Conference Hot Springs of Estonian Sci-Fi
On 16 May, a special programme dedicated to the history of Estonian speculative fiction will take place at Tartu Elektriteater, comprising talks, a panel discussion, and a film screening.
Pre-Soviet fantasy and science fiction is an underexplored corner of Estonian literary history and one that holds more than a few surprises. How deep do the roots of Estonian science fiction go? Which writers were its most important advocates and trailblazers? And what did the future look like in the 1930s?
The event is inspired by the anthology of early Estonian speculative fiction “Kuumad allikad” (Hot Springs), published in 2025 by Gururaamat.
Programme
Elektriteater Raekoja Hall
10.00 Opening remarks
10.10 Ülo Valk “On Fantastical Folklore”
10.40 Meelis Friedenthal “Speculative Fiction in the Baltic Region in the Early Modern Period”
11.10 Katrina Saar “Echoes of Cosmic Horror in the Early Short Stories of August Gailit”
Coffee break
12.00–13.00 Indrek Hargla, Jüri Kallas, and Raul Sulbi “Reconstructing the History of Science Fiction: A Conversation with the Anthology’s Editors”
Lunch break
13.30 Lüüli Suuk “Women and Science Fiction: A Look at the Early Decades of the 20th Century”
14.00 Irina Belobrovtseva– “A Science Fiction Writer from Nemme”
14.30 Tormi Ariva “After Doomsday”
15.00 Closing remarks
University of Tartu Library
16.00 Curator tour of the exhibition The First Men on the Moon
Elektriteater Church Hall
18.00 Science fiction film: Island of Lost Souls (1932)
Exhibition: The First Men on the Moon: Early Estonian Science Fiction at the University of Tartu Library
7 May – 30 June 2026, staircase gallery on the 2nd floor of the University of Tartu Library
The history of speculative fiction is a long one, with different scholars tracing its origins to English Gothic novels, Romanticism, early modern utopias and satires, classical Chinese fiction, antiquity, or even the oldest epics, beginning with Gilgamesh. In Estonia, too, it is not entirely clear how to define the boundaries of the local tradition. What is certain, however, is that Estonian-language speculative fiction has been available to readers for at least 175 years. It was that long ago, in 1851, that Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald’s skilled translation of Gottfried August Bürger’s horror ballad “Lenore” was published in Tartu, in which the protagonist encounters the ghost of her beloved, fallen in war.
The exhibition “The First Men on the Moon” takes its title from H. G. Wells’s novel, which was publshed in Estonian translation in 1929. The display draws on speculative fiction from the University of Tartu Library’s rich collections, offering a glimpse into forgotten layers of literary history – shedding light, among other things, on Johannes Aavik’s interest in horror, the serialised fiction culture of newspapers, and the origins of Estonian science fiction for children. The most recent items in the selection date from the years of the Second World War, after which Soviet rule tried to drive much of what had come before from public memory.