Intertextuality and Intersemiosis

Intertextuality and Technology:

The Models of Kalevipoeg

Marin Laak, Piret Viires

Estonian Literary Museum/
Estonian Literature, Tartu University
marin@kirmus.ee;
Estonian Writers’ Union/
Estonian Literature, Tartu University
viires@eki.ee

The article focuses on the concept of intertextuality, which has been

used in the technological project CULTOS (Cultural Units of
Learning — Tools and Services)1, and on the intertertextual model of
the Estonian national epic Kalevipoeg (Kalev’s Son), researched in the
framework of the project. CULTOS was based on a pluralistic and
heterogeneous interpretation of the concept of 'intertextuality', thus
making it relevant to all different critical approaches and to any study
of fictional or non-fictional texts. The aim of this project was to create
new knowledge-aware multimedia authoring and presentation tools
for literary and cultural experts, and for the cross-media integration of
cultural multimedia artefacts, using electronic environment and the
WWW (for details see http://www.cultos.org).
The CULTOS project had an ambitious goal — to construct a
“knowledge model of intertextuality”. The creators of the programme
the technological partners of the project — attempted to create soft-
ware for the formation of a universal relation network, which would
function in a similar way to the human thinking process. An inno-
vative computer programme had to work as a model for the creation of
different types of relations through the mental activity of both the

1
The project was financed by the European Commission under the 5th Frame-
work Programme (IST-2000-28134, 2001–2003)
288 Marin Laak, Piret Viires

creator/author and the recipient/reader. The main task of the joint

content group, working together with the technicians, was to develop
the “Standard Ontology of Intertextuality”, and to provide the pro-
gramme with a technologically suitable model for different types of
relations. A definitions glossary of the concepts, relations and attri-
butes to the relations was added. Thus, respecting different views, and
in order to create software that could be used by a wide range of
scholars in the humanities, the content group led by Ziva Ben-Porat
(Tel-Aviv University) agreed upon the widest possible open con-
ceptualisation of intertextuality and the poetics of literary allusion (see
Ben-Porat 1978).

Ontology of Intertextual Relations in CULTOS

The main theoretical idea for creating the Ontology of Intertextuality

was based on the assumption that intertextuality has proved to be a
productive tool for literary and cultural research. At the same time,
this concept is defined and interpreted in a contradictory way,
depending on different approaches: traditional literary criticism,
structuralism, post-structuralism, semiotics, neo-Marxism, post-colo-
nialism, feminism, and psychoanalysis. Thus we can talk about diffe-
rent concepts of intertextuality (see Allen 2000). Regardless of evident
disparities between all these trends, they still agree on the observation
that a text does not exist in a hermetic or self-sufficient condition, and
it does not function as a closed semantic system. Each modern theory
involves exploration on two levels, one studying the production of a
text, and the other, its preconditions. All approaches respect the idea
that an artefact does not stand alone, but is related to or intermingled
with several semiotic threads (e.g. a concrete type of discourse, diffe-
rent linguistic registers, quotations, allusions, references, genre con-
ventions, etc.). Secondly, it is assumed that a text acquires a meaning
only in relation with other texts in a culture or in the mind of a reader.
The receiver of the text does not derive its meaning simply based on
an individual work created by an author, but through relations to other
texts constituting that work. The meaning of the work cannot be
discovered, but has to be constructed through research into other texts
related to the source text.
 Intertextuality and Technology 289

So, in our case, in the framework of the CULTOS project we

understand the term 'intertextuality' as an umbrella-relation extending
across different types of relations between artefacts, between linguistic
or cultural codes and even different kinds of knowledge. The concept
‘intertextual relation’ has, in the context of this project, been inter-
preted as the widest category; the specific software would enable to
determine and visualise the ‘intertextual relations’ between ‘texts’ in a
broader sense.2
It has already been mentioned that the project aimed at establishing
an ontology, which would accommodate as many critical approaches
as possible. The inevitable differences and even contradictions were
represented not on the level of the “knowledge model”, but on other
final levels. In such a way, CULTOS could cope with the require-
ments of such a complex and heterogeneous field as intertextual
studies.
The terminology system introduced by Gérard Genette (1979,
1982, 1987, 1997) was employed in the project. Genette uses broad
definitions, which are vague enough to include all conceptual frames,
which a text can be based on. The precondition for creating the
intertextual ontology in CULTOS was to use the most exact terms and
definitions possible. Therefore, Genette’s system of terminology was
remade, and also some of the content group’s own terms were intro-
duced. More specifically — four of the terms used for the main textual
relations were identical to those used by Genette — Intertextuality,
Paratextuality, Metatextuality and Architextuality. Two other terms
used — Intratextuality and Extratextuality — have not been included
in Genette’s scheme. Archi-, Extra-, Meta-, Para- and Intertextual

2
In the framework of CULTOS terminology, the central term is ‘TEXT’
(capital letters). This term is inclusive and covers any artificial or natural
phenomenon the semiotic aspects of which are under consideration. (Hence, for
instance, a historical event or an abstract knowledge frame is also a TEXT, if
treated as such.). The other central term is ‘Text’ (small letters). The Texts can be
verbal (written verbal texts, like novels or poems, or oral verbal texts, like clichés,
proverbs and folktales), musical, visual (e.g. images, photographs, sculptures,
illustrations), or they can combine several medias (e.g. theatre performances,
motion pictures, comic strips, video clips, cartoons, TV projects) (Benari 2003:
160). The created software is applied in the study of different text types. Thus we
can claim that instead of the concept of ‘intertextual relation’, the concept of
‘intersemiotic relation’ could be used in CULTOS in several cases.
290 Marin Laak, Piret Viires

relations were applied as the sub-relations of Intertextuality as a wide

category. The project abandoned Genette’s term Hypertextual and
replaced it with different approaches to Intertextual. A distinction
between local and global intertextuality was introduced into the
system of the relations. In this case, local intertextuality refers to
direct text-to-text relations (quotations, allusions etc). Global inter-
textuality has a wider meaning — the relations are not so evident, the
text is considered as a whole and the relations between different texts
are seen on a wider level. (See Table 1.)

Table 1. Differences in the terminology of G. Genette and CULTOS

(Benari 2002).

Genette CULTOS

Intertextuality Intertextuality – Local

Hypertextuality Intertextuality – Global

Paratextuality
Paratextuality
Intratextuality – Liminal

Metatextuality – Internal
Metatextuality
Metatextuality – External

Architextual Architextual
 Intertextuality and Technology 291

The views of the theorists have posed a challenge to the technicians,

which they attempted to solve in creating the new programme. Using
the specific software — Authoring Tools — created by CULTOS, it is
possible practically to ‘break’ the linearity of the main text, to reveal
the intertexts that lie hidden below its surface. The programme enables
users to materialise intertextual relations on the screen, to show two
texts simultaneously, and to present textual segments and their inter-
relations, no matter how small. For the determining of the relations,
the programme contains a voluminous menu of intertextual rela-
tions — “Ontology of Intertextual Relations” — a glossary of defi-
nitions and examples. The ontology facilitates easy determination of a
suitable relation and allows the user to add specifying attributes. The
choices can be motivated, explained and commented upon in the pro-
gramme. E.g., if a relation ‘allusion’ is chosen, it can be comple-
mented by ‘global allusion’ or ‘local allusion’, etc. The researcher’s
choices are determined by his or her intuition and experience in
historical research, and technology would make these choices easier.
In a word, the CULTOS Authoring Tools allows the user to
demonstrate in an online format things that would otherwise be
described in an article.
The technology applied in the project, and the requirement to use
multimedia material created certain preconditions for the original
research by the content group. For example, feminist reception of Jane
Eyre in different media (“Gender, race and madness in Jane Eyre and
its intertexts”, University of Southampton), and interrelations between
the life and works of a Portuguese poet Al Berto (‘‘The poetry of Al
Berto”, University of London) were studied. The work group of Tel
Aviv University mainly studied representations connected with the
Bible (e.g. “Variations in visual representations of the crucifixion”),
and the intertextuality of the novel Don Quixote on different textual
levels (e.g. “Don Quixote’s character traits”, “The episode of Don
Quixote’s encounter with the windmills, and its visual represen-
tations”).
The work group of Tartu University chose Kalevipoeg, the Esto-
nian national epic created by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald in the
19th century, on the later waves of Enlightenment and Romanticism
as the object of their research.
292 Marin Laak, Piret Viires

Kalevipoeg as a Monument and its Cultural Context

Folktales about Kalevipoeg were collected in the early 19th century and
they formed the basis of the epic Kalevipoeg, published in 1857–1861.
Kalevipoeg had a deep effect on the national awakening movement. The
epic emphatically centred on the story (myth) of a hero in the
characteristic manner of the European tradition of epic poems. At the
same time, however, the hero’s story symbolically reflects the wider idea
of the nation and its fight for freedom. All the deeds of the hero
Kalevipoeg are related to the creation of his land and fighting its enemies.
Although the hero perishes at the end of the epic, a hope remains that he
will return one day and bring freedom and happiness to his people.
In the Estonian cultural space, the model of contextual inter-
pretation of Kalevipoeg has been productive — the epic has become a
cultural historical monument (see Laak 2003). The intertextuality of
Kalevipoeg has, however, so far been neglected by Estonian scholars.
Although Kalevipoeg is the original creation of a literary author, it
intentionally contains a number of intertextual relations characteristic
of the European tradition of epics. The ideas of Enlightenment and
Romanticism are clearly visible in the epic. On the other hand, allu-
sions and references to Kalevipoeg as a source text can clearly be seen
in modern Estonian literature.
The literary reception of Kalevipoeg has so far considered its
patriotic and historical, in a word — contextual meanings to be more
important than its textuality. But the publication of the epic became an
explosive event not only for its social importance, but for its textual
importance as well, since the influence of the work can be followed
through its intertextual relations with many later texts. The text of
Kalevipoeg rapidly became an important source text in Estonian
culture as a whole. For example, the lyrics of the period of national
awakening are related to Kalevipoeg through the character of Vane-
muine, the god of song; the epic opens with an appeal to Vanemuine:

Vanemuine, lend me your lyre

A sweet song is stirring my senses
And I long to unfold in song
The legacy of ancient ages.3

3
Translated from Estonian into English by Jüri Kurman (Kalevipoeg, 1982)
 Intertextuality and Technology 293

A similar stylistic pattern and figurative language have been used in

works influenced by the early stage of the romantic national
awakening starting from 1860. For example, in Lydia Koidula’s poem
“Mõtted Toomemäel” (“Thoughts on Toome Hill”, 1867), the allu-
sions to Kalevipoeg and to F. R. Faehlmann’s romantic folk tale about
the god of song Vanemuine are rather explicit. An allusion to the
opening lines of the epic makes Koidula’s poem (1989: 131) a
dialogue:
Vanemuine, God of the Song,
Your zither, pouring out songs,
Brought forth melodies in the North!
Here, where your children, Kalev,
Strong offshoots of Estonian stumps,
4
Walked around, his voice was heard.

In the poetry of the period of national awakening, Vanemuine evoked

allusions to the time of great happiness, the royal line of Kalev,
explicitly described in Kalevipoeg, and the romantic images of
blossoming sacred trees, etc. These images were sharply contrasted
with the later long period of serfdom of the Estonian people.
Both the motif of Vanemuine and the epic as a whole have
continuously been interpreted from an ideological viewpoint in
Estonian culture. The use of the motif of Vanemuine was not only
restricted to the ancient god of song, but it acquired a wider meaning
of the power of song or the magic of words. Allusions to this motif
can even be found in the proletarian poetry of the early 20th century.
For example, in the poem “Sõja ajal” (“During the Wartime”, 1909),
the zither turns into bugles and rolling drums; the meaning of the
poem can be understood only in relation its sharp contrast to the
romanticist rhetoric and sentimentality of Kalevipoeg:

Throw into the corner, Vanemuine, your zither!

There is no time now for sweet melodies:
In the tent of Ilmarine carnage has broken out,
The bloody carriage of war is rolling on.
[…]

4
Translated from Estonian into English by Jüri Talvet (for CULTOS project,
2003)
294 Marin Laak, Piret Viires

Vanemuine, throw into the corner your heavenly zither,

Let your trumpets and bugles cry,
5
Make your drums roll!

Kalevipoeg, having been the symbol of national awakening, has,

nevertheless, been an object of debate during aesthetic revolutions.
The Young-Estonia as a literary modernist movement attempted to
oppose itself to the literature of the previous period of the late national
awakening. Naturally, Kalevipoeg as one of the most important source
texts became the object of its criticism — both Kalevipoeg and all
Kreutzwald’s works were critically re-evaluated. Weaknesses were
sought in Kalevipoeg; its author was reproached for his poor
knowledge of folklore and for his use of the form of runosong despite
the fact that the characteristic variability of folkloristic texts did not
allow the use of authentic material, and mistakes in the rhythm and
language of the source materials could have been made when
recording the songs. The criticism was excessive; too much time was
wasted on searching for an ideal model for using folk songs in the
epic. Paradoxically, the work of Kreutzwald as the author — the text
of folk songs that has become poetry — found appreciation in the
background of both the archaic “authentic” folksongs and the high
literary culture of the early 20th century (Mirov 1989: 1037–1038).
The slogan of the Young-Estonia movement, “Let us remain Esto-
nians, but let us also become Europeans!”, introduced modernism to
Estonian literature, but at the same time, its powerful criticism
inhibited further research into Kalevipoeg. The liberation of Kalevi-
poeg as an artistic text from the extremely critical reception of the
early 20th century has proved to be exceedingly difficult, in some
senses, the impact of the earlier criticism can be felt even now. New
approaches to the studies of Kalevipoeg have emerged only recently;
we shall observe some of them below.

5
Translated from Estonian into English by Jüri Talvet (for CULTOS project,
2003)
 Intertextuality and Technology 295

Textuality in Kalevipoeg

So far, Kalevipoeg has mainly and more deeply been studied by

folklorists in the context of Estonian folk songs and folk tales (see
Laidvee 1969). The existing studies allow us to talk about its direct
intertextual relations with the folkloristic texts. It has been specified
that of the total of 19 087 lines of the epic, 2400 lines or 12,5% have
been derived from folklore (Pino 1961: 420). 59 types of folk tales
have been indexed as forming part of the text of Kalevipoeg (Annist
1961: 29–31). But the majority of these oral tales contain only a single
episode, and reference to Kalevipoeg is fragmentary and of hybrid
genre. A unified narrative about a heroic ancient king of the Estonians
has never existed in authentic Estonian folklore. Besides, when
creating the epic, Kreutzwald wove popular sayings, riddles and
proverbs into his text.
At the present time, more and more attention is being paid to the
textuality of the epic, even when proceeding from the folkloristic
point of view. According to Ülo Valk, Kreutzwald, who used source
texts originating from folklore, made three bold major changes. He
adapted the texture of lyrical women’s songs to the heroic form of the
epic; he transformed Kalevipoeg, who had been known as a wild giant
in folk tales, into a romantic king and gave him a sacred dimension;
and, he applied the model of biographical narrative when combining
different fragmentary episodes (Valk 2002: 80–82, Est.). The change
in the approach is also connected with the fact that Kalevipoeg is no
longer discussed as a national epic, as the author himself presented it,
because of cultural and political considerations of the 19th century,
but is viewed as a literary epic and even a sacred text. The research
done for CULTOS shows that the role of poetry authored by
Kreutzwald, including his meditative poetry of high artistic level, in
the “national epic” is much larger than it had previously been thought
to be. It has already been demonstrated that the epic assembles arche-
typal motifs, images, symbols, expressive characters, mythical situa-
tions and moral attitudes (Veidemann 2003: 891). Using Kalevipoeg
as a code text “allows both horizontal (between individuals) and
vertical (between the consciousness of different epochs) commu-
nication” (ibid: 894). Such empirical truth gives direction to the study
of the intertextuality of Kalevipoeg in relation to both the texts that
follow it and the source texts originating from Estonian folklore. We
296 Marin Laak, Piret Viires

must also take into account its relations with the Classical epics and
European Romanticist literature of the 18th and 19th centuries (see
also Anni 1934).
The study of Kreutzwald’s epic in literary context resp in the
context of other literary epics requires, in its turn, the study of the
share of (literary) compilation in the texture of Kalevipoeg. For
example, according to the CULTOS Ontology of Intertextuality,
Kreutzwald’s text contains “globally” intertextual allusions to other
European literary epics and classical myths, which reveal themselves
on the level of motifs and themes. Most often, Kreutzwald’s Kalevi-
poeg has been associated with the Finnish epic The Kalevala. Despite
having been influenced by The Kalevala, Kreutzwald’s epic differs
radically from the Finnish epic. Kreutzwald’s folkloristic sources were
much scantier than those of Lönnrot. He had to invent the myth and
folklore. Kalevipoeg is, first and foremost, a literary work. As such, it
should not be researched in the canon of the ancient Greek Iliad, the
medieval Icelandic songs of Edda or Lönnrot’s The Kalevala, all of
which are supposedly based predominantly (though not entirely) on
authentic folklore, reflecting primeval tribal conscience. On the
contrary, Kalevipoeg clearly belongs to another — by no means less
valuable — canon, the one of individual verse epics, starting in the
West with Virgil’s Aeneid, to be followed in the late Middle Ages by
the French Chanson de Roland, the Spanish Cantar de Mío Cid, the
German Nibelungenlied and, in the Renaissance, by Os Lusiadas, the
great epic written by the founder of Portuguese literature, Camões.
(Talvet 2003b: 887). Jüri Talvet is convinced that Kreutzwald “is one
of the few European late romantic writers who did succeed in creating
a verse epic in its full rights” (Talvet 2003a: 7). We realise that the
borderlines between textual similarities and direct intertextual
relations can be questioned, and they are vague in the case of such a
broad discussion of intertextuality.6 But research on the intertextuality
between Kalevipoeg and earlier literary texts from Europe is en-
couraged by an exhaustive study of Kreutzwald’s preferences in

6
The relations of Kalevipoeg with the architexts known from the classics of
world literature would be an entirely new, independent and intriguing research
subject. When working with this project, our attention was, however, focussed
upon the integrity of a new possible model of studying Kalevipoeg in relation with
the opportunities offered by technology. This approach will be explained below.
 Intertextuality and Technology 297

foreign literature (Tohvri 1932) and the study of the extent of

Kreutzwald’s reading based on the records of his book loans at the
libraries of Tartu University and the Learned Estonian Society (Kudu
1963). It is also known that Kreutzwald started the transformation of
his Kalevipoeg, originally written in prose, into verse after having read
the German translation of The Kalevala (1853). We can suppose that
the author could have intended to create intertextual relations. Thus,
the renewal of interpretation methods in recent years has initiated new
approaches in folklore as well as in literary criticism. It has already
been mentioned that in the course of the studies of intertextual
relations of Kalevipoeg it is possible to reveal both horizontal and
vertical relations. Through Kalevipoeg, a large number of these
intertextual motifs have acquired new and more powerful meanings in
modern Estonian culture. Numerous motifs, themes, and concrete
passages of text, originating from the epic have been interpreted and
modified in modern Estonian literature and also non-literary art forms
such as painting, drawing, pop-music, animations, cartoons, comics
etc. Intertextual relations between Kalevipoeg and modern literature
range from parodies to postmodernist games. A real boom in the use
of motifs from Kalevipoeg occurred after the 1990s.

About the Postmodernist Intertextuality of Kalevipoeg

Kalevipoeg has given rise to a surprisingly large number of post-

modernist interpretations in Estonian literature. Searching for the
reasons, we should recall Umberto Eco, who has found that post-
modernist literature is characterised by “the loss of innocence”,
meaning that each word and sentence has already been said by
somebody, and by using these words or sentences, we refer to all these
meanings that have been voiced earlier. In such a way, a post-
modernist writer can write only in an ironic key. Eco argues that a
postmodernist author finds that he cannot escape from the past, but
that it can be represented and reused only in a non-innocent, ironic or
parodic way. “Every story tells a story that has already been told”
298 Marin Laak, Piret Viires

(Eco 1985: 19–20). And what could be a better story for postmoder-
nist retelling than a national epic?7
Other key words of postmodernism, such as parody and pastiche,
become actual in the interpretations of Kalevipoeg in modern
literature.8 For example, Linda Hutcheon considers parody as a
“perfect postmodern form, in some sense, for it paradoxically both
incorporates and challenges that which it parodies” (Hutcheon 1988:
11). Here, we should rather proceed from the views of Frederic
Jameson, who believes that postmodernism is not so much characte-
rised by parody, than by “pastiche” — a “blank parody”, a “neutral
practice”, where the author’s intention lacks satire and criticism and
the author’s attitude is, rather, neutral and indifferent (Jameson 1991:
17–18). If we recall other characteristics of postmodernism — inter-
textuality, fragmentarity, eclecticism, irony, scepticism, indistinct
boundaries between the genres and the disappearance of the
distinction between mass culture and high literature — we can see,
while reading modern interpretations of Kalevipoeg, that these
characteristics can be found in many works and that these works can
be analysed in the context of postmodernist discourse.
A breakthrough in the representation of Kalevipoeg occurred in
1971, when Enn Vetemaa published Memoirs of Kalevipoeg in the
magazine Looming. Vetemaa’s Kalevipoeg is comical and parodic and
the work itself has been labelled as travesty. At the same time, it is
still questionable whether this work can be considered postmodernist.
Its narrative is not fragmentary, but continuous, following the
structure of the epic. It is, indeed, a re-writing, but it has a system
within which all the details occupy their logical places. The author’s
attitude is rather warm and friendly, we could say that the work lacks
anarchy, chance and play.
Mati Unt’s short piece A Page from Estonian Cultural History
(1974) can most certainly be taken as a postmodernist work, where in

7
This is, naturally, a rhetorical question. The real reasons for postmodernist
interpretations of Kalevipoeg are not so elementary, but more complicated and
sophisticated. For instance, Kalevipoeg is a symbol of the nation in Estonian
culture, it is the text that gave rise to the modernist nation-building. Therefore it
can be argued that a postmodernist approach — the opposing, parodying and
questioning of the modernist nature of the epics — is quite logical and to be
expected.
8
Parodies of Kalevipoeg have also been studied by Anu Laitila (Laitila 2003).
 Intertextuality and Technology 299

a scene of conversation between Kreutzwald and Koidula, Kalevipoeg

suddenly breaks into the room and attacks Koidula: “Kalevipoeg
stepped to the Maiden of Letters and encircled her waist in his large
hands. The look on his face spoke clearly about the scene that would
have followed. But before that, Kreutzwald grabbed his small ladies’
pistol from his chest of drawers and shot Kalevipoeg in the head. The
giant collapsed with a rumble.” (Unt 1985: 9.) The description is
absurd enough, maybe even anarchic. Mati Unt continued his literary
career as, mainly, a postmodernist writer, and in 2000 he returned to
the same subject — Kalevipoeg, Kreutzwald and Koidula — in a
sketch written for a play The Authors in a Hole. Here he once again
repeats the motif of close relations between Koidula and Kreutzwald,
the introduction of the figure of Kalevipoeg is again an extremely
postmodernist feature. The author and the hero of the work have been
merged into one; the whole sketch is of eclectic and ironical character.
The boundary between the reality and fiction has become indistinct,
and the author also applies one of the key notions of postmoder-
nism — the vicious circle.
The seething literary scene of the 1990s brought along the
sharpening of postmodernist features and the explosive growth of
literary experiments. The subject of Kalevipoeg offered an object for
playful interpretation for a number of Estonian writers, mostly for
poets. Contra’s poem “Tarczani poeg” („Tarczan’s Son“) is probably
the best known among them, and in a sense even chrestomatic; direct
allusions to the concluding verses of Kalevipoeg are well known
among the public: (1998: 32):

but one day time will come

when ransom money will be raised
Tarzan will come home pockets full of dough
he will free his son

soon visas will be abolished

then Tarzan will come home
to bring happiness to the jungle people
to drink beer in the yard of happiness

Here, we are dealing with a double re-writing, the texts about Tarzan
and Kalevipoeg are intermingled, intertextual referrals are mixed with
300 Marin Laak, Piret Viires

referrals to modern everyday life; it is a fragmentary, polymorphic and

anarchic text.
Kalev Kesküla’s poem “Kalev Comes Home” from a collection
Songs for the Republic (1998: 51) is a sequence of intertextual
associations that form a postmodernist text:
Kalevipoeg
a Hercules of all-republican importance
wants to return home
he now has an American passport and a hero’s retirement fee
from a science foundation bearing his own name in Indiana

Kerttu Rakke has also updated Kalevipoeg in her short novel Kalevi-
poeg (2000), which refers directly to the Estonian national epic.
Rakke’s Kalevipoeg is an interesting phenomenon, since it represents
a pure postmodernist pastiche, the author’s attitude is rather in-
different. Postmodernist intertextuality is, however, present in its pure
form. Reference to the basic text has been made already in the title of
the novel, offering the reader the key to solve the double coding. Here
we can see the “lost innocence” of Eco — the adventures of the main
character and her friends hide references to the epic and the story
cannot be read as a simple narrative. The text is full of hidden
allusions and forthright quotations, starting from the numbers of the
chapters, which directly refer to the songs of Kalevipoeg.
We could still suggest that the postmodernist interpretation of
Kalevipoeg that is truest to the genre can be found in Sven Kivi-
sildnik’s collection of poetry “Kalevipoeg ehk armastus” (Kalevipoeg
or Love) (2003). Perhaps the book should not be called a collection of
poetry, because, rather, it is a postmodernist project from the start,
where the poems have been written on a concrete order. This is a
fragmentary and ironical set of texts; the author’s intention was to
create a pastiche, an empty parody without comical and satirical
content. The title page announces that this is the Estonian national
epic; the design of the book uses fragments and direct citations from
the anniversary publication of Kalevipoeg (1961). Regarding textual
strategy, Kalevipoeg or Love resembles Kivisildnik’s earlier works,
created on the principle of a machine, where phrases have mecha-
nically been added to phrases. At the same time, these fragments grow
into a larger unity, because Kivisildnik plays with the folk tales about
locations, effecting a certain dimension of myth-creation or world-
 Intertextuality and Technology 301

creation. We should admit that this is an elaborated and finished

postmodernist project, which can well be characterised by the majority
of key words applicable to postmodernism — playfulness, anarchy,
fragmentarity, intertextuality, schizophrenia, etc.
Thus we can state that Kalevipoeg is continuously topical for
modern Estonian writers and that Kalevipoeg as one of the basic texts
of Estonian culture offers many opportunities for postmodernist games
and experiments. Kalevipoeg is the story that is retold again and again.

Modelling of Kalevipoeg as an Hourglass

The study of intertextual relations of Kalevipoeg required the speci-

fication of discrete components (words, phrases and sentences) of the
text of the epic — the smallest relation-generating textual segments
(Riffaterre 1994: 786). This work was based on the linguistic network
that guides reading, and relates small textual units either with later
texts (target texts) or earlier texts (source texts). The specification of
such relation-generating textual units required a principally new
approach to Kalevipoeg — attention was focused on the text of the
epic and textual relations, not so much on its historical and cultural
context-based interpretation. It was necessary to liberate the text from
the cultural historical approach, which had dominated the earlier
interpretations of Kalevipoeg. Working with the universal intertextual
ontology of the CULTOS project, mentioned above, required the
structuring of the intersemiotic relations between multimedia texts
into a model that could bind a larger amount of relations. The new
cultural unit was in this case an intermedial and intertextual thread of
the relations. The research methods and the related development of
models varied also inside the CULTOS group9.
When developing the model of Kalevipoeg, we had to consider its
genesis and its specific nature. Cultural context is important indeed
when talking about the genesis of a work. As already mentioned
above, the creation of this text had been influenced by the re-
verberations of the European Enlightenment and late Romanticism of
the 18th and 19th centuries. The national epic also maintained its

9
Intertextual relations were modelled as a network of different types of threads,
it was recommended to use also the Millipede, Spider and Mistletoe models.
302 Marin Laak, Piret Viires

importance in Estonian culture in later times — motifs, quotations and

signs that have their origins in the text have later been used on every
possible cultural level, but in the greatest abundance, allusions to
Kalevipoeg can be found in literature and arts.
In our case, when considering Kalevipoeg, we can talk about two-
way intertextuality: the older texts, in relation to which Kalevipoeg is
intertextual; and the intertextuality, generated by Kalevipoeg, which
reveals itself in later texts. Proceeding from the relations that branch
into two directions, it was possible to create a dynamic hourglass
model to represent all textual relations active in Kalevipoeg. The
central text of the model is Kalevipoeg. The upper part of the
hourglass would be informed by modern Estonian literature, art, music
and films. Here we would draw together all the texts that have either
explicitly or implicitly used allusions, quotes or parodies, re-writing,
etc. of Kalevipoeg.
The lower part would show different intertextual relations between
Kalevipoeg and the earlier texts, which would be its source texts.
Several types of texts can be differentiated here: 1) literary source
texts (e.g. Aeneid, Odyssey, The Kalevala; 2) folk songs (e.g. Karelian
folk song “Meren kosijat”); 3) mythological icons; and, 4) inter-
national architexts10 of folkloristic origin (e.g. perishing of a maiden,
an orphan on his mother’s grave, etc.). According to such a model, the
meaning of Kalevipoeg as a text would be constructed through these
smaller units of texts that generate intertextual relations.
Intertextually active discrete textual units/motifs are not spread
evenly over the text of Kalevipoeg. The formal structure of the text
contains twenty songs; one or several stories correspond to each of
them. Besides such complete stories (e.g. “Kalevipoeg in Finland”,
“Stone-throwing competition and the hero’s becoming of the king”,
etc.), the repetitive themes, motifs and multidimensional signs, the
meaning of which varies, also add to the structure of Kalevipoeg. For
example, one multidimensional sign recurring in the epic is 'rock'.
Depending on the context, it could signify both the memory of the
10
The notion is used according to the glossary of the CULTOS project.
According to this, architext is a ‘leading concept’: “A conceptual or transcendent
category (e.g. genre, style, topos) to which a Text or a Segment of a text is related
and which might be relevant to its comprehension, interpretation and classifi-
cation. (Note: The word "transcendent" does not indicate a mystic conversion, but
is used here in a technical sense, as opposed to "immanent").”
 Intertextuality and Technology 303

hero’s father (father's grave), or his mother Linda, who was trans-
formed into rock. Both of these cases carry the most gentle and lyrical
motifs in Kalevipoeg (see also Talvet 2003d). Secondly, the binary
meaning of 'rock' refers to a fortress, a stronghold built to guard
against one’s enemies, the 'rock' signifies the strength and might of the
hero. Similar binary connotations are signified by the 'sword', which
simultaneously symbolises both royalty and strength, as well as the
reason for the hero’s tragic death. Also the Island Maid theme (the
seduction of a virgin and the ensued motif of fatal guilt) appears in the
epic intra-textually. Although these activities take place in the very
beginning of the epic (in the Fourth Tale), this theme cyclically recurs
throughout the epic.

Fig. 1. The hourglass model of Kalevipoeg

304 Marin Laak, Piret Viires

Another example of locating a motif into the hourglass model would

be the opening verses of the epic “Lend me your zither, Vanemuine”
Using the flexible ontology of relations, generated for CULTOS, it is
possible to produce threads of relations, which branch towards the
lower part of the model, to the direction of older texts, as well as
towards its upper part, following the quotations of this verse in
Estonian modernist and postmodernist poetry. For example, the
character of Vanemuine, the god of song, is in this way related with
Väinamöinen from The Kalevala. A god of song who is in the posses-
sion of a magic instrument is known as one of the archetexts of other
older epics. A god of song always has an instrument letting out divine
sounds, either a zither or a lyre, which is the symbol of the power of
poetry and music. In addition to architexts, the motif of Vanemuine is
also related with concrete source texts. One of these is the translation
of Chr. Ganander’s Finnish-Swedish Encyclopedia Mythologia Fen-
nica (1789) into German by the young Estonian poet K.-J. Peterson
(Finnische Mytologie, 1822). The myth of the Finnish god of song has
also been substantially complemented with examples from Estonian
folklore (Järv 1996a,b; 2001). Peterson’s works were later used by
F. R. Faehlmann, who based his romanticist German-language folk
tales about Vanemuine on these sources11. We know that Kreutzwald
continued Faehlmann’s work after the death of the latter, and used the
already finished text passages in the opening verses of the epic. The
meaning of allusions to Vanemuine and to the lending of the zither in
the arts and literature of the later periods is revealed at its fullest only
when the readers are familiar with the relations between Kalevipoeg
and its source texts. The motif of Vanemuine, much used in the poetry
of exile Estonian authors, often becomes ironical with reference to its
original meaning of romantic and bright hopes for the future. A poem

11
F. R. Faehlmann’s Estonian Folk Tales were written in German and intended
to give the educated reader some examples of the abundancy of Estonian folk
songs. Among the first tales were published “Vanemuine’s Song”, “The Boiling
of Languages”, “The Birth of the River Emajõgi”. The rest of the folk tales -
“Dawn and Twilight”, “The Departure of Vanemuine” and others were published
later. Based on some Estonian folk tales, Ganander’s and Peterson’s Finnische
Mytologie, the Finnish epic The Kalevala and the example of Classical epics,
Faehlmann developed the world of Estonian deities, which became the basis of
Estonian romanticist national mythology — the Pantheon of ancient Estonian
gods was created. (Metste 2003: 27)
 Intertextuality and Technology 305

“A Bitter Thought“ (1958) is written in a pessimistic key at the time,

when the exiles were losing the hope of returning to their homeland:

Lend me your zither, Vanemuine,

A bitter thought comes to my mind:

When Kalev one day comes home

to drink home-made beer from a piggin,
to hang his own children.

(Lepik 1990: 194)

We can, thus, assert that the text of Kalevipoeg generates intra-

textually the accumulation and/or amplification of certain motifs and
themes. Among such motifs are, for example, the land, mother, father,
stone, ploughing, ship, hope, voyage, sword, lake, hell, island maid,
fate, war, and bard. In the epic, these motifs can be conveyed by small
textual units, as well as by longer passages of text, which will acquire
intra-textual relations and form new meanings, generated by just these
relations. Our group could, thus, define ourselves as bricoleur-critics,
who restructure and rearrange elements of the work's original struc-
ture — its themes, motifs, key-words, obsessive metaphors, quota-
tions, sources and so on — in their study, following their own goals,
and formulate various textual threads based on them. The new textual
structure thus created will not be identical to that of the original work,
it rather functions as a description or explanation of the original
structure.
Of all the motifs embedded in Kalevipoeg, the following five have
been selected for the Estonian showcase “The Estonian National Epic
Kalevipoeg” in the frames of the project CULTOS.

1. motif – sword
2. motif – island maid
3. motif – journey
4. motif – augury
5. motif – zither
306 Marin Laak, Piret Viires

By the end of the project we had prepared two encapsulating threads:

“Vanemuine” (the God of Song Vanemuine and his zither as the
symbol of music and creative power) and “Island Maid” (the hero
seduces Island Maid and is the cause of her death). According to the
hourglass model, each of the threads is based on the intermedial
intertextual relations of one motif of the epic with the earlier source
text, as well as with the texts of modern Estonian literature, and with
music, fine arts, etc. Mutual balance between mediafiles differs from
thread to thread. The meaning of Kalevipoeg manifests itself particu-
larly through the choice of motifs that have inspired numerous modern
texts since the 19th century.

The Problem of Context in the Understanding of the Text

The actualisation of themes, motifs and smaller textual units is closely

connected to social and cultural context. Neither of these contexts
(social and cultural, and also ethnic) of interpretation can be left aside
when explaining the new meanings formed by intertextual relations,
but the analysers of the text of Kalevipoeg tried to neglect this issue,
in favour of forming a closed circle of interpretations. For example,
when connected with the winning of the War of Independence in 1920
and the birth of the Estonian Republic, the theme of Kalevipoeg’s
battles became topical. In relation with the ideology of national
optimism in the 1930s, the ancient freedom and Kalevipoeg’s work in
building the state became topical — works entitled “Kalevipoeg
Ploughing” and others were typical among the illustrations of the epic
at the time. A seemingly similar meaning was conveyed by allusions
to Kalevipoeg, created in the Soviet Estonia since the 1940s, but the
ideological context was altogether different.
The harnessing of Kalevipoeg and Kalevipoeg to the service of
ideology became especially popular in connection with the making of
concert films in the Stalinist 1950s. Kalev had already “returned
home” together with the Soviet Army, and the creation of a new life
for Estonians was to be accomplished with the arrival of the eternal
freedom together with Communism. The closing verses of Paul
Rummo’s poem “A Fairy-tale Come True” (1952) characterise this
period well.
 Intertextuality and Technology 307

And the ancient hero, deeply moved,

Puts his hand, holding his shield, across his heart:

“Long ago you created me to symbolise my people,

My might was created by your dreams.
The dreams became deeds. Now you can see
How a new life has stemmed from the power of the people.
The fairy-tale has come true…”
(Rummo 1955: 15–16)

This period was characterised by re-writings and omissions in the

epic, up to quite radical alterations of the plot. For example, in a con-
cert film “When the Evening Comes” (1955), presenting a montage of
fragments of Eugen Kapp’s ballet Kalevipoeg, the Island Maid is
pushed into the sea from a rock by the Sorcerer, who accompanies
Kalevipoeg everywhere like Mephistopheles, and embodies all hellish
powers. We should add that in the case of this negative character,
considering the political background of the post-war years, the
extratextual allusions simply refer to the German war machine. But in
the same scene, (contrary to the narrative logic of the epic and the
author’s intention), Kalevipoeg quickly finds the girl in the sea and
carries her to the land. The film also omits the quarrel at the Finnish
Smith’s place and the resulting bloodguilt of Kalevipoeg; the hero
leaves the place on a white horse with the blessings of all the others.
We can be sure that the mutilations carried out during the Stalinist era
have had a numbing effect on more serious (re-)readings of
Kalevipoeg and its reception.
The text of the epic has also been re-written in a similar way in
other media during the Soviet period. For example, an otherwise
authentic and true to Kreutzwald’s rendition of the text presented in a
radio play, produced at Eesti Raadio in the 1960s, entirely omits the
scene of Kalevipoeg and the Island Maid, giving an impression that a
seemingly valueless scene has painlessly been left aside. But a more
careful reading of the text reveals that this scene exposes the focal
point for all further events of the epic, introducing a theme of tragic
fate. Such interpretation can be supported by the author’s intention: “
“A strong hand splintered the waves, it thrashed the swells of the
sea…” having no idea that already this first journey hid the seeds that
would grow into the cause for his early leaving of this world”
(Kreutzwald 1869: 19).
308 Marin Laak, Piret Viires

The cultural and political amplification and actualisation of the

motifs of the epic have caused, in a sense, a certain simplification of
the meaning of Kalevipoeg, compared with the author’s intention and
with the possible interpretations, proceeding from the original text.
The new meanings, carried by intertextual relations (re-writings,
changes in the plot structure, etc.) again require that the cultural
context should be considered when explaining these meanings.

Conclusion

Innovative technology, the development of which also has to take into

account modern literary and cultural studies, requires new approaches
to traditional and seemingly well-studied empirical materials and well-
known texts, as well as the creation of new models.
The study of the intertextual and intersemiotic relations of
Kalevipoeg in the frames of CULTOS was a pilot study; the first step
of the study was devoted to gathering multimedia data connected with
Kalevipoeg. The priority of the CULTOS project was the application
and testing of innovative software and the related universal “Ontology
of Intertextual Relations”, which would cover as many approaches to
literary studies as possible, when working with empirical material.
The notion of intertextuality has been used in its wider sense, as the
most wide-ranging category for marking the relations between any
two signifying systems. Some conclusions can be drawn from the
experience related to Kalevipoeg:
I. Using the intertextual hourglass model of Kalevipoeg, it is
possible to study the communication between the text of the epic and
the artefacts that originate from different sign systems. The hourglass
model was based on the study of the textuality of Kalevipoeg, and the
intratextual and intertextual relations it had generated.
II. Although we should consider Kalevipoeg a literary epic,
Kreutzwald still used a poetic form characteristic of traditional Esto-
nian folksongs in his creation. In comparison, the text of Kalevipoeg
likewise applies repetition in parallel verse lines, as well as in the
general composition of the epic. The same themes and motifs recur as
cycles and vary throughout the whole narrative. Thus certain themes
become paramount and start to dominate, particularly through intra-
textual relations. Between the variations of the same theme there
 Intertextuality and Technology 309

emerges a lyric tension and a new meaning. This provides an expla-

nation for the productiveness of certain themes and motifs in modern
culture.
III. Such intra-textual analysis reveals how the text of the epic
generates clusters of different motifs, themes, metaphors, and
quotations. Such clusters form the basis for the study of intertextual
relations of Kalevipoeg in modern Estonian culture. The meaning of
Kalevipoeg in modern culture is revealed through finding out which of
the motifs (themes, images, etc.) of the national epic, created in the
19th century, have generated new, modernist (especially postmoder-
nist) texts today. The structure or the model of the motifs generated
by the text of Kalevipoeg either will or will not be amplified by the
later literary texts (and music, images, etc.).
IV. Studying the textuality of Kalevipoeg in the context of modern
multimedia artefacts it became clear that different motifs of the epic
have been productive in different fields of art. The use of motifs in
different media would need a more thorough analysis. Generally, more
dynamic scenes have been used in music and music theatre and more
static scenes have been represented in fine arts. For example, the motif
of shackling the hero and the hope for his return have inspired many
literary texts, while in music and art productions these motifs are often
missing. At the same time, there are a number of texts which present
Kalevipoeg as a King who establishes a kingdom and fights the
enemy.
V. Studying the intertextuality generated by Kalevipoeg as a source
text requires the study of the textuality of Kalevipoeg. This point of
view meant the application of a new approach besides the earlier,
context-centred reception. In order to reveal the meaning of new
relations between Kalevipoeg and the later (post)modernist texts by
using the hourglass model, it is necessary to consider also the social
and cultural contexts. Intertextual relations can be unveiled only when
knowing the context of the time when the artefacts were created.
VI. Having completed the CULTOS project we can state that it
produced new results in the field of intertextuality research. During
the project, all possible intertextual relations were portrayed and
mapped in a model that was flexible enough to overcome theoretical
differences in this field. These relations were defined and described,
and were organised in a logical and coherent tree-like structural
hierarchy. The Relations Glossary is included for selected relations,
310 Marin Laak, Piret Viires

enabling the user to compare the created new relation and its attributes
with the ontological meaning of the chosen relation12. A flexible
ontology allows us to present results gained by applying different
research methods, and using the term ‘intertextuality’ in its narrowest,
as well as in a rather wide meaning. This article has drawn attention to
different approaches to Kalevipoeg, starting from the folkloristic and
the social and cultural approach, traditional in the Estonian literary
history, up to the postmodernist analysis of intertextuality.
The CULTOS approach to intertextuality allows for extensive
cultural studies based on one text, which would cover both the text
and the context that channels intertextual meanings. Modern computer
technology enables us to show intertextual relations, as well as to
define them and give commentaries. Based on this, we can talk about
cultural units of learning, used in studying and teaching cultural texts,
which would be informed of chains of intertextually related (multi-
media) texts — cultural threads created upon relations.

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