analüüsin laeva põhjalikumalt nende suhtetüüpide raamistikus. Ühtlasi toon esile kitsaskohti Ihde skeemis.

A vessel and operating it are complex, multifarious technics subject to multiple factors from the rather complex environment that they inhabit. Learning to cognise and master those technics is a long process. The ship operator, as a beginner, has to learn to perceive and comprehend the world affecting the vessel and to operate the vessel correctly as a response to influences from the world. At first, the aspiring navigator may not discern the various affects of the environment to the ship from one another and from those of their own actions with the control mechanisms. The relation that arises between the operator, the ship’s control mechanisms, the ship, and the environment, remains enigmatic. I analyse those relations in terms of Don Ihde’s phenomenology of technics: types of relations that he has discerned between human, technics and the world. I indicate some shortcomings in Ihde’s schema and the real imbroglio of the relationships in actual situations.

The American philosopher of technology Don Ihde has conceived four types of relations that technics creates between humans and the world: embodiment, hermeneutics, alterity, and background. In embodiment relations, the human embodies, as it were, the technics that mediates the world to them, and the technics amends or enhances human capabilities. Examples are glasses that help vision and the hammer that helps hammering nails, whereby the technics themselves withdraw – they, ideally, are not perceived, while their user’s attention is on the world they mediate. In hermeneutic relations, technics is the focus of attention and perception, but it refers to the world outside it, conveying it in a specified manner. Such are thermometers, charts and texts: we gain information about the world with their aid. In alterity, technology is again in focus, but without referring to anything outside it – it is the destination of human interaction. Such are, for instance, computer games and idols. In background relations, technology is a mere background to human doings, like junk or light.

Ihde has an example of a vehicle as embodiment technics (creating embodiment relation) through which the driver perceives the world. Could such an approach also hold good in case of a watercraft? He mentions three kinds of perception that a vehicle enables or creates that I call environment perception, path perception and dimensional perception. What diverges most from land vehicles in case of vessels may be path perception: for watercrafts, the path or way (fairway) is not always clearly defined but has to be practised visually; the surface of the path – waves – must be taken into account for the particular ship (and sometimes this will prohibit sailing); in addition, ships’ path has depth, as they themselves have draught and underwater shape, and this relation between the ship and water considerably affects its operation. Also environment and its perception are more important and complicated than on land, since the wind greatly affects the ship’s movement.

Another distinction that must be made in Ihde’s category of embodiment relation that he does not expand on is that between manipulational embodiment and perceptual embodiment. The former concerns tools that are explicitly meant for bringing about changes in what is external to the tool’s user. A ship, just like a land vehicle, is such a tool: it is meant for carrying people and things across water. As such, it is subjected to rules and laws that regulate the above aspects (environment, path, dimensions) and their operation.

Ihde’s example of a control mechanism links a vessel to hermeneutic technics: moving a gear stick forward or backward should make the boat move forward or backward correspondingly. Also many other examples related to navigation that he gives elsewhere can be thus interpreted, as can other control mechanisms on a vessel, such as the helm (rudder). A ship’s bridge itself is full of technics that provide its operator with information both about the ship as well as its environment: the state of the engines, rudder angle, gear, course, rate of turn, speed, location (navigational chart), depth, wind. Those help the first type of relation that was observed between the navigator and the world: perceiving the world by means of the ship as embodiment technics. Also hermeneutic technics outside the ship, especially navigational aids, serve this type of relation, specifically the path perception.

A beginner has an alterity relation to the ship as they get to know it, but not without reference to the outside world as the environment in which the ship moves and that provides reference to this movement. The ship as a background is a wreck, a dwelling place, or residual ghost undulation perception.

Vesiveskis(t) kirjutatud. Mölder Märt Siipsen reaalse ja kujuteldava vee piiril / Written in/about the Watermill: Märt Siipsen on the Border Between Real and Imaginary Water

Katre Kikas — 2026-06-15

Teesid: Artikkel käsitleb vett mölder Märt Siipseni kirjalikus pärandis. Vaatluse alla tulevad veega seotud ideed ja kujutelmad eri žanrides – luuletustes, arutlustes, päevikutes jms. Artikli keskmes on küsimus vesiveski möldri ja tema kirjutiste ambivalentsest asendist kohalikus veekultuuris. Näeme, kuidas Siipseni kujutatav vesi on kohati väga reaalne ning argielu mõjutav, teisalt aga poeetiline ning kujuteldav; kronoloogilises plaanis toimub liikumine vesiveskimöldri spetsiifilise kogemuse talletamiselt vee üldinimlike tähendustega seotud kirjutistele.

This paper focuses on a ‘water culture’ formed around a tiny watermill in Rõuge Parish in South Estonia at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. The Oina watermill was bought by Märt Siipsen in 1883 and he ran it with his family until his death in 1917. Besides being a miller, Siipsen was also a vernacular writer – his personal archive stems from the period 1872–1917 and contains an array of different genres: poems, diaries, account books, religious contemplations, short stories, etc.

Many of these writings touch upon the topic of water – we can discern six different topics revolving around water in his texts: 1) water and the local identity (poems and stories); 2) folkloric water (poems and essays); 3) water in natural sciences (poems and essays); 4) water as a metaphor for interpreting human life (poems, religious contemplations); 5) fears connected with water (poems, life writing); 6) water as a source of livelihood (practical everyday records and life writing). All these topics reflect, and bring out, Siipsen’s previous exposure to different layers of water culture visible in his contemporary culture – although he often uses folklore and folk knowledge, his writing choices hint at knowledge about genres and ways of thinking that were prevalent in newspapers and other modern media – romantic nature poetry, modern scientific worldview, etc.

The most prevalent of the topics is the last one, evident in Siipsen’s writings dedicated to documenting and interpreting the life around himself and his watermill. His attitude towards the watermill as his family’s main source of living could be explained with the help of the notion of conviviality, used by Michael Given to distinguish between different types of watermills. At the one end of the conviviality spectrum are local community-centred watermills that aspire towards sustainability and try to balance the needs of different human and non-human actors. At the other end of the spectrum are colonial watermills run in a top-down manner that ignore the needs of local communities. Given stresses that conviviality is always precarious – the balance between the human and the non-human, or between different parts of the community is never final, and thus a constant (re)adapting needs to be taking place. Siipsen’s relationship with his mill fits into the constant search for the convivial balance – he does not want to become rich, but just to lead a decent life. However, the latter would depend on various factors: the local harvest (if it was bad there was nothing for the mill to grind), relations inside the community (there were quite a few mills in vicinity, so good relations brought in more work), rains (the mill was situated on so small a river that it could be operated only if there were rains). In some years those factors were all met, yet at other times some were not.

In Siipsens’s writings water occurs in two different modalities which both are meaningful through the relationship (and so have power to create water cultures). Firstly, he writes about real water, i.e. the water that has power to run the watermill, that flows in the rivers and rains from the clouds. This water – as depicted in his writings – is important for himself and constitutes part of his experience as a miller. Secondly, he writes about imaginary water – the water that helps to create poetic descriptions of the finality of human life. This kind of water is not connected with his experience as a miller in his writings, while the poetic devices are meant to be understood by readers in general.

Merest eesti lasteproosas / The Sea in Estonian Children’s Fiction

Jaanika Palm — 2026-06-15

Teesid: Eesti on kahest küljest ümbritsetud merega ning see lähedus on mõjutanud nii siinset elulaadi kui ka kujutlusmaailma. Ometi ei ole mereteemat meie lastekirjanduses seni süsteemselt uuritud. Käesoleva artikli eesmärk on alustada selle lünga täitmist, kaardistades merd kujutavat lasteproosat. Käsitlen näiteid mere kajastamisest meie laste- ja noorteproosas alates Jüri Parijõe jutust „Sadamas“ (kogus „Tsemendivabrik“, 1926) kuni praeguseni. Lähtun liigituses peamise mere kujutamise viisist ning uurin, milliseid väärtusi, hoiakuid ja kultuurilisi tähendusi kannab meri lastele suunatud tekstides.

In Estonia, the sea’s vicinity has been influencing both the people’s way of life and their imagination. Nevertheless, marine topics in our children’s literature have not yet found a systematic treatment. The article attempts to fill this gap and map sea-themed Estonian prose fiction meant for children. It discusses several vivid examples of such literature starting from 1926, when the earliest of such texts known to the author appeared, up till now. The main factor in systematising the texts observed is the mode of representation which has either a realistic or a fantastic dominant. The article also discusses the values, attitudes and cultural meanings conveyed by the sea in texts addressed to Estonian children.

In Estonian children’s literature, the sea emerges as an important ecological and symbolic environment. It may serve as a space for adventure, a source of danger, a border zone or a link between persons, species and cultures, appearing as a multilayered space whose representations are influenced by the political and economic circumstances in the country as well as by cultural attitudes. The sea has been personified or employed as a meaningful backdrop or an agential actor. Distinct types of children’s literature concerning the sea include pirate narratives and holiday stories.

The realist tradition connects the sea mostly with work and everyday life, while its accessibility depends on the social and political factors. As a distinct subcategory, tales of the sea as a habitat focus on the world of fishes and sea birds, moving from the initial anthropocentric science-dominated angle towards depicting other species as agential and individualised beings. In the stories of animals on ships the vessel functions as a mobile microworld and the sea shapes the perceptual environment of both people and animals. Works with an environmentalist slant focus on the vulnerability of the Baltic Sea, human responsibility, and interspecies care, linking fictional narrative with scholarly knowledge.

The stories of sailors depict the sea as a space where openness and unboundedness intermingle with the physical restrictions of the life on board; growing to be a sailor requires knowledge as well as experience. Several works involve children’s first experiences of the everyday sea revealed as a liminal and transformative space that will shape the child’s identity and sense of the world, and appearing as simultaneously fascinating and frightening.

In fantastic fiction the sea often involves imaginative changes and implies unboundedness. It can appear as a playful environment where reality and imagination merge, be a grotesque upside-down space of adventures, or work to stimulate a child’s imagination. In fantastic tales, the sea predominantly functions as a force that expands the narrative space and allows playing with scale, meaning and experience; it offers the characters opportunities of experimenting with agency, power, responsibility and imagination. It is an active element that changes the characters’ world and creates opportunities for adventure and imaginative self-re-creation.

In earlier times it was mostly men who wrote for children about the sea, while the tales depicted mostly boys or men. In the second half of the 20th century, also women’s point of view became more visible as more women started exploring themes related to the sea; in the 21st century there seems to be a gender balance among the authors. The writer who has addressed the most varied sea topics in the greatest number of works is Aino Pervik who employed devices from both realistic and fantastical modes and introduced several iconic female characters into sea fiction for children. Authors writing about the sea have often come from seaside regions or settled there or else are linked to the sea by their occupation. Still, also writers who have led their lives further from the seashore may hear the call of the sea. A particularly welcome phenomenon is the willingness of natural scientists to share their knowledge in fictional form addressed to children.

If earlier books mostly approached the sea from anthropocentric and pragmatic standpoints, the 21st century has seen a stronger emphasis on environmental topics. On the one hand, this is caused by increasing environmental awareness and the felt necessity of sharing the relevant knowledge with readers from an early age; on the other hand, the situation of the Baltic Sea is becoming ever more critical. The children’s books speaking of the environmental crisis take into account the audience’s receptive nature and potential vulnerability: the characters act to improve the situation no matter how problematic it actually is, thus inspiring courage also in the young readers.

Naise ja jõe suhted Leida Kibuvitsa romaanis „Soomustüdruk“ / A Woman’s Riverine Relations in Leida Kibuvits’s Novel Armoured Girl

Elle-Mari Talivee — 2026-06-15

Teesid: Artiklis küsin, kuidas Leida Kibuvits on romaanis „Soomustüdruk“ mõtestanud vee ja veekogu sidemeid inimestega, jõe kuulumist loomuliku osisena peategelase igapäevaellu, aga ka küündimist millegi enamani. Romaani ei ole varem käsitletud kui keskkonnasuhteid avavat, saati veel sinihumanitaariale huvi pakkuvat teksti. Teose loodud jõemaailma tugeva visuaalse mõõtme esiletoomiseks osutan valikule kirjutamisajaga haakuvatele kunstiteostele. Lühidalt võrdlen romaani ka Olev Remsu Supilinna-triloogiaga nooruki ja jõe suhetest. Teoreetiliste lähtekohtadena toetun peamiselt Astrida Neimanise ja John Ryani kirjutistele.

The year 1932 saw the publication of Armoured Girl, the first novel of Leida Kibuvits, one of the most prolific and interesting Estonian woman authors in the 1930s. In an expanded and reworked form, the novel was re-issued in 1957. Armoured Girl explores the roles of water and the Emajõgi River, as well as their connections with people, in the city of Tartu at the beginning of the 20th century. On the one hand the Emajõgi River is described as being part and parcel of the protagonists’s daily life as its natural component, yet on the other hand it is made considerably larger than a part of urban space is usually allowed to be. The main character Loona Tuisk grows up in a riverside slum that is continuously being affected by the river to a lesser or greater extent. Armoured Girl is a Bildungsroman that depicts the evolving of a young woman starting from birth until she reaches her mid-twenties and has direct biographical correspondences with the author’s life. The article also provides a brief comparison of the novel with the relations between the river and a young boy depicted in an autobiographical trilogy by Olev Remsu that is set in the run-down Supilinn neighbourhood approximately half a century later.

Kibuvits’s protagonist is engaged in artistic creativity, she studies at art school, and the novel is characterised by a distinct visually loaded language that partly appears in authorial speech and partly in character speech. As an artist, Loona Tuisk has a heightened awareness of the beauty of the river, she observes it changing throughout the year and attempts to mediate its various facets. To emphasise this quality, a selection of artworks depicting the Emajõgi, some of whose authors also were in touch with the writer, is mentioned in the article. Armoured Girl is also characterised by imagery tightly linked with water: throughout Kibuvits’s novel playful usage of water-related concepts and metaphors can be found, starting from the main character’s surname Tuisk, meaning ‘blizzard’ and denoting a powerful and thus insubordinate phenomenon connected with a state of water. In Estonian, also the title is polysemous, as it can also mean ‘a girl with scales’.

As a theoretical framework, the article mostly draws on the ideas of the cultural theoretician and phenomenologist Astrida Neimanis and the proponent of environmental humanities John Ryan. Neimanis has depicted the coastline as a specific type of membrane and borrowed the concept of ‘ecoton’ from ecology, that, for her, is the embodiment of an especially fertile and creative territory that is constantly changing and transforming itself. Living by the river has a direct influence on Loona who is shaped and inspired by its multispecies environment. To study the creative agency of bodies of water, Ryan suggested the concept of ‘hydropoetics’, a kind of river-centred thinking that blurs the boundaries between humans on the fast land and the wet non-human environment, interprets the river as a local being and looks for possible interminglings, contacts and elements in common that would help humans to think with the water. Loona feels a connection to the river and occasionally partly identifies with it: for instance, disruptive changes of its environment are reflected in her feelings. In the novel, several attempts are made forcibly to shape Loona Tuisk as a girl, a woman and an artist, yet she is not the only one to be submitted to control – also the river is being transformed into a canal. The boundaries between water and culture are not represented as rigid in the novel; rather, they have been deliberately blurred. On many occasions Loona’s thoughts are forwarded as if she were thinking together with the river. This sense is based on a many-faceted unmediated close contact: there are active ties with the neighbourhood immediately affected by the river, and vice versa, both aesthetic and sensory contacts with it are important in daily activities. In addition, the novel depicts various sensory experiences connected with water as such.

There are no earlier treatments of the novel as a work revealing environmental relationships and it did not used to be seen as a text that might be of interest to the blue humanities. Kibuvits’s novel holds a salient place in Estonian literature as it has in its focus the telling of the tale of a body of water, while using and reviving relevant vocabulary.