Johannes Pääsuke

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Johannes Pääsuke (Tartu, March 30, 1892 – Orša, January 8, 1918^[1]) was an Estonian photographer and filmmaker.

Very little is known of the youth of Johannes Pääsuke, the fourth of six children to a comfortably-off couple living in Tartu. Johannes's siblings were well educated, but all that is known about Johannes's own education is that he studied photography. On his own account, he started photography at fifteen, in 1907, and it is likely that he contacted the Estonian National Museum (ENM) in 1912, having already taken photographs in various places in Estonia.^[2]

In 1913, Pääsuke began a project for the ENM to document Estonia's lands, trades and architecture through photography and the collection of artifacts. Pääsuke took more than 1,300 photographs on glass plates in this national ethnographic project. Pääsuke was also the first Estonian to make a film. He made about 40 films in his career with 10 films still in existence − five newsreels, four documentaries, and one work of fiction, the political satire Bear Hunt in Pärnu County (Karujaht Pärnumaal).

In 1915, Pääsuke was conscripted to serve as a second-rank infantryman in the reserve battalion of the Lithuanian Regiment of the Foot Guards. Pääsuke died in a train accident in 1918 in Byelorussia.

[edit] Filmography

Utotškini lendamised Tartu kohal (Flights of Utotškin, 1912)
Utotškini lend (1912)
Tartu linn ja ümbrus (1912)
Ajaloolised mälestusmärgid Eestimaa minevikust (Historical memories of the Estonian past, 1913)
Retk läbi Setumaa (1913)
Karujaht Pärnumaal (Bear hunt in Pärnu county, 1914)

[edit] Notes

^ These are the dates in the Gregorian calendar. In the Julian calendar used at the time, 18 March 1892 – 27 December 1917.
^ Kaelep, 83–4.

[edit] References and sources

Johannes Pääsuke. Man with two Cameras About the 2005–6 exhibition at the Hungarian Museum of Ethnography.
Johannes Pääsuke. Man with Two Cameras About the 2003 exhibition at the Estonian National Museum, Tartu.
Johannes Pääsuke: Mees kahe kaameraga / Man with two cameras. Tartu: Estonian National Museum, 2003. ISBN 9985-9414-9-7 This book offers photographs and parallel texts in Estonian and English; the two cameras of the title are the still and cinecamera.
Kaelep, Kairi. "Johannes Pääsuke: The story of his life and cooperation with the Estonian National Museum." In Johannes Pääsuke: Mees kahe kaameraga. Pp. 81–93.
Linnap, Peeter. "Life director Pääsuke and positivist ethnography." In Johannes Pääsuke: Mees kahe kaameraga. Pp. 95–104.
Lõhmus, Jaak. "The once again discovered film-maker Pääsuke." In Johannes Pääsuke: Mees kahe kaameraga. Pp. 106–14.
(Estonian) Ruus, Jaan. Foto Johannes Pääsukesest.