Ado Grenzstein
Ado Grenzstein, pseudonym
A. Piirikivi (5 February 1849 – 20 April 1916) was an
Estonian journalist, writer and teacher, brother of . In 1881, he founded the ''
Olevik'' newspaper, which become one of the most important Estonian newspapers of the period. The purpose of the paper was "weaning the Estonian peasant readership away from the 'firebrands and madcaps' who edited ''
Sakala''". He soon broke with the
Estonian nationalist movement and became an apologist of
Russification. He even went further, expressing doubt whether the loss of the Estonian nation would be of any consequence to mankind. His views have been characterized as "national
nihilism". In 1901, he left Estonia and settled first in
Dresden, and then later in
Paris.
In an attempt to revitalize the
Estonian language, Grenzstein tried to coin words out of nothing (see
ex nihilo lexical enrichment) and introduced
neologisms such as ''kabe'' "draughts, checkers" and ''male'' "chess".
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