Ciao a tutti,
Spero che non ti dispiaccia che io pubblichi una domanda in inglese qui.
Mio figlio 9yo è stato ossessionato dall’animazione di Suur Toll che ha trovato su YouTube e mi sta facendo molte domande su cosa significhi che non sono in grado di rispondere 🙂
Alcuni Eesti potrebbero far luce su di esso? Mio figlio sarebbe molto grato!
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Quali sono i temi sottostanti di Suur Toll?
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I ragazzi rossi sono i russi? O sembra pensare che potrebbero essere danesi?
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Perché il pedaggio è triste dopo le sue battaglie? È perché ha dovuto uccidere così tanti invasori per proteggere i suoi connazionali e donne?
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È piuttosto violento! La violenza è destinata a significare qualcosa in particolare, forse alcuni eventi della storia estone?
Link all’animazione per riferimento:
di tecnoir
1 commento
In that *particular* animation, the red guys are indeed the Russians — Suur Tõll is kinda like the mythical hero who fights invaders, so in the 1200s it would have been the German Teutonic Order etc (he is also described demolishing churches etc).
He is the national/mythological hero of Saaremaa (our biggest island) and the mythical ancestor of the people carrying that surname. There are lots of stories of him fighting Vanapagan (Old Pagan). Note that Estonian mythology is not dualist, we don’t have evil and good. Evil is the invaders.
Tõll and Piret (his wife) are the ferries to Saaremaa.
When you ever visit, your son might also enjoy a trip to the maritime museum, where you can go aboard Suur Tõll (“The Great Tõll”), which is an icebreaker.
You can also read an interview with the author of the animation here (use GTranslate):
[https://epl.delfi.ee/artikkel/51186549/suur-toll-30-aastat-hiljem](https://epl.delfi.ee/artikkel/51186549/suur-toll-30-aastat-hiljem)
You can see here also how he diplomatically insinuates that he chose a “different invader” instead of the Christian knights 🙂 A funny story though, which I think exemplifies Estonia during occupation very well: the enemies are not RED, they are purple, as the occupying Russian regime banned red for them (for obvious reasons). So the artist agreed to purple. Alas, during the development of the film, it turned out that something went a bit wrong with the colours and completely accidentally they turned out red 😉
The violence is part of Estonia’s collective consciousness — we were first invaded in 1208 and, well, the threat sort of still persists 😀 So yeah our humour and entertainment tends to be a bit dark. But I guess you can talk to him about the meaning and folklore and themes and it will be fine.
Hope I could help!