Father Mihkel Suigusaar (1842-1916)

Estonian National Activist, humane censor

Mihkel Suigusaar was born on 3 February 1842 in Viljandi county on the Suigu farmstead. After graduating from the local parish school in 1853, he entered the Riga ecclesiastical school and seminary, which he successfully completed in 1863 as the best student. He was directed to continue his theological studies at the Moscow Ecclesiastical Academy, from which he graduated in 1868 with a bachelor’s degree.

Suigusaar’s life work can be divided into three parts: teaching and censorship in Riga, pastoral work in Pärnu, and active participation in the national movement in Pärnu county.

The first period was connected with Riga, the capital of Livland province, where he stayed for 12 years. In the autumn of 1868, he was appointed as a teacher at the Riga school and seminary, first as a catechism lecturer, then as a teacher of ecclesiastical literature, the Russian language, Russian history, and the Estonian language, and finally as a librarian. According to the seminary alumnus Father Aleksander Värat, Suigusaar was a respected and beloved teacher among the seminarians, whose courses were popular and interesting. 

At the same time, Suigusaar obtained permission for the first Estonian general song festival in 1869. From 1 February 1870, he was also a member of the committee for the translation of Orthodox service books into Estonian. In Riga, he married Mariia Smelskaia, a priest’s daughter.

Suigusaar also became the censor of Estonian literature until 1879. He had to censor the writings of, for example, the Estonian greats Johann Voldemar Jannsen, Lydia Koidula, and Carl Robert Jakobson. As a pleasant man, he knew how to get on with different people. Contemporaries valued his services as a censor. In an exchange of letters between Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald and Jakobson on 21 October 1869, we read: “Our present censor of Estonian-language printed works in Riga is so humane that there is nothing to fear from that side.”  In short, as a censor supporting the national awakening, Suigusaar did a lot for the development of Estonian culture. Today’s cultural historians also point to his gentleness and benevolence towards Estonian literature, acknowledging his admission of words dear to the Estonian people (like ‘Estonia’ itself) into songs. 

Suigusaar was Carl Robert Jakobson’s closest and most loyal friend, sharing with him his visions of Estonian national awakening. Both men believed that the strength of the Estonian peasant lay in his inexhaustible strength, and sought to develop the peasantry through both secular and religious education. Coming from a peasant family himself, Father Mihkel understood the concerns and desires of simple farmers. He remained faithful to these patriotic ideals and the undertakings they inspired. Father Anton Laar wrote of the censor: “Suigusaar’s service as a censor was to bring Jakobson’s Three Speeches of 1870 to the light of day, which refreshed the air of Estonia’s stifled politics and was an important impetus for the Age of Awakening.” Afterwards, Suigusaar contributed much to Jakobson’s Estonian-language newspaper Sakala. Without Suigusaar’s censorship assistance and close personal relations with Governor Aleksandr Üxküll of Livland, we would not have Jakobson’s patriotic speeches, Sakala, or the confirmation of the statutes of the Pärnu singing society Endla.

Suigusaar’s life in Riga ended abruptly with his dismissal from the seminary on 29 August 1979. According to Father Aleksander Värat, the reason for the transfer was the seminary leadership’s dissatisfaction with his favourable attitude towards the growing national awakening among Estonian and Latvian seminarians, as well as his excessive protection of Sakala’s activities. Per Father Anton Laar’s account, the immediate cause behind Suigusaar’s dismissal was the fact that he had his name and position written on his office door in Estonian.

On 14 October 1879, Suigusaar was ordained as a priest for Pärnu’s St Catherine’s Church. As an Estonian-speaking clergyman, Father Mikhail won the hearts of many Estonian Orthodox believers and gained popularity as a man of the people outside the parish. On 18 November 1881, Father Mihkel was elevated to the rank of archpriest and was later appointed as dean of Pärnumaa, where he served until his death. During Suigusaar’s tenure, the Pärnu Welfare Society was established to help the poorer members of the parish. On his initiative, a new Russian poorhouse was built in 1885 with the money he collected, as well as the Pärnu town school, where he became the religious studies teacher. At that time, religious education was the only subject that could be taught to children in Estonian. Thanks to his initiative, religious education was also provided to Orthodox schoolchildren in the Pärnu boys’ and girls’ gymnasia. According to R. Tomson, the main aim of Suigusaar’s social activities was the deep and broad development of national material and spiritual culture, secular and spiritual education – in other words, he sought to raise national self-esteem.  Father Mihkel was also a member of the Pärnu Russian Benevolent Society, an honorary member of the “Light” charity establishment, the director of the Pärnu city prison committee from 1888 to 1916, and a member of the Pärnu city and county school boards.

Population growth in Pärnu and Pärnu parish, including the influx of Orthodox Estonians at the end of the nineteenth century, roused the idea of creating a parish purely for the city’s Estonian Orthodox. Construction started on a church for the Estonian members of St Catherine’s mixed congregation, for which the city provided a plot of land free of charge in 1898. In 1902, a national collection raised a total of 30,000 roubles for the church. Father Mihkel, the first priest of the Estonian congregation from 1904 to 1905, led the construction. His wish was to consecrate the church in honour of the Lord’s Transfiguration, making it a place of enlightenment and spiritual retreat for the Estonian Orthodox. The cornerstone of the new church was the former cornerstone of the disbanded Pärnu Farmers’ Association: almost continuously from 1879 to 1888, Father Mihkel was a member of this association and, after Carl Jakobson’s death in 1882, its chairman. Using parts of the association’s former home emphasised how the association had now become the foundation of the new Estonian church. This church, built in the Old Russian style with an onion-domed bell tower and spire, was consecrated in 1905.

After the new church’s completion, the Russian-speaking congregation of St Catherine did not want to lose Suigusaar. So he remained their priest while the Estonian congregation was settled in the new church of the Transfiguration: Father Nikolai Tsvetkov, who was fluent in Estonian, was appointed there. Father Mihkel’s service as a clergyman in Pärnu lasted 36 years. During this long service, Suigusaar was honoured with several national awards: the Order of St Stanislav, third class, in 1879, the Order of St Anna, third class, in 1900, and the Order of St Vladimir, fourth class in 1909.

The First World War brought a lot of anxieties for Suigusaar. In 1914, his youngest son was killed on the front. In August 1915, the venerable old priest was forced to leave Pärnu, as the Germans attacked the city from the sea with shells. In order to save church property, he had to evacuate to Tallinn by train, together with his parishioners. As there were no more closed carriages, Father Mihkel had to travel overnight in the open. The church’s belongings were saved, but the priest’s health took an inevitable blow from the journey - afterwards, he had to stay in bed for five months. Even when he was unable to serve, he gave guidance to the clergy, dispensing instructions and blessings. Father Mihkel died of pneumonia on 18 February 1916: his final words in his native language were “Oh, God…”. The funeral service, attended by 15 clergy, was held on 22 February 1916.

All in all, Father Mihkel was a man of the people and a great figure in the Estonian national awakening. As a man of religion, a school teacher, and a social activist, his greatest wish was to teach Estonians the Christian faith, develop parish life, and participate in new associations. Despite working during the period of Russification, Father Mihkel maintained constructive relations and friendly contacts with other denominations. His range of work was awe inspiring, but his greatest act was undoubtedly the creation of the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord in Pärnu, a magisterial testimony to his achievements.

AUTHOR

Father Andrei Sõtšov