Novel
Tants aurukatla ümber
Not translated into English
Mats Traat · 1971
Synopsis
At the Aiaste farm, near Otepää, five days of threshing spread over half a century. Each autumn the steam boiler that drives the threshing machine is hauled up the hill, and each time the world has changed around it: the war that begins in 1914, when the son Jüri wants to leave the farm and old Mats Aniluik promises it to him; the crisis of 1929; the year 1943, in the midst of war; the first autumn of the collective farm, in 1949, when the master is in Siberia and his fences are burned for lack of wood.
Context
The book was first a screenplay; the author made it into a short novel in five dances, published in 1971. Voldemar Panso brought it to the stage at the Tallinn Drama Theatre, it was reissued in 1975, 2005, 2009 and 2023, and translated into ten languages, including Russian, Finnish, Latvian, Czech, Hungarian and Esperanto. Peeter Simm made from it a film for Estonian television, to which he added a sixth dance, that of the characters' old age. The dialogues are written in the language of Tartumaa.
Who it is for
One hundred and fifty pages in Estonian, never translated into French or English. It helps to know that years separate each dance, and that the children of one are the adults of the next.
Prizes and reception
Eduard Vilde Kolkhoz Prize in 1971 and State Prize of Soviet Estonia in 1972; critics regard it as a major work of Estonian prose.