Andres Alver

Poems

Andres Alver (7 December 1869 – 24 January 1903) was a doctor, writer and poet.

Alver was born on Alvre farm in Tarvastu parish as the son of a farmer. He studied at Vooru village school, Tarvastu parish school, Valga county school, from 1887–1892 at the Hugo Treffner Gymnasium in Tartu, and then, until 1898, medicine at the University of Tartu. As a student, Alver became interested in Darwinism and socialism and became politically active early on. Together with Eduard Vilde, Jakob Tamm and Georg Eduard Luiga, he wrote contributions to radical publications. He was an active social figure. In the 1890s, he was a popular speaker at Tartu societies’ speech evenings.

After graduating from the university, he worked as an assistant at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Tartu from 1898–1900, and in 1900 he went on a study trip to Western Europe. Alver worked as county doctor in Valga from November 1900 until his death in 1903. While working in Valga, he completed his doctoral thesis, which he was unable to defend because he drowned in the Abuls river in the territory of present-day Latvia while performing his work duties. The poet Betti Alver (1906-1989) was his niece.

In the 1890s, Andres Alver published poems in the magazine Oma Maa and the weekly Olevik as well as popular scientific articles in the magazine Rahva Lõbu-leht and the collection Lõbu ja Teadus (‘Pleasure and Science’) I–II. In 1901-1903, he was a contributor to the newspaper Teataja. He translated poems by Heinrich Heine and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe from German, and his own poetry was strongly influenced by them. In 1898, Andres Alver’s poetry collection Võhumõõgad (‘Irises’) was published in Tartu. It also includes translations of Goethe’s and Heine’s poems. He has also written some unpublished plays.

L. P. (Translated by I. A.)

Books in Estonian

Poetry
Wõhumõõgad. Jurjev: K. Sööt, 1898. 60 lk.
Waidlemine. Heine järele A. Alwer. Viljandi: A. Peet, 1902. 16 lk.