Haljand Udam was an Estonian

Estonians

Estonians are a Finnic people closely related to the Finns and inhabiting, primarily, the country of Estonia. They speak a Finnic language known as 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 languages in Tashkent

Tashkent

Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.-Early Islamic History:...

 university and Moscow State University

Moscow State University

Lomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...

 Initially specializing in Indology

Indology

Indology is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent , and as such is a subset of Asian studies....

, he became to be interested in tradition

Tradition

A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...

alist philosophers like Guénon. In Moscow, Udam defended his candidate

Kandidat

The Candidate of Sciences degree is a first post-graduate scientific degree in some former Eastern Bloc countries, such as Russia and Ukraine, which is awarded for original research that constitutes a significant contribution to a scientific field. The degree was first introduced in the USSR on...

's thesis in 1971 (“On the Special Semantic Aspects of the Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

 Sufi Terminology”). Udam has translated several works from Arabic (Ibn Tufail), Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

 (Rudaki

Rudaki

Abu Abdollah Jafar ibn Mohammad Rudaki , also written as Rudagi , was a Persian poet, and is regarded as the first great literary genius of the Modern Persian, who composed poems in the "New Persian" alphabet. Rudaki is considered as a founder of Persian classical literature.He was born in 858 in...

, Saadi

Saadi (poet)

Abū-Muḥammad Muṣliḥ al-Dīn bin Abdallāh Shīrāzī better known by his pen-name as Saʿdī or, simply, Saadi, was one of the major Persian poets of the medieval period. He is not only famous in Persian-speaking countries, but he has also been quoted in western sources...

, Ali Safi), Urdu

Urdu

Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...

, Tajik

Tajik language

Tajik, Tajik Persian, or Tajiki, is a variety of modern Persian spoken in Central Asia. Historically Tajiks called their language zabani farsī , meaning Persian language in English; the term zabani tajikī, or Tajik language, was introduced in the 20th century by the Soviets...

, and other languages into Estonian

Estonian language

Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...

, including Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyám

Omar Khayyám was aPersian polymath: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet. He also wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, music, climatology and theology....

's Rubaiyat

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his translation of a selection of poems, originally written in Persian and of which there are about a thousand, attributed to Omar Khayyám , a Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer...

. He also worked as an editor and contributed to Estonian Encyclopedia (Eesti Entsüklopeedia).

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 19 December 2007. Udam was also known as one of the few Estonian intellectuals who aligned with the Conservative Revolution.

External links

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