Eduard Krants
About Eduard Krants
Eduard Krants (real name Endel Pae, 24 August 1926 – 6 September 2005) was a literator and poet.
Krants was born as a farmer’s son in Ohtu village, Keila parish, Harju County. He attended primary school at Ohtu and secondary school in Tallinn for a few years. In 1944, Krants was drafted into the German army and taken to Germany. After the end of the war, he left Germany for Sweden with the help of Professor Andrus Saareste who used him as a language informant while compiling the conceptual dictionary of the Estonian language (Eesti keele mõisteline sõnaraamat). From Sweden, Krants moved on to Canada.
In 1967, Eduard Krants published the poetry collection Tungalterad (‘Ergots’) and in 1970 the poetry collection Lumeliitlased (‘Snow Allies’); both were issued in Toronto. In 2001, the summary collection Käib suveööl koiduni tants (‘Dance is Going on till Dawn on Summer Night’) was published in Estonia. The collection includes poems from the first two collections and later poems from the press and manuscripts. Krants was the first Estonian poet to write epitaph poems grouped into thematically unified series. He started with the series Kaseristid (‘Birch Crosses’) in the journal Tulimuld in 1954. This cycle is characterised by the soldier theme. These are not nationally romantic or grandiloquent heroic songs but harshly realistic, yet poetic images of the war.
The author has also written contemplative poetry, sarcastic defiance and protest, ironic social criticism and lyrical love poems free of illusions. Eduard Krants has poems that depict rural and farm life amid the cycle of seasons. He has also written a few prose poems. Krants’s poems have been published in the influential anthology of Estonian poetry Sõnarine compiled by Karl Muru, as well as in the anthology Eesti ballaad (‘Estonian Ballad’) compiled by Arne Merilai.
Krants was active as a book critic from the 1960s. He mostly reviewed books published in Estonia.
Eduard Krants was a member of the Estonian PEN club and, under the name of Endel Pae, a member of the Estonian Writers’ Union.
L. P. (Translated by I. A.)
Books in Estonian
Poetry
Tungalterad: esimene kogu luuletusi. Toronto: LIBRA, 1967. 78 lk.
Lumeliitlased. Toronto: Mana, 1970. 62 lk.
Käib suveööl koiduni tants. Tallinn: Virgela, 2001. 139 lk.
