When the Storm Fell Silent

In this third volume of Tammsaare's monumental pentalogy, the protagonist Indrek finds himself alone in a working-class district of an industrial town during the revolutionary year of 1905. This a new chapter in his troubled and adventurous existence, and he learns about the conflicts and violence that will characterise the new century.

When the Storm Fell Silent is an ironic, tragic and contradictory work which reflects the author’s ambivalent attitude to the 1905 Revolution in Tsarist Russia, which Estonia was then a part of. He sympathised with the policies but disagreed with the random violence. This however does not do justice to the complexity of this great work which comprehends the difficult truth that the majority’s altruism, humanity and desire to improve other people’s lives can end in so much suffering without any durable gains. What appears simple becomes entangled in a web of mendacity, double-speak and false promises.

Indrek, the central character, clearly represents Tammsaare’s own convictions, but not exactly. The author can approach any subject and stun the reader with his novel interpretations, and also gives the reader the opportunity to read his words and infer varied understandings and appreciations. Every actor in a revolution is represented here: from left to right and back again, every striking worker, every shopkeeper, every landowner, every policeman, every spy, every worker’s wife, every outsider and every starry-eyed teenager. Few people are who they first seem to be, and the shifting trends of the crowd are followed and carefully examined – a force of nature that ultimately is spent. 
When the Storm Fell Silent is Volume III in the Truth and Justice pentalogy, a monumental work which has been translated into many European languages, but only now being published in English for the first time by Vagabond Voices. The first two volumes, Vargamäe and Indrek deal with the personal and the familial and this third volume with the public and societal, but always both elements are present: one in foreground and one in the background, because Tammsaare is as much a holistic writer and he is an extraordinarily imaginative one. 

Contributor: Matthew Hyde (Translated by)

Translator: Matthew Hyde

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