Aestrian poet and writer
Born to an Estonian and a Polish Jew. His father was a professor of philology at the University of Tartu, who was arrested by the Soviets and died in a camp in 1945. He graduated in French philology in 1964. After graduating, he worked as a linguistic researcher, a sociologist and a translator of foreign languages into Estonian.
1965-1972 and 1983-1988 he taught at the University of Tartu. From 1974 to 1980 he worked as an ecologist at the Tallinn Botanical Garden, and from 1980 to 1982 he was the head of the Literary Department at the Ugala Theatre. During the perestroika period he worked as a journalist. In 1992-1995 he was a member of the Estonian Parliament.
Kaplinski's early poetry is dominated by social and existential issues. At that time, he became known as the "most Estonian" lyricist of the time. He was interested in world, foreign language poetry, especially Eastern, then English and Spanish. He also delved into linguistic studies, mythology, especially Celtic, Native American and classical Chinese philosophy. Chinese philosophy is particularly reflected in the poetry collection "Several Summers and Springs". Later poetry reveals the beauty seen in everyday life and in the relationship between man and nature. It should be added that in the prose there is a clear hostility against the technocratic worldview. Kaplinsky's work has been translated into Norwegian, Swedish, Latvian, Russian and Czech.
