Riho Lahi (27 October 1904 – 23 April 1995) was an

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and t ...

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, pla ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary an ...

, probably best known by his fictional character Kihva Värdi. Lahi was born Richard-Heinrich Lahi in

Võhma Võhma (german: Wöchma) is a town in Põhja-Sakala Parish, Viljandi County, central Estonia. History The settlement dates to the sixteenth century. It began to grow when a railway station, located on the Tallinn - Viljandi railway line operat ...

Viljandi County Viljandi County ( et, Viljandi maakond or ''Viljandimaa''; german: Kreis Fellin) is one of 15 counties of Estonia. It is located in southern Estonia bordering Pärnu, Järva, Jõgeva, Tartu and Valga counties. History Viljandimaa, under the ...

Kihva Värdi

Kihva Värdi, supposedly born Ferdinand Kihv, was a well-known

fictional character In fiction, a character (or speaker, in poetry) is a person or other being in a narrative (such as a novel, Play (theatre), play, Radio series, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or b ...

developed by Lahi. Kihva Värdi has been cited as a possible inspiration for the later fictional character of similar genre,

Kärna Ärni Kärna is a locality situated in Kungälv Municipality, Västra Götaland County, Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdo ...

. The character, active in the early decades of Soviet occupation of Estonia, regularly "wrote" editorials in a number of Estonian newspapers, commenting, in a humorous and censorship-tolerated way, on current political issues. His editorials have also been published in book form. Värdi practiced a characteristic, well-recognisable in his era, writing style most prominent for consistently neglecting to join compound words, which are rather frequent in

Estonian language Estonian ( ) is a Finnic language, written in the Latin script. It is the official language of Estonia and one of the official languages of the European Union, spoken natively by about 1.1 million people; 922,000 people in Estonia and 16 ...

. This and other stylistic cues paint him as middle-aged and poorly educated (or, as presented by

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

authorities, "proletarian") man. This aura of proletarianism afforded Lahi some extra leeway in manœuvring through Soviet

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

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Postimees ''Postimees'' () is an Estonian daily newspaper established on 5 June 1857, by Johann Voldemar Jannsen. In 1891, it became the first daily newspaper in Estonia. Its current editor-in-chief is Priit Hõbemägi. The paper has approximately 250 ...

27 October 2004
Kuidas ma vesteid aja lehe veergudele toimetasin
by Raimu Hanson 1904 births 1995 deaths Estonian male writers Estonian journalists Estonian cartoonists People from Võhma 20th-century Estonian writers 20th-century journalists {{Estonia-journalist-stub

Kihva Värdi

See also

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