Lydia Koidula - Drama

Drama

Koidula is also considered the "founder of Estonian theatre" through her drama activities at the Vanemuine Society (Estonian: Vanemuise Selts), a society started by the Jannsens in Tartu in 1865 to promote Estonian culture. Lydia was the first to write original plays in Estonian and to address the practicalities of stage direction and production. Despite some Estonian interludes at the German theatre in Tallinn, in the early 19th century, there had been no appreciation of theatre as a medium and few writers considered drama of any consequence, though Kreutzwald had translated two verse tragedies. In the late 1860s, both Estonians and Finns started to develop performances in their native tongues and Koidula, following suit, wrote and directed the comedy, Saaremaa Onupoeg (The Cousin from Saaremaa) in 1870 for the Vanemuine Society. It was based on Theodor Körner's (1791-1813) farce Der Vetter aus Bremen, (The Cousin from Bremen) adapted to an Estonian situation. The characterisation was rudimentary and the plot was simple but it was popular and Koidula went on to write and direct Maret ja Miina, (aka Kosjakased; The Betrothal Birches, 1870) and her own creation, the first ever completely Estonian play, Säärane mulk (What a Bumpkin!). Koidula's attitude to the theatre was influenced by the philosopher, dramatist, and critic Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781), the author of Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts (The Education of the Human Race; 1780). Her plays were didactic and a vehicle for popular education. Koidula's theatrical resources were few and raw – untrained, amateur actors and women played by men - but the qualities that impressed her contemporaries were a gallery of believable characters and cognizance of contemporary situations.

At the first Estonian Song Festival, in 1869, an important rallying event of the Estonian clans, two poems were set to music with lyrics by Lydia Koidula: Sind Surmani (Till Death) and Mu isamaa on minu arm (My Country is My Love), which became the unofficial anthem during the Soviet occupation when her father's Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm (My Country is My Pride and Joy), the anthem of the Estonian Republic between 1921 and 1940, was forbidden. Koidula's song always finished every festival, with or without permission. The tradition persists to this day.