Peri is a village in Põlva County, Põlva Municipality, where 312 people live in as of 2019. The village of Peri was first mentioned in written sources in 1554 (Perris), and the manor of Peri, which belonged to various Baltic German families over the centuries, dates back to that time. In 1919, the manor lands were nationalised and divided into farmland.[1] The wooden Baroque manor house with its connected buildings has been destroyed, but the listed barn, the distillery and the park with some buildings have been preserved.[2]
During the Soviet period, the buildings of Peri Manor were used as administrative and auxiliary buildings for the kolkhoz centre. It was the second farm next to the Eduard Vilde collective farm in Lääne-Viru County to bear Eduard Vilde’s name. While the Rakvere district kolkhoz was named directly after Vilde, who was from Simuna parish, the Põlva district Vilde kolkhoz, founded in 1948, had no direct connection with Vilde.[3] The social democrat and, in fact, anti-Bolshevik writer was quickly transformed during the Soviet era into “the defender of all the oppressed, a canonised saint of socialist realism, one of the few early intellectuals to ruthlessly expose class conflicts. ‘[4] This was demonstrated by the Vilde collective farms, the literary prize, the Tartu Folk Theatre named after Eduard Vilde, and the current Tallinn University, which from 1955 to 1992 bore the official name of the Eduard Vilde Tallinn Pedagogical Institute.
Returning to the Peri village centre, during the Soviet era many of its historic buildings were rebuilt or demolished. At the same time, the village was filled with apartment blocks and various industrial buildings. In 1975, architect Ado Eigi designed a new main office-club building for the kolkhoz, which was completed in 1981 under the supervision of architect Ann Toone. According to the architectural historian Ingrid Ruudi, this single-storey building with Finnish influences, divided into blocks, was placed rather sensitively in the landscape, on the high steep slope of the Peri stream.[5] Although the manor house was preserved when the new building was constructed, no funds were found to reconstruct it, and the building, which stood empty, was finally destroyed during the transition period. The new central building of the kolkhoz housed the kolkhoz offices, canteen and club. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, half of the building was privately owned and the other half by the Põlva Municipality. The Peri Library/Village Centre, with a small museum room, still operates in the public part of the building.[6]
Andrus Kasemaa’s mural “The Mahtra War”
Andrus Kasemaa’s mural in the club hall decorates the interior of the building. Kasemaa (1941-2016) was a sculptor and graphic artist who headed the Art Cabinet of the University of Tartu from 1974-1993. In Estonian art he is known for his charcoal drawings. The mural, completed in 1984 in the secco technique (tempera paint on dry plaster), is quite unique in the Estonian context, both in its content and form. In terms of form, this is because, as a rule, monumentalists make a one-to-one sketch of their work before painting it on the wall. Kasemaa’s temperament and approach was different – he sketched his ideas directly on the wall with a brush and then painted over them with tempera paint. While artists have usually strived for a greater degree of generalisation with monumental paintings, Kasemaa’s work is much denser and more fluid. The style of the painting corresponds to the subject matter depicted – the clash between Estonian peasants and Russian punitive soldiers in 1858 at Mahtra Manor in Harjumaa, known as the Mahtra War. Eduard Vilde’s novel of the same name was published in 1902. The historical event itself, Vilde’s novel and its various visual representations form a chapter in Estonian history.
Andrus Kasemaa’s painting is divided thematically and compositionally into four groups: the ‘indifferent’ (the leftmost group watching the action), the ‘rebellious’, the ‘suffering’ and the ‘punished’. While the indifferent are portrayed in a somewhat more realistic manner, the sufferers are depicted in a much more grotesque and sometimes surrealistic manner. The artist has made playful use of the articulation of the wall surface: the film projection openings ‘hidden’ in the picture as windows in the manor house and the ventilation holes transformed into gun barrels are peculiar details. The focus of the composition is a futuristic movement expressing the threshing machine, which is said to have been the main weapon used by the Mahtra rebels[7].
The future of Peri Village Centre
In 2020, Estonia adopted a regulation on the “Conditions and Procedure for the Use of Subsidies to Local Authorities for the Construction of Nearly Zero Energy Buildings.”[8] One of the preconditions for receiving the subsidy is the reduction of inefficient space in the building fund of municipalities, which directs the demolition of buildings that are standing idle or considered energy inefficient. As a result, buildings that can be considered part of the local building heritage are at risk in Estonia – especially Soviet-era (collective farm) buildings, which are not protected as monuments.
This is the fate of the Peri village centre. In an unfortunate coincidence, in the spring of 2021, Andrus Kasemaa’s mural was restored by Randel Saveli as a diploma project at the Pallas School of Higher Art, just before it was announced that the building was to be demolished.[9] After the restoration, the room is no longer heated and the painting has deteriorated in a few years to a worse state than it was before the restoration work. Heritage campaigners have reacted critically to the regulation and the Peri situation,[10] and it is understandable that the local community is concerned about the heritage, but it is also understandable that frustrated municipal leaders would jump at any opportunity to bring investment to a remote area.
the Peri Village Centre will be demolished to make way for a new near-zero energy building. In this context, the original Andrus Kasemaa mural will also be destroyed. With the Reframing Monuments project, we are trying to give Kasemaa’s work a new lease of life – the plan is to remove and preserve some details of the almost 50-square-metre work. Selecting these fragments, explaining the rationale behind their selection, and finding new exhibition spaces and future spatial design are all part of the research project’s aim to take a balanced look at Soviet-era monumental art.
Text by Gregor Taul
[1] MTÜ ITA, Seltsing Taretagused, aktiivsed külaelanikud ja Põlva Vallavalitsus, Peri Küla arengukava aastateks 2010-2020, Peri: 2010. https://www.polva.ee/documents/17842760/19054525/Perikylaarengukava2010.pdf/c89520e9-89bd-4663-8b9f-c7d1995f4598
[2] Mälestised kultuurimälestiste registris: https://register.muinas.ee/public.php?menuID=monument&action=view&id=23786 ; https://register.muinas.ee/public.php?menuID=monument&action=view&id=23788 ; https://register.muinas.ee/public.php?menuID=monument&action=view&id=23787
[3] E. Toom, Kaks uut kolhoosi Põlva vallas. – Töörahva Elu: EKP Võru Rajoonikomitee ja Võru Rajooni Rahvasaadikute Nõukogu häälekandja, 21.09. 1948-
[4] Aarne Ruben, Sotsialist Vilde. – Sirp, 18.08.2006. https://sirp.ee/s1-artiklid/c9-sotsiaalia/sotsialist-vilde/
[5] Ingrid Ruudi, Eesti 20. sajandi arhitektuuripärandi inventeerimine. Põlva maakond. – Muinsuskaitseamet 2009. https://register.muinas.ee/ftp/XX_saj._arhitektuur/maakondlikud%20ylevaated/polvamaa/Polvamaa_ehitusparand.pdf
[6] Margit Õkva, Muuseumituba talletab kohaliku pärandi. – Koit, 20. mai 2014.
[7] Gregor Taul, Monumental Painting in Estonia: Notes. – Paul Kuimet, Gregor Taul (eds.), Notes on Space: Monumental Painting in Estonia 1947–2012. Tallinn: Lugemik, 2017, lk. 112–141, siin lk. 129.
[8] https://www.riigiteataja.ee/akt/110122020040
[9] Randel Saveli, Andrus Kasemaa seinamaalingu „Mahtra sõda“ restaureerimistööd Peri kolhoosikeskuses. Lõputöö, Kõrgem Kunstikool Pallas, 2021.
[10] Vt nt Riin Alatalu, Nullenergia veab vägisi miinusesse. – Sirp, 18.06.2021. https://sirp.ee/s1-artiklid/arhitektuur/nullenergia-veab-vagisi-miinusesse/