Universitas Tartuensis Enn Põldroosi maalil

Universitas Tartuensis in the paintingby Enn PõldroosThe painting Universitas Tartuensis was commissioned by the Ministryof Culture of Soviet Estonia from artist Enn Põldroos in 1982 aspart of the celebration of the University’s 350th anniversary. Closelyimitating the conversation depicted by Raphael in his most famousfresco in the Vatican from 1511, “The School of Athens,” Põldroostranslated Raphael’s scholars of the ancient world into thirty-sevenof the greatest students and professors across three and half centuriesfrom Tartu University. This brief essay describes the relationshipamong the figures depicted in the painting to evoke the tensionbetween two visions of Tartu University. On the one hand, TartuUniversity is an “imagined community,” bringing various strangersinto conversation with one another across time and space, creatingselves out of others. But it is also an “ivory tower of Babel,” creatingothers out of selves, isolating its students and scholars from oneother and the wider world by its deep internal disciplinary and linguisticdivides. In the silence of Universitas Tartuensis hovers theunanswered question: what common language could these scholarspossibly be speaking to one another