Helmi Mäelo (1898–1978)

See on järg mälestusteosele "Võõrsil", jätkudes sealt, kuhu eelmise raamatu käsitlus peatuma jäi, kuni aastani 1973, kujunedes seega üheks meie kõige värskemaks memuaarteoseks. Raamatus käsitletaksegi muuhulgas ka Eesti Päevade muljeid Kanadas ja järgnevat reisi Ameerika mandril. Inimeste hulk, kellega autor oma rännakutel ja tööl on kokku puutunud, tõuseb ligi poole tuhandeni. Aga autor ei möödu ka ei oma loominguprobleemidest ega meie üldistest põletavatest päevaküsimustest ühenduses kodumaa ja kolmanda põlvega võõrsil.
EKK, 1975
Eelnevad mälestusteosed on:
Talutütar 1959
Elutegevuses 1961
Võõrsil 1974… (altro)

See on eestlaste kultuurielu ja ühiskondlikku tegevust päevaraamatu kujul jälgiv teos, oma laadilt vaheldusrikas, paljudesse sektoritesse ulatuv, mitmeid ajanähtusi haarav. Aga selles ei puudu ka eaka, seejuures väga vitaalse ning liikuva autori enese hingeeluliste küsimuste tõstatamine - samade probleemide ja mõtete käsitlemine, mis iga inimest varem või hiljem paratamatult puudutab. - Elu on huvitav ning rikas, tõdeb autor oma raamatus, kuid päevade sündmused kaovad kiiresti nagu liiv sõrmede vahelt, kui neid hoolsalt ei jälgi. Helmi Mäelo jälgib neid.
EKK, 1978… (altro)

"Teised tuuled" (Other Winds) is the 4th book in writer Helmi Mäelo's (1898-1978) series of 5 Estonian language novels that centre around the Õkva family and farm in Tartumaa, Estonia from roughly the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. I'm having to read these out of order based on which of her out-of-print books I am able to track down via used bookstores, whether from Estonian or other online sources.

Helmi Mäelo is one of the authors that seems to have fallen between the cracks during the Soviet Occupation years of Estonia when the market for her books was limited to those sold by subscription to the free world Estonian community from the exile publishing house of the Eesti Kirjanike Kooperatiiv (Estonian Writers' Cooperative) in Lund, Sweden.

Mäelo is probably best known now for her non-fiction Eesti naine läbi aegade (The Estonian Woman Through the Ages) which has even seen a reprint in post-1991 independent Estonia. Her 13 novels and 5 memoirs though seem to have had only single editions from the 1920s to 1970s and are now out of print.

I'm only going on the basis of this one book so far, but I was impressed enough that I'm looking for more of them and have the sense that there may yet be a Mäelo renaissance in the future. "Teised tuuled" is apparently the odd-man-out in her "Oma veri" (Own Blood) pentalogy as it focuses on male characters rather than the females of the other 4 books. Strong and purposeful female characters are otherwise her main theme. It also can't be a coincidence that she chose to make "Own Blood" a 5-book series as that very explicitly puts it in competition with A.H. Tammsaare's similar single-family centred pentalogy Tõde ja õigus (Truth and Justice) which mainly focussed on male characters and which is generally considered as THE epic of Estonian literature.

"Other Winds" begins with the Õkva family from June 1941 when they are displaced in that first wave of Soviet terror deportations from the Baltic States. However, the son Rein Õkva manages to escape from the cattle-car train along with farmhand Jaan and they proceed to walk back to Estonia from somewhere in Western Russia. By the time they return, the country is under a new totalitarian occupation by Hitler's Nazi Germany. Rein and Jaan try to carry on with farm life in the midst of war but eventually escape to Finland rather than be conscripted into the German army. With other Estonians they join the Finnish Army's Infantry Regiment 200 which later became known as the "Soomepoisid" (The Finnish Boys). The book ends in August 1944 with the Regiment being released from its service to the Finns in order for it to return home to Estonia to attempt to fight for a return to independence as the Nazi retreat begins. Having read the (late) middle I'm now eager to read the prequels and the sequel of this "other" Estonian epic.… (altro)