Paul-Eerik Rummo

Writing • 1942-01-19 • Tallinn, Harju County, Estonian SSR, USSR [now Estonia]

Paul-Eerik Rummo (born January 19, 1942) is an Estonian poet, playwright, translator and politician who was the former Estonian Minister of Culture and Education, as well as the former Estonian Minister of Population Affairs. Rummo was born in Tallinn, the son of Estonian writer Paul Rummo. Paul-Eerik studied literature at the University of Tartu, graduating in 1965. Rummo has worked in Estonian theatres. In October 1980, Rummo was a signatory of the Letter of 40 Intellectuals, a public letter in which forty prominent Estonian intellectuals defended the Estonian language and protested the Russification policies of the Kremlin in Estonia. The signatories also expressed their unease against Republic-level government in harshly dealing with youth protests in Tallinn that were sparked a week earlier due to the banning of a public performance of the punk rock band Propeller. In the novel Purge (in Finnish Puhdistus) by Sofi Oksanen, Rummo's poetry becomes a symbol of resistance against Russification in Estonia, sprinkled throughout the narrative.