Viivi Luik

1968. Riga. News of the Prague Spring washes across Europe, causing ripples on either side of the Iron Curtain. A young Estonian woman has agreed to pose as a model for a famous sculptor, who is trying to evade military service and escape to the West. Although the model has only a vague awareness of politics - her interest in life is primarily poetic - the consequences of the politics of both past and present repeatedly make themselves felt. Chance remarks overheard prompt memories of people and places, language itself becomes fluid, by turns deceptive and reassuring. The Beauty of History is a novel of poetic intensity, of fleeting moods and captured moments. It is powerfully evocative of life within the Baltic States during the Soviet occupation, and of the challenge to artists to express their individuality whilst maintaining at least an outward show of loyalty to the dominant ideology. Written on the cusp of independence, as Estonia and Latvia sought to regain their sovereignty in 1991, this is a novel that can be seen as an historic document - wistful, unsettling, and beautiful... Viivi Luik is one of Estonia's most highly-acclaimed and well-known writers. The Beauty of History has been published in eleven languages.

The Beauty of History

Ajaloo ilu

Kadri Malik

Liesbeth Den Besten

Una Meistere

Tanel Veenre

Under the ambiguous term HUNT (English: the hunt; Estonian: the wolf), Kadri Mälk unites her collection of contemporary art jewellery. As a lone wolf, the Estonian artist and teacher compiled the pieces in her eternal hunt for beauty, mystery and creativity. Since jewellery is designed to be worn, Mälk?s fellow artists are not only immortalised in these works; they also pose in portraits alongside their favourite pieces. The jewellery is thus brought to life on the bodies of the collector's friends and companions.

Viivi Luik

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