Mait Metsanurk

[1] Mait Metsanurk was born as the youngest of eight children in a peasant family in Saare farmstead, Metsanuka (now Tartu Parish), in the Kreis Dorpat of the Governorate of Livonia.

Mait Metsanurk reached his literary breakthrough in 1908 with his realistic portrayal of Estonian town and country life at the time.

Together with A. H. Tammsaare (1878–1940), he is considered one of the most outstanding representatives of Estonian neo-realism of the interwar period.

[2] His main work, the historical novel Ümera jõel (On the Ümera River) (1934), depicts the struggle of the pagan Estonians against the Danish and German conquest in the thirteenth century.

With the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Metsanurk was sidelined politically and expelled from the Writers' Union.