Jaan Kross

Jaan Kross (born 19 February 1920) is the most eminent contemporary Estonian writer.

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Born in Tallinn, Estonia, he attended the University of Tartu (1938-1945), graduating from its School of Law, and taught there as a lecturer until 1946 (and again as Professor of Artes Liberales in 1998). He was first arrested by the Germans for six months in 1944, and then by the Soviet occupation authorities in 1946, who deported him to a Gulag camp in Russia. Upon his return from Siberia to Estonia in 1954 he became a professional writer.

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Kross is by far the most translated and nationally as well as internationally best-known Estonian writer. He was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature and holds several honorary doctorates and international decorations, including the highest Estonian and one of the highest German orders.

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Kross' novels (and short stories) are almost universally historical; indeed, he is often credited with a significant rejuvenation of the genre of the historical novel. Most of his works take place in Estonia and deal, usually, with the relationship of Estonians and Baltic Germans and Russians as well. Very often, Kross' description of the historical struggle of the Estonians against the Baltic Germans, however, was actually a metaphor for the contemporary struggle against the Soviet occupation. However, Kross' acclaim internationally (and nationally even after the regaining of Estonian independence) show that his novels also deal with topics beyond such concerns; rather, they deal with questions of mixed identities, loyalty, and belonging.

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Generally, The Czar's Madman has been considered Kross' best novel; it is also the most translated one. Also well-translated is Professor Martens' Departure, which because of its subject matter (academics, expertise, and national loyalty) is very popular in academe and an important "professorial novel". The earlier Excavations, dealing with the thaw period after Stalin's death as well as with the Danish conquest of Estonia in the Middle Ages, and today considered by several critics as his finest, has not been translated into English yet; it is however available in German.

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