In the competition to select a name for Tartu’s Südalinna Cultural Centre, the jury selected Siuru from among 280 entries.
The name of Siuru was proposed independently by Tartu residents Tõnis Tatar and Piret Tarto.
Tõnis Tatar, justifying the choice of the name, said that a hundred years ago Siuru was the fiercest, most youthful, rebellious and avant-garde group in Estonian culture. ‘It was a contemporary of the Pallas Art Society and Art School. The Pallas Art School and Gallery exist in Tartu today, why not the Siuru Cultural Centre? I also think Siuru is a beautiful word – elegant, dialectal, and modern at the same time. To me, the Siuru Cultural Centre sounds as beautiful as, say, the Kiasma Art Museum or the Oodi Library in Helsinki,’ said Tatar.
Piret Tarto said that from the very beginning she had the feeling that the name of the cultural centre should come from Kalevipoeg and Estonian mythology. ‘The Siuru bird is a mythical bird in our national epic. As the name of a literary group, Siuru celebrates the joy of creation and the emergence of Estonian culture during the early part of the last century,’ Tarto explained.
The name Siuru first appeared in Estonian cultural history in the epic poem Kalevipoeg. It is believed that the word Siuru was invented by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald, the author of the epic poem, based on the mythical image of the bluebird. Songs of a blue-feathered wonder bird and dreams unite many cultures around the world. It has also been associated with the Finnish word kiuru, which means skylark. The name Siuru was also used by a literary group founded in 1917, which included August Gailit, Marie Under, Johannes Semper, Friedebert Tuglas, Artur Adson, and Henrik Visnapuu. All of them, except Under, were people closely connected with Tartu.
As part of the public call for ideas, held in May and June of this year, 185 unique names for the Cultural Centre were suggested by the people of Tartu, with a total of 280 proposals being submitted.
The name was selected from among the suggestions by a jury consisting of Tartu Mayor Urmas Klaas; Deputy Mayor Elo Kiivet; Head of the Südalinna Cultural Centre, Aavo Kokk; Director of the Tartu Public Library, Kristina Pai; Director of the Tartu Art Museum, Joanna Hoffmann; Chief Linguist and Name Researcher at the Estonian Language Institute, Peeter Päll; writer and semiotician Valdur Mikita; writer Kristiina Ehin; and Managing Director of the creative agency Bond, Nils Kajander.
The jury met several times during the summer and discussed the proposed names in depth, analysing both their meaning and their practical uses. The name Süku, already a household name, was also mentioned, and was proposed 21 times during the call for ideas. Initially used as a colloquial abbreviation among the people working on the project, the word Süku gradually began to spread to the public in spring 2020.
At the end of its deliberations, the jury came to the unanimous decision that the best name for the cultural centre is Siuru.
Tartu Mayor Urmas Klaas thanks everyone who submitted a suggestion to the competition. ‘I’m very happy that the people of Tartu were so active in sharing their ideas and that among all the names was Siuru, a name with significant meaning in our cultural history’.
For more information, contact Aavo Kokk, Head of the Südalinna Cultural Centre, Aavo.Kokk@tartu.ee, tel: 5680 4410.