{"id":678,"date":"2024-04-03T23:40:10","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T20:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/oldekop\/"},"modified":"2024-04-04T00:09:21","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T21:09:21","slug":"oldekop","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/o\/oldekop\/","title":{"rendered":"Gustav Adolph Oldekop"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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\n\tGustav Adolph Oldekop (2. XII \/ 21. XI 1755 \u2013 8. V \/ 26. IV\u00a01838) was a Baltic-German man of letters, a poet in the South Estonian language and the founder of the first Estonian newspaper.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tHe was born in Haapsalu, the son of the rector of the town school. He studied at Tallinn Dome school, and from 1774 to 1780 the University of Halle. In 1780 he passed the examination of Candidate in Theology in Riga. He worked as a pastor in P\u00f5lva from 1781 to 1820. After the death of his first spouse in 1804, he began living with the Estonian housekeeper and nanny of the motherless children on the church estates, with whom he evidently got to practice Tartu dialect. Oldekop married her in 1820, but he had to give up his pastoral position because of his marriage to an Estonian in Livonia, with its strict class distinctions, and after falling into disgrace with the Germans and church circles, he left P\u00f5lva the same year. Thereafter he moved with his large family (18 children from two marriages, according to some sources 19) to Tartu, where his economic straits worsened.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Tartu Oldekop worked as a translator, among other things translating into South Estonian the Livonian law on the peasantry of 1819, which abolished serfdom. He entered into close and polemical relations with the defender of the North Estonian language, O.W.Masing. Oldekop also adapted from German a book of natural history in the vein of the Enlightenment, M\u00f6tlemisse Jummala teggude p\u00e4le<\/em> (\u2018Thoughts on the Works of God\u2019, 1822), which was intended as a textbook for peasant schools. Oldekop was unable to feed his family by his writing; he sustained them by other means, such as accommodating students and selling lunches. Oldekop died in Tartu, but was buried by his own wish in P\u00f5lva cemetery.
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Oldekop compiled eight numbers of the South Estonian almanac called the Eesti-Ma Rahwa Kalender<\/em> (\u2018Estonian Land Folk\u2019s Calendar\u2019, later called the Tarto-Ma Rahwa Kalender<\/em>, \u2018Tartumaa Land Folk\u2019s Calendar\u2019) starting from the first number in 1796 and ending with the almanac for 1833. Oldekop is known in Estonian culture primarily as the founder and editor of the first Estonian-language newspaper, Tarto maa rahwa N\u00e4ddala-Leht<\/em> (\u2018Tartumaa Land Folk\u2019s Weekly\u2019). This paper was published by Oldekop and his first wife\u2019s brother, Johann Philipp von Roth, pastor of Kanepi, who was an active promoter of popular education and the founder of the first parish school in Livonia and Estonia, at Kanepi, and the latter\u2019s son, George Philipp August von Roth, later to be the first lecturer in Estonian language at the University of Tartu. Over 40 issues of the Tarto maa rahwa N\u00e4ddala-Leht<\/em> in the South Estonian language appeared in 1806-1807, until it was closed by order of the Tsar for publishing unsuitable reading matter for the peasantry (many items of foreign news appeared in it). The paper has been acknowledged as one of the world\u2019s first regularly appearing newspapers for peasants.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the first issue of Eesti-Ma Rahwa Kalender<\/em> there appeared Oldekop\u2019s first known translation of poetry; however, the 1796 almanac has not been preserved. The first poem by Oldekop to be preserved was dedicated to Tsar Aleksandr I: \u00dctte vanna moistlikko maa mihhe laul. Keisrille<\/em>\u00a0(\u2018A Prudent Old Countryman\u2019s Song to the Tsar\u2019), in the first issue of Tarto maa rahwa N\u00e4ddali-Leht<\/em> in 1806. This poem appeared anonymously, however, as did several other poems by Oldekop, including perhaps his best-known poem Poisikesse r\u00f5\u00f5m talwe perrast<\/em>\u00a0(\u2018A Little Boy\u2019s Joy over Winter\u2019). During his lifetime, only four poems appeared under Oldekop\u2019s name, in the 16th issue of J.H. Rosenpl\u00e4nter\u2019s journal Beitr\u00e4ge<\/em> (1823). In 1965 the literary scholar Aarne Vinkel demonstrated that several more anonymous poems which later appeared under another name can be attributed to Oldekop. All of Oldekop\u2019s known poems appeared for the first time in print in 1985 in the compilation Suve \u00f5dang<\/em>\u00a0(\u2018Summer evening\u2019), containing 19 original and 22 translated poems as well as 7 poems probably from Oldekop\u2019s pen. The marginalization of Oldekop as a dialect poet may have been abetted by the diminished position of the South Estonian language in Estonian culture. In the early 19th century the victory of North Estonian as the basis of the national literary language was not yet assured. One well-known enthusiast for the language of Tartu was Oldekop\u2019s brother-in-law, Johann Philipp von Roth.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tOldekop was one of the first consistent cultivators of secular poetry. His poems were primarily intended for singing in school lessons (and they were sung, at the Kanepi parish school established by J.P. von Roth), and in joyous tones they describe farm work, peasant life, and nature. Oldekop\u2019s style is fluent, and the texts are often humorous. His knowledge of the Estonian language was much better than that of many other Baltic-German poets.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tS. V. (Translated by C. M.)<\/em><\/span>
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Books in Estonian<\/span><\/strong><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tM\u00f6tlemisse Jummala teggude p\u00e4le<\/strong>. Saksa kelest om omma mele perra \u00fcmberkirjotanu G. A. Oldekop, kirriko oppetaja. Tartu, 1822, 130 lk.<\/span>
Suve \u00f5dang<\/strong>. Ette valmistanud Aarne Vinkel. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1985, 135 lk.
Tarto maa rahwa n\u00e4ddali-lehe s\u00e4ilinud numbrid<\/strong>. koostanud T\u00f5nu Tannberg. Tartu: Eesti Ajalooarhiiv; Kirjandusmuuseum, 1998, 40 lk. [K\u00e4ttesaadav:\u00a0<\/span>http:\/\/www.digar.ee\/id\/nlib-digar:280680<\/a><\/span>.]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poems \u00a0 Gustav Adolph Oldekop (2. XII \/ 21. XI 1755 \u2013 8. V \/ 26. IV\u00a01838) was a Baltic-German man of letters, a poet in the South Estonian language and the founder of the first Estonian newspaper. He was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"parent":663,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-678","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/678","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=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4389,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/678\/revisions\/4389"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}