The Siuru literary movement, named after a fire-bird in Finno-Ugrian mythology, was founded in 1917 in 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...

. It was an expressionistic

Expressionism

Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...

 and neo-romantic movement that ran counter to the Young Estonia

Young Estonia

Young Estonia was a neo-romantic literary group established around 1905 and led by the poet Gustav Suits and short story writer Friedebert Tuglas. Other members of the group included Villem Grünthal-Ridala and Johannes Aavik. Gustav Suits articulated the ideology of the group thus:"What buoys up...

 formalist tradition.

Members

Along with the founder August Gailit

August Gailit

August Gailit was an Estonian writer. -Life:Georg August Gailit was born in Sangaste Parish, Valgamaa, Estonia, the son of a carpenter and grew up on a farm in Laatre . From 1899 he attended schools in the parish and the town of Valga from 1905, then from 1907 a municipal school in Tartu...

, the movement included the following young poets and writers: Marie Under

Marie Under

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

, Henrik Visnapuu

Henrik Visnapuu

Henrik Visnapuu was a well known Estonian poet and dramatist.-Life:Henrik Visnapuu first attended the village school in Reola and college in Sipe and the municipal school in Tartu...

, Johannes Semper

Johannes Semper

Johannes Semper was an Estonian writer and translator.A student and later a prominent scholar at the University of Tartu, he was briefly nominated as Minister for Education of the Estonian SSR when the country was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940.He wrote the lyrics of the Anthem of Estonian...

, Friedebert Tuglas

Friedebert Tuglas

Friedebert Tuglas was an Estonian writer and critic who introduced Impressionism and Symbolism to Estonian literature. Persecuted under the czar, he became an acknowledged representative of Estonian literature in the Soviet era.-Biography:The son of a carpenter, Tuglas studied at the Hugo Treffner...

 and Artur Adson

Artur Adson

Artur Adson was an Estonian poet, writer and theatre critic.-Early years:Artur Adson attended school in Tartu, Sänna and Võru. After graduating he first studied surveying in Pskov. In 1925-26, he studied literature at the University of Tartu...

.
Between 1917 and 1919, Siuru published three volumes of poetry. 1919 led to conflicts within the group. Visnapuu and Gailit left, while Johannes Barbarus and August Alle

August Alle

August Alle was an Estonian writer.-Early life:August Alle was the son of a stonemason. He attended the parish school in Viljandi, then the evening school in Narva. In 1915, he enrolled as an external student in Oryol and began studying pharmacy, but he soon abandoned those studies...

 joined as new members.

Program

The members of Siuru had an affinity with futurism

Futurism

Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...

 and Impressionism

Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

. Their poetry was often seen as scandalous due to their erotic nature. Siuru's philosophy stressed the freedom of the human spirit. Motto

Motto

A motto is a phrase meant to formally summarize the general motivation or intention of a social group or organization. A motto may be in any language, but Latin is the most used. The local language is usual in the mottoes of governments...

s of the group included Carpe diem

Carpe diem

Carpe diem is a phrase from a Latin poem by Horace that has become an aphorism. It is popularly translated as "seize the day"...

!, and May the joy of creation be our only moving force, the latter suggested by Friedebert Tuglas

Friedebert Tuglas

Friedebert Tuglas was an Estonian writer and critic who introduced Impressionism and Symbolism to Estonian literature. Persecuted under the czar, he became an acknowledged representative of Estonian literature in the Soviet era.-Biography:The son of a carpenter, Tuglas studied at the Hugo Treffner...

. The group's symbol was white chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemums, often called mums or chrysanths, are of the genus constituting approximately 30 species of perennial flowering plants in the family Asteraceae which is native to Asia and northeastern Europe.-Etymology:...

.

Significance

A major result of Siuru's activities was popularisation of literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 among Estonian people, leading to the active development of original Estonian literature in the young Republic of Estonia. While the movement itself was short-lived, cut short by Estonian independence and the ensuing movement of national literature, its members rose to be major figures in Estonian literature through Estonia's first period of independence and in the exile Estonian literary community during Soviet occupation.

Marie Under (1883–1980) was the leader of the movement, publishing her first book, Sonnets, in 1917. While her expressions of nature found a wide audience, her frank eroticism shocked conservatives, a motif she carried on in her subsequent works. Under went on to a long and distinguished literary career, publishing her last book in 1963.

Artur Adson (1889–1977) published his first collection of poems, The Burning Soul, in 1917. Both this and his next collection, Old Lantern (1919), consisted of juvenile love poems. Adson went on to widely expand his genre, including dealing with social issues in a classical form. Adson wrote numerous plays. His Four Kings, a drama on the Estonian uprising of 1343, is considered his most thrilling work. He continued to write in exile, also publishing several books of memoirs, the last in 1953. Adson was Marie Under's second husband.