Hellar Grabbi

Hellar Grabbi (22 September 1929 – 28 July 2018) was an Estonian-American journalist, literary critic, editor, publisher and essayist.^[1][2] He was best known as the long-time editor and publisher of Mana, an Estonian exile literary and cultural journal. Scholarly accounts of Estonian exile literature describe him as an important intermediary between writers abroad and in Soviet Estonia, and as an unusually non-ideological critic within the émigré community.^[3][4]

Hellar Grabbi was born in Tallinn, the son of Colonel Herbert Grabbi, commander of the Estonian Military Academy and aide-de-camp to the Estonian president. His father was arrested by the NKVD in 1941 and later executed in Siberia.^[1] Grabbi attended the National English College, the primary school of the Tallinn Teachers' Seminary, and Tallinn Secondary School of Science.^[1] During the wartime refugee exodus in September 1944, he escaped to Germany with his mother and brother and continued his studies at Geislingen Estonian Gymnasium.^[1] After emigrating to the United States in 1949, he studied English and American literature and philosophy at William Jewell College and later completed a master's degree in library science at Columbia University.^[1]

After working in a variety of jobs in the United States, mainly in construction, Grabbi joined the Library of Congress in Washington in 1959 and remained there until 1967.^[1] From 1955 to 1964 he was an editor of Vaba Eesti, which the Estonian Writers' Online Dictionary describes as a journal of the younger and more liberal generation of Estonian refugees.^[1] He began representing Mana in the United States in 1958 and became its editor and publisher in 1965; the National Library of Estonia's DIGAR catalogue credits him as editor of the 1965 issue.^[1][5]

Writing on the history of Estonian literary scholarship in exile, Tiit Hennoste notes that under Grabbi's editorship Mana was explicitly recast not as a magazine of exile literature but as a journal of Estonian literature and culture more broadly.^[6] Marin Laak and Janika Kronberg write that Grabbi occupied an exceptional place in the comparatively conservative Estonian expatriate community because, through Mana, he cultivated extensive contacts with writers in occupied Estonia and judged their work primarily by aesthetic rather than ideological criteria.^[3] The journal circulated hand-to-hand in Soviet Estonia and enabled readers abroad to encounter work by authors at home whose publication was constrained by censorship.^[1][3] He also edited books by both exile and Estonia-based authors.^[1]

Grabbi published reviews and essays on politics and culture from 1955 onward, including reviews in Books Abroad and World Literature Today.^[1][2] In 1968 he was a founding member of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies.^[1][2] From 1974 he was active as a correspondent for Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe. Eesti Rahvusringhääling (ERR) reported that on Estonian-language broadcasts between 1975 and 1989 he used the pseudonyms Kalju Põder and Toomas Rand.^[1][2]

Grabbi visited Soviet Estonia several times between 1968 and 1978 and published his impressions in Mana; after one of his visa applications was refused, he was unable to visit Estonia again for about a decade.^[1][4] During the restoration of Estonian independence, he headed the North American group of advisers in exile to President Arnold Rüütel in 1991–1992 and advised the electoral coalition Estonian Citizen in 1992.^[1] When the Estonian government announced his 2012 cultural prize, it cited his work in helping preserve the continuity of the Republic of Estonia in the United States and his contribution to Estonian cultural life both in exile and after the restoration of independence.^[7]

Grabbi published collections of literary criticism, political essays and memoiristic prose from the 1990s onward. His later books included the essay collections Vabal häälel (1997), Tulgu uus taevas (1999) and Eestlaste maa (2004), followed by a four-volume memoir sequence published between 2008 and 2014.^[1][4] He also translated Milovan Djilas's The New Class into Estonian, compiled Vaba Eesti tähistel (2000), and had his correspondence with Jaan Kaplinski published in book form in 2013.^[1]

• Vabal häälel: Mõtteid kahesajast eesti raamatust (1997)^[1]
• Tulgu uus taevas: Mõtteid viiekümnest kirjanikust (1999)^[1]
• Eestlaste maa (2004)^[1]
• Vabariigi laps (2008)^[1]
• Seitse retke isamaale (2010)^[1]
• Seisata, aeg! (2012)^[1]
• Sõprade kirjad on su poole teel: Jaan Kaplinski ja Hellar Grabbi kirjavahetus 1965–1991 (2013)^[1]
• Neli presidenti (2014)^[1]

Grabbi received the Order of the White Star, 3rd Class, in 2000,^[8] the Order of the National Coat of Arms, 3rd Class, in 2006,^[9] and the Estonian Cultural Endowment's annual literature award in essay writing for Vabariigi laps.^[10] In 2012 he received the Cultural Prize of the Republic of Estonia for long-term activity and outstanding creative achievement.^[7]

• Valmas, Anne (2013). Hellar Grabbi: bibliograafia. Tallinn: Teaduste Akadeemia Kirjastus. ISBN 9789985504239.

• Media related to Hellar Grabbi at Wikimedia Commons