Virumaa kooliopetajast koduloolane August Martin ja Kaukaasia eestlased

• Authors: Jurgenson Aivar

Title variants

EN

AUGUST MARTIN, A SCHOOLTEACHER FROM VIRUMAA, AND CAUCASIAN ESTONIANS

• Languages of publication: ET

Abstracts

EN

The article discusses the activities of August Martin in the Caucasus, where he organised cultural life in Estonian settlers’ society, strengthening their ties with the motherland Estonia and organising a correspondents’ network to collect folklore and write down memories in their villages. August Martin, born in 1893 in Virumaa, Estonia, was a schoolteacher who spent almost all his long life (died in 1982) in his home county, but worked for six years (1915–1921) as schoolteacher in Abkhazia, in Upper Linda village, which had been established by agrarian settlers from Estonia. In the 1880s, a number of Estonian villages were founded in Abkhazia: Estonia, Upper and Lower Linda, Salme, and Sulevi. Estonians also lived in Sukhum, the administrative centre of the region and later the capital of Abkhazia. Martin arrived in Abkhazia in 1915, after he had been prohibited to work as a schoolteacher in Estonia for political reasons. As an active person, Martin organised the cultural and economic life of Estonians in Upper Linda village and Sukhum. Beginning in 1916, he was a member of the board of the Estonian Economic Society of Sukhum, as well as the chairman of the Education Society of Upper Linda. In 1917 he was elected the chairman of the council of the Estonian settlements in South Caucasus. In addition to leadership positions in Estonian organisations, in 1919–21 August Martin was elected to the Abkhazian parliament. As an Estonian nationalist, he welcomed with great sympathy the Abkhaz nationalists’ demands for independence. Because of his pro-Abkhazian thoughts and activities in Abkhazia, which since the summer of 1918 had been occupied by Georgian militants, August Martin found like-minded people among Abkhaz nationalists, but fierce opponents among Georgian Mensheviks, who formed the parliamentary majority. After the Bolsheviks had come to power in Abkhazia in 1921, August Martin re-migrated to Estonia with his family. Because of the closure of the borders between Soviet Russia and the Republic of Estonia contacts with the Caucasian Estonians were almost broken off. Martin began to visit Abkhazia again in the late 1950s; he warmed up relationships with old acquaintances from the Abkhazian Estonian society and encouraged them to write down memories and histories of their villages.

Keywords

EN

Caucasian Estonians; collection of folklore and cultural history; Estonian eastern diaspora; migration

• Publisher: Folk Belief and Media Group of the Estonian Literary Museum, Estonian Institute of Folklore, EKM Teaduskirjastus
• Journal: Mäetagused
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 66
• Pages: 33-50

Contributors

author

Jurgenson Aivar

• Institute of History, Archaeology and Art History, School of Humanities, Tallinn University, Narva mnt 29, 10120 Tallinn, ESTONIA