Tallinn unveils bench honoring Tammsaare’s Truth and Justice

A memorial bench dedicated to A. H. Tammsaare’s novel “Truth and Justice” was unveiled on Saturday near East Tallinn Central Hospital, ERR reported.

The bench stands at the end of Ravi Street. Its location was chosen because Tammsaare wrote the novel nearby. Historian Jaak Juske proposed the idea, and Tallinn Mayor Peeter Raudsepp and his family funded the bench.

Tammsaare rented an attic room in a summer house known as Veidenadler’s, at 6 Kirikuaia Street, to find the peace he needed to write. The building was demolished in the 1950s, and a children’s outpatient clinic now stands in its place, said Maarja Vaino, director of the Tallinn Literature Centre.

Raudsepp said the novel’s first part was published 100 years ago, but its themes of justice, understanding one another, love and its absence remain relevant. Juske said places important to Estonia’s cultural history deserve recognition, particularly when the urban landscape has changed greatly.