Jakob Hurt
[Text in Estonian]
Jakob Hurt (1839-1907) was a folklorist and linguist, one of the recognized
leaders of the Estonian national movement. Jakob Hurt participated in the
Learned Estonian Society and the Vanamuine Society, also in organizing and
carrying out the first all-Estonian song festival. He was active in the movement
for the first secondary school to use Estonian as the language of instruction,
promoting public education, the new system of spelling and the regulation of
the literary language.
The main contribution of Jakob Hurt lies in collecting and initiating the scholarly
publication of Estonian folklore. In 1888, he launched the movement of
collecting folklore that became a nation-wide enterprise. More than 1400
people from almost all parts of Estonia and Estonian settlements in Russia took
part in it. The folklore collection of Jakob Hurt is deposited in the Estonian
Literary Museum.
The monument by Jaak Soans and Rein Tomingas was unveiled in 1994.
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