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Kaur Kender (born 27 May 1971) is an Estonian author [1] and entrepreneur.
An advertising executive by profession, Kender entered the Estonian literary scene in 1998 with his debut novel "Independence Day" ("Iseseisvuspäev"). "Independence Day" has been translated into Finnish (2001) and Russian (2003).
He subsequently published the novels "Yuppie God" (1999), "Check out" (2001), and "Abnormal" (2000). He has also written collaborative works: "Raha" (2002) was published together with banker Rain Lõhmus, and "Through Peaceful Eyes" (2001) with Herkki Erich Merila. Several reprints have appeared of most of his books, and Eesti Päevaleht has called him one of the most successful Estonian contemporary authors. [2]
Kender has stated that he sometimes wishes that truck drivers and prostitutes would write more books because they have unusual stories to tell. [3]
Kender provided both input and investment to support his fellow Estonian author Robert Kurvitz's novel Sacred and Terrible Air (2013). In 2014, Kender published a controversial novel called *Untitled 12* which polarized Estonian society. While some critics lauded it, others accused the novel of being inappropriate. The Finnish PEN described it as a "grotesque thriller" and an important book discussing taboos central to the entertainment industry, including death, serial murder, pornography, and pedophilia. [4] In early 2016, he was charged with writing child pornography and put on trial, but was later acquitted. [5] [6] [7]
Kender moved to London in 2017 to found, and act as an early investor and Executive Producer for, the video game Disco Elysium , which became a critical and commercial success for the development team ZA/UM. [8] Kender jokingly said that Disco Elysium was funded by "four Fs": Friends, Fools, Family and Kender's Ferrari, which formerly belonged to Dolph Lundgren. The origins of the game were detailed in articles by GamesRadar and PC Gamer. [9] [10]
Disco Elysium won multiple BAFTAs, including awards for music [11] and narrative. [12]
Mart Laar is an Estonian politician and historian. He served as the Prime Minister of Estonia from 1992 to 1994 and from 1999 to 2002. Laar is credited with having helped bring about Estonia's rapid economic development during the 1990s. He is a member of the centre-right Isamaa party.
The Estonian Independence Party was a far-right nationalist political party in Estonia. The small party, founded in 1999, never had any significant success in the elections, and it was dissolved in 2022. One of the principal aims of the party was the withdrawal of Estonia from the European Union.
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Since 1991 Estonia has changed from being a former Soviet republic to a member of the European Union and the European Monetary Union, making a rapid transformation in several fields, including the mass media, which is a vibrant and competitive sector. For many years Estonia has been among the top ten in Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) Press Freedom Index. In 2017 it was ranked 12th out of 180 countries by RSF while Freedom House assigned Estonia’s press freedom a score of 16/100. A cross-media landscape that embraces traditional media as well as the Internet and digital media characterises the contemporary media system in Estonia.
The Estonian Athlete of the Year is an annual award presented by the Estonian Olympic Committee to one male and one female sportsperson judged to have delivered the best performance over the course of the year. The winners of the award, which was first conceived in the 1930s and has been presented every year since 1955, are chosen by an aggregated vote from sporting journalists, national sporting federations, and the public at large.
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Purge is a novel by Finnish-Estonian writer Sofi Oksanen, which has been translated into thirty-eight languages. Oksanen's third Finnish-language novel, Purge was published in 2008 and is based upon her original play of the same name, staged at the Finnish National Theatre in 2007.
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Disco Elysium is a 2019 role-playing video game developed and published by ZA/UM. Inspired by Infinity Engine-era games, particularly Planescape: Torment, the game was written and designed by a team led by Estonian novelist Robert Kurvitz and features an art style based on oil painting with music by the English band British Sea Power.
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Arvi Siig was an Estonian poet, translator and journalist. He was a member of the CPSU and a communist, but still critical of many aspects of the political aspects of his day. His poetry inspired later punk poets and many of his texts are used as lyrics by the Estonian alternative rock band Vennaskond. He was among the first to include modern urban themes in Estonian poetry, also giving a voice to prostitutes, including Soviet prostitutes. The creators of the award-winning computer RPG Disco Elysium, Robert Kurvitz and Aleksander Rostov hailed Siig as inspiration and the greatest Estonian poet when accepting the president's Young Cultural Figure award in 2020: "Without his modernism, Elysium - the world the game is placed in - would not be half of what it is."
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