Haljand Udam

Haljand Udam (1936 – December 17, 2005) was an Estonian orientalist and translator. He graduated from Tartu University as a geologist, but soon became interested in Eastern culture, including Ancient Iranian literature. He studied oriental philology in Tashkent university and Moscow State University, where he defended his candidate's thesis in 1971 (“On the Special Semantic Aspects of the Persian Sufi Terminology”). Udam has translated several works from Arabic (Ibn Tufail), Persian (Rudaki, Saadi, Ali Safi) Urdu, Tadjik etc into Estonian, including Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat. He also worked as an editor and contributed to Estonian Encyclopedia.

Some of his articles on orientalism have also been published in foreign language magazines. Just before his death, Udam managed to finish the translation of Quran into the Estonian language. It was published on the 19th of December, 2007. Udam was also known as one of the few Conservative Revolution supporters among the Estonian intellectuals.

References

*"Haljand Udam in memoriam" http://www.ekspress.ee/viewdoc/A99CF9B6F0552EC5C22570DD003C25C0
*"Haljand Udam - inimene kõrvalteelt", Arter, April 22, 2000 http://arhiiv2.postimees.ee:8080/leht/00/04/22e/lugu12.htm

Bibliography

*"Orienditeekond", Tallinn 2001, ISBN 9985-77-008-0 (see a review http://20th-century-history-books.com/B0008DAQUI.html)

External links

*http://www.eao.ee/01tekstid/intervjuu_udam.html (Interview with Udam, in Estonian)