Meet the women Estonia’s streets are named after

Lydia Koidula

Lydia Koidula (1843-1886) was a writer, editor, and poet who, after her death, has been elevated to the position of Estonia's national poet.

Born Lydia Emilie Florentine Jannsen in 1873, she was the eldest child of Johann Voldemar Jannsen, who founded several of the first Estonian-language newspapers including Perno Postimees and Eesti Postimees.

The Jannsen's lived in the Governate of Livonia within the German-run district of the Russian Empire, which roughly equates to the modern-day territories of Estonia and Latvia. At the time, speaking Estonian was considered lower class and German or Russian were the languages of the elites.

Lydia was actively involved in editing her father's newspapers and after the family moved to the university town Tartu, in 1863 she became interested in and connected with members of the National Awakening movement, which pushed for the recognition of Estonians. She published work under her pen name Lydia Koidula.

"In the second half of the 1860s, she became the most influential exponent of national sentiment in Estonian literature," the University of Tartu's Estonian Writers' Online Dictionary says.

Koidula's enthusiastic participation in the activities of the Vanemuine Society, the staging of plays, the public performance of her poems and stories, and correspondence with Estonian, Finnish and German literary figures gave her a central place in Estonia’s developing cultural life, the index says.

She did not live to see Estonia become an independent nation in 1917 and died in 1886. But her work has been honored after her death.

Koidula’s texts are commonly set to music and the most famous Mu isamaa on minu arm ('My Fatherland is my Love') became the alternative anthem of the Estonians during the Soviet occupation. "There is rarely a funeral in Estonia, even today, where a farewell is not sung in Koidula’s words," the index says.

Sixteen cities across the country have streets named Lydia Koidula or Koidula. The summer city Pärnu named a park and school after the poet and also has a museum dedicated to her life and work

After Estonia regained independence and started issuing its own currency, the Kroon, Koidula was featured on the 100 kroon note.

Anna Haava

Anna Haava, born Anna Rosalie Espenstein, is described as one of the most important and most widely loved Estonian poets, by the University of Tartu's Estonian Writers' Online Dictionary.

She was born into a peasant family in 1939 and after completing her education worked as a kindergarten teacher in Tartu.

Her first published poem was written in memory of Lydia Koidula upon her death in 1886, Koidulale ('To Koidula') and appeared in the newspaper Postimees under the pen-name Üks Eesti neiu (An Estonian girl).

Haava was active as a poet from the age of 22 well into old age her last works were published in 1954.

Her first collections, Luuletused ('Poems') I (1888), II (1890) and III (1897), featuring romantic sentimental songs about love, were well received and reprinted several times.

From 1906, Haava's work became more critical in tone, condemning ethnic discrimination, social injustice, and violence.

From 1894 to 1899, Haava worked as a tutor and a nurse in Russia. She returned to Estonia at the start of the 1900s and was the housekeeper at her brother’s home. After a lengthy illness, she settled in Tartu as a freelancer, and for a while before the First World War was on the editorial team of Postimees. Later she worked as a freelance writer and translator. She was often broke.

Haava was a founder member of the Estonian Writers’ Union in 1922. In 1954, her 90th birthday was celebrated at the University of Tartu and a street was named after her in the city.

She died in Tartu aged 92.

Betti Alver

Elisabet Alver (1906-1989) was a translator, prosaist, and one of the most renowned Estonian poets of the twentieth century, according to the University of Tartu's Estonian Writers' Online Dictionary.

Alver’s first literary works, the short story Vaene väike ('Poor Little Thing') and novel Tuulearmuke ('The Wind’s Paramour'), a novel she wrote in high school, were published in 1927. After Tuulearmuke won second place in a writing competition, she left university to focus on literature.

Interactions with other poets and intellectuals of the time defined much of Alver’s early poetic life. "She stood out as a masterful manipulator of language, capable of writing with formal simplicity while still maintaining the depth of her ideas as well as the playfulness and irony of her voice," the writers index says.

In 1934, she became a member of the Estonian Writers’ Union. She was also a member of the Arbujad (Soothsayers) poetry group which represented a new direction in Estonian poetry before the outbreak of World War II.

In 1945, her husband poet Heiti Talvik was arrested and deported to Siberia. He died two years later. This event started a new era for Alver’s poetry.

After the war, Alver disappeared from the literary scene, refusing to publish poetry acceptable to the Soviet authorities, instead focusing on translations.

In the 60s, after, a 20-year break, she published a new collection which was met with enthusiasm by the public. All 10,000 copies of the first edition sold out in a few hours.

Alver published three more collections of poetry which won several awards. She died in 1989 in Tartu.

In 1996, a symbolic monument and a memorial park were erected in her honor in Jõgeva, her hometown. For her 100^th birthday in 2006, her childhood home was made into a museum.

Miina Härma

Miina Härma (1864 - 1941) was Estonia's first professional female composer, first female organist, and first outstanding female choir director, the Estonian Music Information Center says.

Over her 60-year career, she wrote more than 200 choral songs. She also took organ music from the city to the countryside, at a time when it was rare for skilled musicians to give concerts in rural areas.

Härma was born into a musical family in Kõrveküla, now Estonia but at the time part of the Russian empire, and started playing the organ as a child. She later moved to St. Petersburg to develop her skills and worked as a piano teacher and choir director.

During her career, she performed in Estonia, St. Petersburg, England, Finland, and Germany. Many of her choral works are still well known today and included in song festival programmes which take place every five years.

Härma edited several Estonian language publications about music and also co-founded the Tartu Higher School of Music.

Between 1917 and 1929, Härma worked as a music teacher in a girls' school in Tartu. In 1964, after her death, the school was renamed Miina Härma Gymnasium in honor of her achievements.

In 1938, Härma was given an award by the Estonian state, the Order of the Estonian Red Cross, 2nd class, for her work.

She died in 1941 in Tartu. A street in Tallinn has also been named after her.

Maria Laidoner

Maria Laidoner-Kruszewska (1888–1978) was the wife of General Johan Laidoner, commander of the Estonian Armed Forces.

She was a pianist and piano teacher and acted as the first lady of Estonia during the First Republic (1917-1940).

The Laidoners lived in Viimsi, a suburb north of Tallinn, until their arrest and deportation in 1940 by the Soviet authorities at the start of the first occupation.

It was common for the Soviets to deport whole families.

General Laidoner was arrested due to his position in the military and role in the Estonian War of Independence. He never returned to Estonia and died in 1953 in prison in the USSR.

In 1956, the Soviet authorities allowed Maria to Estonia. She was not permitted to return to her family home or the capital city. Instead, she moved to Haapsalu in western Estonia.

The Soviet authorities monitored her for the rest of her life.

She died in 1978 at the age of 89, shortly before her 90th birthday.

Maria was an influential figure in the country's cultural and social life between the world wars. During the years of Soviet occupation, she upheld the aspirations for freedom of the Estonian people, the Polish Embassy in Estonia says.

Maria Laidoner is remembered in several ways in Estonia.

The Polish Embassy awards "Maria’s jabot" to a woman who promotes Polish culture, art, and history in Estonia.  A jambot is a bow made of lace which Laidoner was known to to wear.

A monument dedicated to the Laidoners was erected in 2014 on the initiative of the Viimsi Municipal authorities. The statue symbolizes the couple's reunion after the long absence abroad.