Henrik Visnapuu was a well known Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

n poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 and dramatist.

Life

Henrik Visnapuu first attended the village school in Reola (today Ülenurme community) and college in Sipe (today Kambja community) and the municipal school in Tartu. In 1907, he graduated from the grammar school in Narva after taking final exams in education and taught at various schools as a primary school teacher. by 1912 he moved to Tartu and taught Estonian literature at the local high school for girls. At the same time he attended lectures in philosophy at the University of Tartu

University of Tartu

The University of Tartu is a classical university in the city of Tartu, Estonia. University of Tartu is the national university of Estonia; it is the biggest and highest-ranked university in Estonia...

.
Visnapuu worked since 1917 as a journalist at the Tallinna Teataja, then until 1935 he worked as a freelance journalist and author. From 1935 to 1944 he was culture secretary in the department of the Information Agency of the Estonian state.
With the approaching Soviet occupation of Estonia and the return of the Red Army, Henrik Visnapuu fled to Germany in 1944 and in 1949 moved to the United States, where he died in New York.

Work

Henrik Visnapuu debuted with his lyrical works in 1908. He was one of the most important Estonian poets in the 1920s and 1930s, until the end of Estonian independence and the return of the Soviet Russian regime, when he was forced to go into exile. Besides Marie Under

Marie Under

Marie Under was one of the greatest Estonian poets.-Early life:...

, he was one of the most influential members of the literary group "Siuru

Siuru

The Siuru literary movement, named after a fire-bird in Finno-Ugrian mythology, was founded in 1917 in Estonia. It was an expressionistic and neo-romantic movement that ran counter to the Young Estonia formalist tradition.-Members:...

" (founded in 1917), which was strongly influenced by Symbolism

Symbolism (arts)

Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...

. Henrik Visnapuu's poems are mainly of the futuristic and expressionistic genre.

Miscellaneous

• Visnapuu's poems were used by composer Eduard Tubin
  Eduard Tubin
  -Life:Tubin was born in Torila, Governorate of Livonia, Estonia. Both his parents were music lovers, and his father played trumpet and trombone in the village band. His first taste of music came at school where he learned flute and balalaika. Later, his father swapped a cow for a piano, and the...
  
  in his "Requiem for Fallen Soldiers" (1979)

External links

• Miksike.ee (Estonian)