Estonia (Russia / USSR, Estonian SSR) Bronze Medal 1986 - In memory of Friedebert Tuglas (1886-1971)

171.11g. 75mm. UNC/UNC. 

Tallinn Artistic Products Combinate “ARS”, Metal Leafing Studio. 

The medal did not undergo the full technological cycle and was not patinated. 

Friedebert Tuglas (1886-1971) was one of the central figures of 20th-century Estonian literature—a writer, literary critic, scholar, translator, editor, and journalist. Born in Ahja parish, he played a decisive role in shaping modern Estonian prose and literary thought. 

Tuglas was a leading member of the influential Young Estonia (Noor-Eesti) movement, which sought to modernize Estonian culture and literature and to integrate it into the broader European intellectual context. Following his involvement in the 1905 Revolution, he spent more than a decade in exile, mainly in Finland and Paris, before returning to Estonia in 1917. 

His literary output ranges from early realist and romantic prose to refined modernist and psychological works. Among his most important books are Felix Ormusson (1915), a landmark of Estonian modernism, and the novel Little Illimar (1937), a classic of psychological realism. Tuglas also made a lasting contribution as a literary organizer, editor, and historian, co-founding the Estonian Writers’ Union and shaping the influential journal Looming. 

Despite periods of political repression in the Soviet era, Tuglas’s stature as a national literary figure endured. Today he is remembered as a key architect of modern Estonian literature, and his legacy is commemorated through monuments, museums, and the prestigious Friedebert Tuglas Short Story Award, established in his name.