Jump to content Main menu Search Donate Create account Log in Contents hide (Top) Biography Bibliography Selected works Legacy See also References External links A. H. Tammsaare 39 languages Article Talk Read Edit View history Tools Appearance hide Text Small Standard Large Width Standard Wide Color Automatic Light Dark From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "Tammsaare" redirects here. For the village in Estonia, see Tammsaare, Võru County. show You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Estonian. (August 2018) Click [show] for important translation instructions. A. H. Tammsaare Born Anton Hansen 30 January 1878 Vetepere, Governorate of Estonia, Russian Empire Died 1 March 1940 (aged 62) Tallinn, Estonia Other name A. H. Tammsaare Alma mater University of Tartu Occupation Novelist Years active 1900–1940 Spouse Käthe-Amalie Veltman ​ ​(m. 1920)​ Children Riita Hansen Eerik Hansen Anton Hansen (18 (O.S.)/30 January 1878 – 1 March 1940), better known by his pseudonym A. H. Tammsaare and its variants, was an Estonian writer whose pentalogy Truth and Justice (Tõde ja õigus; 1926–1933) is considered one of the major works of Estonian literature and "The Estonian Novel".[1] Biographyedit Birthplace of A. H. Tammsaare Grave of A. H. Tammsaare at Tallinn's Forest Cemetery Tammsaare was born in Järva County, in the municipality of Albu, in the village of Vetepere, Estonia. The son of a farmer, he came from a poor background but managed to collect enough money for his education. His family was quite enlightened for the time, with his father ordering newspapers, which was something most Estonian farmers didn't do. He studied in Väike-Maarja and Tartu at the Hugo Treffner Gymnasium, and afterward at the University of Tartu where he studied law. Tammsaare's studies were interrupted by tuberculosis in 1911. He spent over a year in a sanatorium in Sochi – where his museum house is open to the public – and the following six years in his brother's farm in Koitjärve, Estonia (now part of the Põhja-Kõrvemaa Nature Reserve), reading works of Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Homer. His younger sister, Maria Hansen, was the mother of Tammsaare's nephew, actor Arno Suurorg. In 1918, when Estonia became independent, Tammsaare moved to Tallinn. It was here that Tammsaare wrote prose works based on the history and lives of the Estonian people that gained him a prominent place in Estonian literature. Tammsaare was interested in philosophy and psychology. His novels reflect the ideas of Bergson, Jung and Freud. He was, however, skeptical about cosmopolitanism. "European culture" he wrote, "is something to be overcome if one wishes to see the triumph of love, justice, and humanity spoken of so glibly". Like Carl Robert Jakobson and Jaan Tõnisson's Tartu Renaissance group, he believed that Estonian culture was best served by farmers and intellectuals from rural backgrounds. His work was influenced at various stages by Oscar Wilde, Knut Hamsun and André Gide, while also the Russian realists. "In the whole of world literature," said Tammsaare, I have never read anything to compare to the Russians... there is no one to compare to Tolstoy, Dostoevsky or Gogol"... Dostoevsky "really disturbed me: I lived in a waking dream under his influence. I was especially gripped by Crime and Punishment.[1] Bibliographyedit Tammsaare's early works are characterized by rural "poetic" realism. Some of his stories also reflect the atmosphere of the revolutionary year of 1905. During what is sometimes classified as his second period, from 1908 to 1919, he wrote several short urban novels and collections of miniatures. In "Poiss ja liblikas" (1915, The Boy and the Butterfly), Tammsaare shows the influence of Oscar Wilde. Internationally best known is his last novel, Devil with a False Passport ("Põrgupõhja uus Vanapagan"). Truth and Justice comprises five volumes, which have no individual titles (some were added in translation). Since vol. 3 contains a description about the Russian Revolution of 1905, which is not informed by ideology but by an existential attention to individual suffering, it was often combined with vol. 2 by Soviet censorship. Even today, the third volume is sometimes called "artistically inferior", although the description of the revolution is on par with similar scenes in Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. In Estonia, the second volume, with its Tartu educational scenes, is today probably the most enjoyed. International critics would probably opt for vol. 1 as the strongest overall; it is a classical peasant novel reminiscent of Hamsun which is also generally held to be the most telling one about "the Estonian character", embodied especially in two antagonistic farmer figures Andres and Pearu. Tammsaare himself said later that the different volumes deal with the relation of Man (i.e., the human person) to (1) the land, (2) God, (3) State and society, (4) him- or herself and (5) resignation. Truth and Justice was not translated into English until 2014, when Haute Culture Books published the first volume of the saga under the name "Andres and Pearu". There are two complete translations into German and one each into French, Latvian, and Czech. Volume 1 has also been translated into Finnish, Polish, and Hungarian (with the title, Orcád verítékével). A new English translation is in progress with Vagabond Voices who have published Volumes 1 to 4 to date. Selected worksedit 1902: Kaks paari ja üksainus (Two Pairs and the ONly One) 1903: Vanad ja noored (Old Ones and Young Ones) 1907: Raha-auk (The Money-Hole) 1907: Uurimisel (Be in Prospect) 1908: Pikad sammud (Long Steps) 1909: Noored hinged (Young Spirits) 1910: Üle piiri (Over the Border) 1915: Kärbes (The Fly) 1915: Keelest ja luulest (About Language and Poetry) 1915: Poiss ja liblikas (The Boy and the Butterfly) 1917: Varjundid (The Shapes of the Shadows) 1919: Sõjamõtted (Thoughts of War) 1921: Juudit (Judith) 1922: Kõrboja peremees (The Master of Kõrboja) 1923: Pöialpoiss (Tom Thumb) 1924: Sic Transit 1926–1933: Tõde ja õigus I–V (Truth and Justice, vols. 1–5) 1932: Meie rebane (Our Fox) 1934: Elu ja armastus (Life and Love) 1935: Ma armastasin sakslast (I Loved a German) 1936: Kuningal on külm (The King Is Cold) 1938: Hiina ja hiinlane (China and a Chinese) 1939: Põrgupõhja uus Vanapagan (The Misadventures of the New Satan / Devil with a False Passport; literally, The New Devil of Hellsbottom) 1977: Miniatures 1977–1993: Kogutud teosed, 18 vols. (Collected Works) Legacyedit Tammsaare's name was used for the Anton Tammsaare, an 84-meter (276 ft) Soviet fishing vessel commissioned in 1962.[2] The vessel attracted attention in 1976, when it was seized in the United States for illegal lobster fishing.[3][4] The ship was detained again in 1978 in the UK in connection with a collision in the North Sea.[5] See alsoedit Lydia Koidula Referencesedit Jump up to: A. H. Tammsaare. L. Siimisker, A. Palm. Eesti Raamat. Tallinn 1978. Pg. 64 "Anton Tammsaare IMO 6800842". BalticShipping.com. Retrieved 5 November 2025. "Soviet Skipper Faces U.S. Charges". The Blade. Toledo, OH. 11 March 1976. p. 2. Retrieved 5 November 2025 – via Newspapers.com. Montgomery, M. R. (15 March 1976). "Detente, Peoria and Lobster Romanov a Fine Bowl of Stew". The Boston Globe. Boston, MA. p. 10. Retrieved 5 November 2025 – via Newspapers.com. "Red Ship Held in Britain". Sunday Sun. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. 22 January 1978. p. 1. Retrieved 5 November 2025 – via Newspapers.com. External linksedit English Wikisource has original works by or about: Anton Hansen Tammsaare Who is A.H.Tammsaare? Tammsaare Museum in Kadriorg Fairy Tale by Anton Tammsaare, "The Nightingale and the King" Central bank website - shows the 25-Kroon banknote, with its depiction of Tammsaare and his farm show Authority control databases Categories: 1878 births1940 deathsPeople from Järva ParishPeople from the Governorate of EstoniaEstonian male novelists20th-century Estonian novelists20th-century Estonian male writersHugo Treffner Gymnasium alumniUniversity of Tartu alumniBurials at Metsakalmistu This page was last edited on 17 July 2026, at 13:44 (UTC). Page was rendered with Parsoid. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. 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