Mihkel Veske

Veske then returned to Estonia and worked as a journalist for the newspaper Eesti Põllumees.

From 1886 until his untimely death in 1890 Veske was a lecturer in Finno-Ugric languages at the University of Kazan.

He belonged to the strongly patriotic groups around the Estonian intellectuals and journalists Carl Robert Jakobson.

During his time in Kazan, he studied the languages of the Mari and Mordvin, and dealt with the cultural relations between the Finno-Ugric and Slavic peoples.

The bronze bust on his tomb was created by the Estonian sculptor August Weizenberg (now lost).

He translated numerous German, Russian, Finnish and Hungarian folk songs into Estonian.