Sulev S. Kaja, Estonian writer in Belgium, an Astonishing Destiny

About Sulev S. Kaja, Estonian Writer in Belgium, an Astonishing Destiny

http://www.einst.ee/literary/spring2003/16_01.htm

Michel B. Fincoeur: Jacques Baruch, alias Sulev J. Kaja, Finland and Estonia

Jacques Baruch (1919-2002), a Belgian journalist and writer, spared no efforts, at the end of the 30s and in the 40s, to make the Belgian public become familiar with his two adoptive countries, Finland and Estonia, and with their national literatures. Having taken on, in 1939, the pseudonym of 'Sulev Kaja', he travelled through Estonia just before the Soviet invasion, and started learning Estonian. In occupied Belgium, he embarked on an ambitious strategy for promoting Finnish and Estonian writers. He wrote numerous articles, published a newsletter, gave lectures, and adapted literary works into French ­ among which a novel by the Estonian writer August Gailit, Toomas Nipernaadi. Working clandestinely in the publishing world of the post-war era, he provided the inspiration for one of Hergé's (the Belgian comics writer's) characters ­ the Estonian fighter pilot, Piotr Szut.