Under Marie 1883 - 1980 (97)
Ah, earthly life burns in a myriad splendours
QUOTES
She was born in Tallinn, where she studied at a private German girls' school. She then worked in a bookstore and in her spare time wrote poems in German. In 1902, she married, had 2 children and moved to a suburb of Moscow. In 1904 she met Andz Laikmaa, who persuaded her to translate her poems into Estonian and publish them in local newspapers. She became a couple with him, separating her husband and gradually gained a reputation as an unconventional poet with intense eroticism in her poems, a fact that provoked reactions and scandals.
And her life was scandalous as in 1913 she fell in love with her youngesr secretary, whom she married in 1924. Under lived through a period of turbulent times during which, however, it began an artistic flourishing of the interwar period with the cultivation of a new literary language and intellectual identity in Estonia.
During the first Soviet occupation of Estonia, in the period 1940-1941, Uder began to write patriotic poetry, compassionate to the people who suffered deportations and losses. At that time the whole nation loved her poetry, Uder became the conscience of Estonia, as she had the courage and ability to express the deepest feelings and sorrows of the people.
When the USSR recaptured Estonia in 1944, Soviet totalitarianism imposed a regime of censorship and persecution, Uder and her family fled to Sweden, where they lived for a year in a refugee camp. In 1945, they moved to a suburb of Stockholm, where she lived until her death.