Onu Bella

Onu Bella (‘Uncle Bella’, real name Igor Maasik, until 1989 Maksimov; 19 September 1961 – 1 May 2018) was a musician, entertainer and writer.

Onu Bella was born and attended school in Tartu, graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Chemistry at Tartu State University. He held various jobs being a teacher, a chemical engineer and a laboratory technician at a veterinary clinic. Onu Bella became more widely known in the late 1980s as a musician and entertainer with his band Onu Bella ja Öörahu. This was followed by stardom as a solo artist on the Estonian music scene of the 1990s. He gained great popularity with his extraordinary, sometimes shockingly outspoken and prankish lyrics for cover versions of well-known Western pop songs. Some of them, such as Ma võtsin viina (‘I Got Drunk on Vodka’), became tokens of his era. Bella as a trickster phenomenon in the entertainment world of his time is depicted in the Estonian Drama Theatre’s production Onu Bella tähestik (‘Onu Bella’s Alphabet’, directed by Kertu Moppel), which premiered in 2023. Onu Bella was a member of the Estonian Writers’ Union from 2015 until his death.

In literature, Onu Bella uses the same device — building his own piece on a well-known work of literature. For example, travel impressions frame the story of personal development and the era in Dekameron (‘The Decameron’, 2012). Mõned hallid varjundid (‘Some Shades of Gray’, 2013), referring to the erotic bestseller of the time, contains short stories with various references and allusions. A painfully honest insight into the story of a disease is offered by Tappa prostatavähk (‘Kill the Prostate Cancer’, 2017), which refers to Quentin Tarantino’s film dilogy Kill Bill.

With his encyclopaedic knowledge of pop and rock music, Onu Bella hosted radio shows on various radio stations.

A. K. (Translated by I. A.)

Books in Estonian

Miscellaneous
Ma võtsin viina. Tallinn: Menu Kirjastus, 2010, 224 lk
Koduperemehe nipiraamat. Tallinn: Menu Kirjastus, 2011, 223 lk
Dekameron. Tallinn: Menu Kirjastus, 2012, 159 lk
Mõned hallid varjundid. Tallinn: Pegasus, 2013, 200 lk
Keemia diskreetne võlu. Tallinn: Pegasus, 2014, 190 lk
Tappa prostatavähk. Tallinn: Ema&Isa, 2017