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Oskar Luts: On the Fine Line between Life and Imagination

Oskar Luts Home MuseumExhibition

Oskar Luts (1887-1953) had a house with a mansard floor on Riia Street built for his family in 1936 (architect Arnold Matteus) and he lived there for the last 17 years of his life. In 1964, a house museum was opened in the writer’s home.

Tour of the house

In the staircase, a bookcase extends through two floors, containing only the creations of the landlord. During the years of his fruitful literary activity, the writer managed to create novels, short stories, plays, memoirs and comic strips. 69 works have appeared in print, most of them repeatedly.

The centre of the house is Oskar Lutsu’s study and bedroom on the garden side. Ascetically simple: a bed, a table with his writing utensils, books and a bust of playwright August Kitzberg on the fireplace. Don Quixote by Cervantes in red volume on the shelf and Gogol’s Collected Works in Russian on the desk were his favourites that helped him over “waters big and small.” The joy of recognition is provided by characters from “Spring” and other Paunvere stories. On the opposite wall, big dolls Nuki, Mõh, Tölpa, Iti and Kusti invite you to play. In the floor game around the red globe, all these characters come together.

Arriving downstairs again, we enter the writer’s guest room. Here, on January 7, 1937, the author was greeted by colleagues and friends on the occasion of his 50th birthday. Unique curtain rods, a furniture set from the end of the 19th century, a bookcase, a piano, a tube gramophone, a radio, a weather station and paintings create a cosy place for conversations, to listen to the writer’s voice or to quietly immerse yourself in a book.

A writer in Tartu

Oskar Luts lived in Tartu, the city of “ringing bells, wind chimes and quiet corners” for more than forty years – both during his studies in school and university and while working in a pharmacy. With the first works, the story “Spring” and the play “Cabbage Head”, Lutsu’s attention began in 1912.

In 1918, Tartu also became the hometown of his family. Luts lived simultaneously with a legend about himself. By the 1930s, it belonged to Tartu as surely as Emajõgi, Toomemägi or Kivisild. The milieu of Tartu’s city centre and borough at that time was familiar to him down to the details, and there he found the prototypes for his colourful gallery of characters. His best friends were also Tartars.

Lutsu’s literary kitchen is opened by the two poles of his nature – sadness and humour. His performance style, which interweaves life and imagination, was innovative in its time. His soul of a poet, melancholic sense of life and warm humour, expressive characters and vernacular language of his works have been understandable to both young and old.

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