{"id":513,"date":"2024-04-03T23:39:56","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T20:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/matsekman\/"},"modified":"2024-04-04T00:09:49","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T21:09:49","slug":"matsekman","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/e\/matsekman\/","title":{"rendered":"Mats Ekman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t
Mats Ekman (12 III 1865 \u2013 13 III 1934) was an Estonian-Swedish poet.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tEkman was born on \u00c4tsve farm in Noarootsi parish in L\u00e4\u00e4nemaa County. According to the name of his birth farm, he was known by the nickname \u00c4tsve Mats. At the age of three, he caught poliomyelitis, after which his right hand remained paralysed for the whole life. Therefore, he was not able to do usual farm work. In his young days, he herded cattle and horses, later worked as a postman. Ekman\u2019s education was limited to three winters at H\u00f6bring school in Noarootsi parish. As an adult, he educated himself somewhat by reading books. He never left his home area and spent the end of his life at Riguldi home for the elderly.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tForty-five Mats Ekman\u2019s poems have preserved. They are written in the archaic Noarootsi dialect of the Swedish language. Along with Swedish dialect words, a few Estonian words occur here and there. Ekman\u2019s poems are written in rhymed quatrains. They describe the village life of Swedes residing on the western coast of Estonia. The author\u2019s treatment is humorous, sometimes satirical. Several poems are dedicated to the beautiful scenery of his homeplace, also to his childhood, e.g., Ekman\u2019s best-known poem B\u00e5ndomstien eller Ungdomsminne<\/em> (\u2018Childhood Time or Memory of Youth\u2019).<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tEkman\u2019s poetry is not likely to have any outside literary influences. In his own words, he received the initial boost for writing poetry when he heard young men conscripted to the Tsarist army singing when they left their home village.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Ekman\u2019s lifetime, only a few Swedish intellectuals could see lasting value in his poems. Twelve of his poems were published in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1924. In Swedish, the term bygdeskald<\/em> (rural poet) is used about Mats Ekman. His poems contribute to better understanding of the life of Estonian-Swedish peasantry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThanks to their simple rhythm and sonority, several Ekman\u2019s poems have been set to music. In 2005, a collection of Mats Ekman\u2019s poems and songs, Pr\u00e4stn e vargskall<\/em> (\u2018Pastor Hunting for Wolves\u2019), was published in Stockholm. The texts are provided in both literary Swedish and the Estonian-Swedish dialect. Songs are published with musical notation. In February 2011, a CD was recorded in the studio of Radio Sweden with 11 Mats Ekman\u2019s songs and two poems.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tL. P. (Translated by I. A.)<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

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

\n\tPoems<\/em><\/strong>
Pr\u00e4stn e vargskall<\/strong>: dikter. Torsh\u00e4lla: Recreo f\u00f6rlag, 2005, 181 pp.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mats Ekman (12 III 1865 \u2013 13 III 1934) was an Estonian-Swedish poet. Ekman was born on \u00c4tsve farm in Noarootsi parish in L\u00e4\u00e4nemaa County. According to the name of his birth farm, he was known by the nickname \u00c4tsve …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"parent":566,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-513","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/513","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=513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4554,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/513\/revisions\/4554"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}