WHEN THE STORM FELL SILENT

By A.H. Tammsaare (translated by Matthew Hyde)

Vagabond Voices Publishing. 301 pages. £14.95. ISBN 978-1-913213-36-0

Reviewed by Jim Burns

It may be that a few words of explanation about the author of this book, and its background, are required. A.H. Tammsaare was the pen-name of Anton Hansen, born in 1878 “into a poor farming family” in Estonia. The country was then part of the Russian empire, with most of the landholding rights held by Baltic Germans. In the 1890s Russian replaced both German and Estonian as the language taught in schools. There was an active nationalist movement to revive the Estonian language, and draw attention to the country’s history and culture. And a politically active “underground” which aimed to oust both the Russians and Germans and establish an independent Estonia.

When events in Russia in 1905 appeared to suggest that revolution was imminent, hopes of freedom from Russian rule rose, and people took to the streets to demonstrate, and in some cases take direct action against the landowners and the authorities in general. Although Tammsaare supported the independence movement he deplored the violence its more-vociferous proponents advocated. Working as an editor for a Tallin newspaper, he was in an ideal position to observe what happened as the revolutionary impetus spread from Russia to Estonia. His novel, the third part of a pentalogy, was originally published in 1931.

When it opens, Indrek has left his village and moved to Tallin. He looks for lodgings and finally rents a room with a local family after overcoming the landlady’s initial suspicions about him being a member of the “underground” and likely to attract the attention of the police. Her husband is partially disabled after being injured in a demonstration. He’s unable to work, but never seems to be short of money, a fact he explains away by saying it’s a kind of pension from “underground” sources. There is a daughter, Kristi, a teenager who plans to emigrate to America, but in the meantime is enthusiastic for the “freedom” that everyone wants, though they’re often not sure just what that “freedom” entails. But it seems desirable, nonetheless.

Indrek is soon drawn into life on the streets, including a mass meeting which develops into a riot suppressed by the police aided by Cossacks, who note the red flag carried by one of the rioters. Indrek is slightly injured, and so gains some status in the eyes of the revolutionaries, who at first had suspected him of being a police spy. He’s given a lecture on what to do when he sees Cossacks: “Run, flee, that’s what the Cossacks are for, to make everyone afraid. The powers that be want to see that you’re afraid, and if there’s anyone left who isn’t afraid, they’ll give them good reason to be”. This idea of fear as the driving force in human relations, even on a personal level, occurs several times, and is articulated by a curious character in the novel, Mr Bystry, who is also of the opinion that “doing a good deed for someone, or just thinking about someone else is pure egotism, too, because it makes a person feel good about themselves, they tell themselves, see what a good, kind person I am”.  Mr Bystry, who always has a bag of books with him, may have been reading Max Stirner’s The Ego and Its Own.

The story develops as Indrek becomes more involved in revolutionary activities, working for a radical publisher, and along with Kristi attending meetings and demonstrations. When they see a building looted and set on fire by rioters they ask each other, “Is this really how freedom arrives?”. The harsh reality of a violent uprising does not accord with their romantic notions of what “freedom” ought to represent. It becomes evident to the reader that a relationship is developing between them, though the impressionable Kristi is, perhaps, taking it more seriously than Indrek does. He, as the riots spread out into the countryside and mobs storm the landowners’ manor houses, begins to question what is happening. A few dedicated revolutionaries desperately attempt to maintain some sort of order, but drunkenness is rife and the mobs have just one thought in mind, and that is to revenge themselves on the landowners by looting and burning.

I’ve sketched out the basic premise of the novel, and won’t take it to its conclusion, which is disturbing in more ways than one. I’m aware that what I’ve said doesn’t capture the vivid descriptive power of Tammsaare’s writing: “A madness seemed to have overcome everyone, a madness which had already been in the air, but which had now been released by the sound of breaking glass, unleashing a frenzied fit of wrecking and destruction. No attempts to talk sense into them or orders to stop could have helped, the men had taken leave of their senses and were no longer responsible for their own actions. They acted in a state of abandon, which soon became a kind of intoxication, and then ecstasy”. That word “intoxication” is relevant in various ways. There are vats of vodka, not to mention cellars of fine wines, and the revolutionaries trying to carry out constructive actions at the manor houses, give up in despair as their own men happily join in the drinking.

There is some humour, too, in Tammsaare’s writing, and it’s evident in the confused exchanges about meaning and purpose that sometimes take place between various characters. It also comes through when Indrek, early in his revolutionary career, tries to educate himself in the language of left-wing politics : “He devoured socialism and communism,  socialism and anarchism, socialism and Marxism, socialism and revisionism, socialism and Bolshevism,  socialism and  tsarism, socialism and trade-unionism, socialism and utopianism, socialism and materialism, socialism and Darwinism, socialism and humanism, socialism and  feudalism, socialism and Catholicism, and so on and so forth”. Tammsaare adds that Indrek additionally looked into “the Erfurt programme, the eight-hour workday, added value”, and more of the same, hoping to absorb it all before the great day came. The Erfurt Programme, launched at the 1891 congress of the German Social Democratic Party would have been known to Estonian revolutionaries. It was the creation of Karl Kautsky and, while it’s not easy to explain it here in detail, one of its main theories was the continuation of the class war and revolutionary struggle while working through existing reformist institutions such as trade unions.

It struck me, as I read the page-turning account of Indrek’s adventures, that I could almost see many of the people he meets. The disabled head of the household where he lodges, an old schoolmate who now is employed by the police, the dishevelled editor of the newspaper Indrek works for, the owner of a restaurant he frequents, and even her dog, which has its place in the narrative and isn’t there simply as a prop to what its owner says and does. She has a relationship of sorts with the enigmatic Mr Bystry and his opinions.

When the Storm Fell Silent is a novel that, though dealing with the past, can still have a great deal of meaning for today. It never ceases to hold the attention and this English-language version is clearly a fine work of translation.