Vormsi/Ormsö - a three-piece cycle was premiered in Viljandi and Tallinn on May 26th and 17th. The cicle is inspired by a trip to the Vormsi island on the Vest-coast of Estonia last summer. The names of the pieces are:
Skip hangandi úr lofti í kirkju (A Ship Hanging from the Ceiling of a Church for pianotrio.
Rétttrúnaðarkirkja í bakgarði samyrkjubús (Orthodox Church in the Backyard of a Collective Farm) for woodwind quintet.
Hjólkrossar undir mosa (Wheel Crosses under Moss) for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and soprano.
Between my pieces on the concert, folk singer Sofia Joons performed old songs from Vormsi and played the Hiiu Kannel (the bowed harp), an instrument also from Vormsi. Other performers were Tui Hirv - sopran, Hendrik Soon - violin, Thodor Sink - cello, Maria Vooglaid - flute, Marten Altrov - clarinet and Faristamo Leis - piano.
The concert in Tallinn also included Hýperbólusetning (Hyperbolic Inoculation (for soprano, harp and percussion), poem by Eiríkur Örn N0rðdahl. Performed by Tui Hirv - soprano, Liis Viira - harp and Aleksandra Krementeski - percussion.
Here are some pictures from the concerts and rehearsals before.
You can read the annotations below, in Icelandic and English.
Vormsi/Ormsö
Eistland er lítið land við Eistrasaltið, á vegamótum verslunar og styrjalda. Eftir að hafa verið undir yfirráðum þjóðverja og dana til 16. aldar, og áður en þeir lentu undir verndarvæng rússneska keisaravelsdisins 1710, var Eistland hluti af sænska konungsveldinu. Það leiddi þróunar sænsks byggðarlags á N-Vesturströnd Eistlands og eyjunum í kring. Ein þessara eyja heitir Vormsi, eða Ormsö á sænsku. Hugsanlega vísar nafnið til Miðgarðsormsins. Lítil samfélög eins og þetta (íbúatala var um 3000 þegar mest var) eru venjulega mun íhaldssamari en í landinu sem þau eru sprottin úr. Fólkið í Vormsi hélt upp siðum og menningu sem forfeður þeirra höfðu borið með sér frá Svíþjóð, jafnvel löngu eftir að þeir höfðu lagst af heima fyrir, til dæmis í upphafi 20. aldar hljómaði kirkjusöngur þar svipað og þekktist í Svíþjóð á 17. öld.
Ef við berum þetta saman við þegar norrænir víkingar ferðuðust til Íslands, má segja Ísland hafi þróast á svipaða leið: eins og lítill afleggjari skorinn af stórri plöntu sem síðan öðlast sitt eigið líf í nýjum jarðvegi. Örlög Ormseyjarbúa urðu þó önnur. Rétt fyrir seinni heimsstyrjöldina bauð sænska ríkisstjórnin svíum sem bjuggu á svæðinu sem hafði lent undir yfirráðum Sovét Rússlands við undirritun Molotov-Ribbentrop samningins að flytja yfir til Svíþjóðar. Sænsk byggð í Norð-Vestur Eistlandi lagðist af; eftir stóðu hús, staðarheiti, jarðir, vegir, kirkjur og kirkjugarðar. Samyrkjubúskapur tók yfir, án nokkurrar virðingar við það sem fyrir var.
Í dag búa um 240 manns á eyjunni, en margir svíar hafa fundið hús forfeðra sinna og nota þau sem sumarhús.
Þegar ég gekk á land í Vormsi í ágústmánuði 2010 missti ég alla tilfinningu fyrir að ég væri ennþá í Eistlandi, andrúmsloftið var öðruvísi. Nöfn á húsum voru á sænsku og staðarheiti sömuleiðis, en það var ekki bara það; ég fann einhvernveginn fyrir því að ég væri staddur á stað sem “var ekki lengur til”.
Eitt af því fyrsta sem ég sá þegar ég kom inn í Hullo, stærsta þorp eyjunnar, var gömul rússnesk rétttrúnaðarkirkja. Hún var að hruni komin. Neglt var fyrir glugga, hurð læst, lauk-laga turnspírur báru við himinn en þak að mestu hrunið. En það var fleira sem vakti ekki síður athygli mína. Í kringum kirkjuna var bílaverkstæði samyrkjubús og allt utan um það samansafn af drasli; gömlum bílhræjum og vélum. Þar sem ég virti fyrir mér þetta lík Sovét skrímslis sem
hafði hringað sig utan kirkjuna og reynt að murka úr henni allt líf tók ég eftir svolitlu: gróður óx upp úr þaki, gluggakörmum, undan hurðinni...
Í þorpskirkjunni, sem er Lúthersk, sá ég annað sem ég hafði aldrei borið augum áður: úr loftinu hékk líkan af skipi. Mér var sagt að við sjávarsíðuna í skandinavísku löndunum væri þetta gamall siður, fólk henti peningi upp í skipið í von um að ástvinir þeirra sem réru til sjávar kæmu aftur heilir á húfi. Þetta gat ég tengt mig við, enda alist upp, eins og flestir íslendingar, við sögur af sambandi manns og sjávar. Fyrir utan kirkjuna var kirkjugarðurinn. Við mörg leiðin voru hjólkrossar, eins og tíðkuðust í N-Evrópu á árum áður - gerðir úr steini, með hring utanum. Þeir voru orðnir gamlir og gróðurinn byrjaður að vefja sér utan um þá, tilbúinn að hylja þá í fyllingu tímans. Flest nöfnin á gröfunum voru sænsk. Þegar ég gekk um garðinn áttaði ég mig á að undir fótum mínum lá heilt samfélag sem hafði lagst af með öllum sínum siðum, þekkingu, tungumáli, sögum, og fólki.
Vormsi/Ormsö
Estonia is a small country by the Baltic Sea, on the crossroad of trading and battles. Having been under the Germans and the Danes until 16th century, and before ending up under the generous guidance of the Russian czar in 1710, Estonia was a province of the Swedish empire. That led to Swedes settling on the north-western coast of Estonia and the islands around. One of these islands is Vormsi, or Ormsö in Swedish. The English equivalent could be Worm Island. In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr is a sea serpent, so large that he was able to surround the Earth and grasp his own tail. Small exile communities (the population of Vormsi was around 3000 people at the high point) are usually more conservative in their everyday life and culture than the nations they originate from. The people in Vormsi maintained traditions their ancestors had brought with them from Sweden long after they had stopped in the home country, for example congregational singing in Vormsi at the beginning of the 20th-century sounded similar to 17th-century church singing in Sweden.
Comparing this pattern to the travels of the Norwegian Vikings to Iceland, one could say that Iceland developed in a similar way: like an offshoot of a plant that grows in a new soil. But the people of Vormsi had other destiny than Icelanders. Right before the Second World War the government of Sweden decided to evacuate ethnic Swedes from the area that by Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had been given to Soviet Russia. Swedish habitation in North-western Estonia ended; leaving behind place names, empty houses, fruit gardens, churches and graveyards. Collective farming took over, showing no respect to well-kept landscape. Today around 240 people live permanently on the island, but many Swedes have rediscovered their ancestors’ farms and use them as summerhouses.
When I disembarked from the ferry in Vormsi in August 2010 I nearly lost all feeling of being in Estonia, everything was different. Names on houses and places were Swedish, but it was not just that; I could somehow feel that I was in a place that didn’t exist anymore. When I came to Hullo, the biggest village on the island, I noticed an old Russian Orthodox church. It was about to collapse. Windows were sealed off, door locked, onion shaped domes reaching for the sky but the roof mostly collapsed. But there was more that captured my attention. At the church there was a garage of a collective farm and junk spread all around it: old cars and machines. Observing this corpse of a Soviet monster that had tried to circle itself around the church and squeeze all life out of it, I noticed something: there were plants growing from the roof, windowsills, from under the door...
In the Lutheran church of the island I noticed another thing I had never seen before: from the ceiling there was hanging a model of a ship. I was told that at the seaside areas of the Scandinavian countries there was a tradition to throw a coin into the ship, hoping that the loved ones would return home safe. This was something I could relate to, having, as most Icelanders, been brought up with stories on the relationship between man and the sea. Outside the church there was a cemetery. On many of the graves there were wheel crosses, as they were used in North Germanic areas in the old days – made of stone, with a wheel surrounding the tips of the axes of the cross. The crosses were getting old and weeds had wrapped themselves around them, ready to cover them entirely in close future. Most names on the tombstones were Swedish. Walking around, I realised that under my feet there was resting a whole society that had come to an end with all its traditions, knowledge, language, stories, and people.
