Richard Kleis
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6 October 1896
Richard Kleis | |
|---|---|
| Born | Richard Adolf Kleis 6 October 1896 |
| Died | 18 June 1982 (aged 85) |
| Citizenship | Estonian |
| Education | Magister philosophiae (1934) |
| Alma mater | University of Petrograd University of Tartu |
| Occupations | Historian, classical philologist, lexicographer, translator, encyclopedist |
| Known for | Chief editorship of Eesti Entsüklopeedia; work in Estonian lexicography and classical studies |
| Awards | Order of the White Star, 4th Class (1938)[1] |
Richard Adolf Kleis (6 October 1896 – 18 June 1982) was an Estonian historian, classical philologist, lexicographer, translator and encyclopedist. He is chiefly known for serving as chief editor of the interwar reference work Eesti Entsüklopeedia and for his later career as a lecturer in Latin and ancient literature at the University of Tartu.[2][3][4]
Kleis was born in Tallinn, the son of a small merchant.[5] He studied at Nikolai I Gymnasium in Tallinn from 1907 to 1915 and graduated with a gold medal.[5][1] He then studied history and ancient languages at the University of Petrograd in 1915–1916. His studies were interrupted by military service during the First World War and by participation in the Estonian War of Independence. He resumed his university education at the University of Tartu in 1921, graduated in history in 1925, and received the degree of magister philosophiae in 1934.[5][6]
Career
After graduating from the University of Tartu, Kleis taught at Hugo Treffner Gymnasium in Tartu. He taught history, civics and Latin, and from 1930 served as the school's inspector.[5][6] During the interwar period he also became a major figure in Estonian reference publishing. He worked on the Eesti biograafiline leksikon, edited the collective volume Tartu (1927), and went on to become chief editor of the eight-volume Eesti Entsüklopeedia, published in 1932–1937.[2][7][8]
Following the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940, Kleis worked at Tartu State University from 1941 as acting docent. During the German occupation of Estonia during World War II, he continued working in education and publishing.[5][9]
In 1944 Kleis returned to the University of Tartu. He headed the chair of the history of the USSR, served as dean of the Faculty of History and Linguistics from 1945 to 1948, and was director of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR from 1947 to 1950. He also worked as editor-in-chief of the scholarly publishing house Teaduslik Kirjandus.[5][10]
During the Stalinist campaign against alleged "bourgeois nationalism", Kleis lost his senior positions in 1950 and was removed from the Institute of History. He subsequently worked in a Tartu bookshop before returning to the University of Tartu in 1954.[10][11] He remained at the university until his retirement in 1978, teaching Latin, ancient literature and related subjects.[5][2]
Scholarship and legacy
Kleis's later work centred on classical philology, translation and lexicography. Together with Johannes Silvet and Eduard Vääri he helped compile the Võõrsõnade leksikon, one of the best-known Estonian dictionaries of foreign words.[12] He also contributed to the Ladina-eesti sõnaraamat, translated the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia into Estonian, worked on the Antiigileksikon, and wrote extensively for the postwar Eesti nõukogude entsüklopeedia.[2][4]
Scholars of Estonian translation history have described Kleis as one of the principal builders of the modern Estonian tradition of translating ancient literature.[4] The University of Tartu has likewise treated him as one of the university's notable twentieth-century humanities lecturers, emphasizing both his pedagogical influence and his role in preserving classical studies in Estonia across sharply different political regimes.[2]
