{"id":1744,"date":"2024-04-03T23:41:51","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T20:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/gutslaff\/"},"modified":"2024-04-04T00:06:23","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T21:06:23","slug":"gutslaff","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/g\/gutslaff\/","title":{"rendered":"Johannes Gutslaff"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNon-fiction<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tPoems<\/span><\/strong><\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tJohannes Gutslaff (? \u2013 1657) was a prelate of German origin, a scholar of the Estonian language, a Bible translator and collector of folklore.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tJohannes Gutslaff came from Daber county in Pomerania (now Dobra, \u0141obez county, Poland). He attended schools in Daber and Stettin, from 1632 the University of Greifswald and from 1634 the University of Leipzig. In 1639 he came to Estonia and entered the Faculty of Theology at the University of Tartu, where he also intensively studied the South Estonian language. From 1641 to 1656 he was pastor of Urvaste, where he produced all his writing. In 1656, because of the war between Russia and Sweden, he fled with his family to Tallinn, where he died of the plague the following year.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tGutslaff\u2019s writing and translating work proceeded in the relative isolation of Urvaste away from other scholars of the Estonian language in Estonia and Livonia. He compiled the first grammar of South Estonian, Observationes grammaticae circa linguam esthonicam<\/em> (Tartu, 1648), which contained a vocabulary of 1700 words. This was the second Estonian grammar, after Heinrich Stahl\u2019s volume on North Estonian. In his grammar and his Bible translation, Gutslaff did not follow Stahl\u2019s grammar, the authority at the time, but created his own comparatively creative system, much closer to the spoken language than Stahl\u2019s.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tGutslaff set as his aim to translate the whole Bible into Estonian (more specifically South Estonian) single-handedly, and to do it from the original languages. How far he got with the translation of the Old Testament is not exactly known. What is preserved today is the manuscript in translation as far as the First Book of Kings (which comprises about a third of the Old Testament). From indirect evidence, the translation extended as far as the Book of Jeremiah. As recently as 2006 a translation of the New Testament into South Estonian was discovered, the author of which, according to preliminary linguistic and translation analysis, was Gutslaff. The first translation of the complete Bible (into North Estonian) only appeared in 1739, the result of the work of a large group of translators under Anton Thor Helle.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe book Kurtzer Bericht vnd Vnterricht Von der Falsch-heilig genandten B\u00e4che in Lieffland W\u00f6hhanda<\/em> (\u2018Short Report and Lesson on the V\u00f5handu River, Wrongly Regarded as Holy in Livonia\u2019, 1644) was written by Gutslaff, based on his observations as pastor of Urvaste. Despite the title, this book contains over 400 pages of information on the contemporary history of South Estonia, and particularly on folk customs. Kurtzer Bericht<\/em> thoroughly describes the beliefs of Estonians associated with the V\u00f5handu river. Contemporary Estonians regarded the V\u00f5handu river as the abode of the Thunder-god, and according to Gutslaff, sacrificed animals and even children to it. Gutslaff describes how peasants burned down a water-mill which their landlord allowed to be built by the river. Kurtzer Bericht<\/em> contains the Estonian text of a \u201cThunder prayer\u201d, heard from the peasant Vihtla J\u00fcrgen of Erastvere, known as the \u201cthunder-priest\u201d, which was recited at the sacrifice of a bull, and which is the oldest transcription of a thunder prayer in the Estonian area. On the basis of Vihtla J\u00fcrgen\u2019s prayer, the Estonian composer Veljo Tormis created the work Pikse litaania<\/em> (\u2018Thunder Litany\u2019) for male choir and large drum (1974), with text adapted by Ain Kaalep. Kurtzer Bericht<\/em> is likewise a valuable document about contemporary weather conditions in southern Estonia.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tGutslaff was one of the first to write occasional poetry in Estonian. In 1652 there appeared three elegies on the occasion of the burial of the wife and daughter of the lord of Vaabina manor, Johann Eberhard von Bellinghausen \u2013 on in German, one in Latin and one in Estonian.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSeveral of Gutslaff\u2019s successors are of significance in Estonian cultural history: his son Eberhard Gutsleff (1652-1724) was the main translator of the New Testament into North Estonian (1715): one of Eberhard\u2019s sons, Heinrich Gutsleff (1680-1747) edited his father\u2019s translation of the New Testament for its third printing (1729) and was the chief assistant in Anton Thor Helle\u2019s group of translators of the first Bible in Estonian (1739). Eberhard\u2019s second son Eberhard junior (1691 or 1700-1749) was the editor and co-author of Anton Thor Helle\u2019s Estonian grammar, Kurzgefa\u00dfte Anweisung zur Ehstnischen Sprache<\/em> (1732).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

S. V. (Translated by C. M.)<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

Books in Estonian<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tObservationes grammaticae circa linguam esthonicam = Grammatilisi vaatlusi eesti keelest<\/strong>. T\u00f5lkinud ja v\u00e4ljaande koostanud Marju Lepaj\u00f5e; toimetanud Jaak Peebo. Tartu \u00dclikooli eesti keele \u00f5ppetooli toimetised, nr 10, 1998, 340 lk.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAbout Johannes Gutslaff<\/em><\/strong>
Marju Lepaj\u00f5e, Pastorid ja kirjakultuur: kristliku humanismi variatsioonidest Eesti- ja Liivimaal XVII sajandi esimesel poolel<\/strong>. Doktorit\u00f6\u00f6. Tartu: Tartu \u00dclikooli Kirjastus, 2018, 329 lk.<\/span><\/span>
Johannes Gutslaffi piiblit\u00f5lge 1647\u20131657<\/strong>. Koostanud Maeve Leivo, Ahti Lohk, Kristiina Ross, Kai Tafenau, kaaspanustanud Lea K\u00f5iv. Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus, 2013, 499 lk.<\/span><\/span>
Lea K\u00f5iv, Johannes Gutslaff ja tema \u201cL\u00fchike teade ja \u00f5petus\u201d<\/strong>. Magistrit\u00f6\u00f6. Tartu: Tartu \u00dclikool, 2005, 139 l. [K\u00e4ttesaadav: <\/span><\/span>http:\/\/hdl.handle.net\/10062\/902<\/a>.]<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Non-fiction Poems \u00a0 Johannes Gutslaff (? \u2013 1657) was a prelate of German origin, a scholar of the Estonian language, a Bible translator and collector of folklore. Johannes Gutslaff came from Daber county in Pomerania (now Dobra, \u0141obez county, Poland). …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"parent":589,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1744","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3334,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1744\/revisions\/3334"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}