100 Krooni 1999, Estonia
| in Krause book | Number: 82a |
| Years of issue: | 30.04.1999 |
| Edition: | |
| Signatures: | President: Vahur Kraft, Noukogu Liige: Mart Sõrg |
| Serie: | 1992 Issue |
| Specimen of: | 1999 |
| Material: | Cotton fiber |
| Size (mm): | 140 x 70 |
| Printer: | Bundesdruckerei GmbH, Berlin |
* All pictures marked 
are increased partially by magnifying glass, the remaining open in full size by clicking on the image.
** The word "Specimen" is present only on some of electronic pictures, in accordance with banknote images publication rules of appropriate banks.
Description
Watermark:
The portrait of Lidia Koidula and denomination 100.
Avers:
The engraving on banknote is made after the photo by Reinhold Sachker.
Lydia Emilie Florentine Jannsen, (24 December [O.S. 12 December] 1843 - 11 August [O.S. 30 July] 1886), known by her pen name Lydia Koidula, was an Estonian poet. Her sobriquet means "Lydia of the Dawn" in Estonian. It was given to her by the writer Carl Robert Jakobson. She is also frequently referred to as Koidulaulik – "Singer of the Dawn".
In Estonia, like elsewhere in Europe, writing was not considered a suitable career for a respectable young lady in the mid-nineteenth-century. Koidula's poetry and her newspaper work for her populist father, Johann Voldemar Jannsen (1819-1890) remained anonymous. In spite of this, she was a major literary figure, the founder of Estonian theatre, and closely allied to Carl Robert Jakobson (1841-1882), the influential radical and Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (1803-1882), writer of the Estonian national epic "Kalevipoeg" (The Son of Kalev).
Lydia Jannsen was born in Vändra, Pärnu County, Governorate of Livonia (now in central Estonia). The family moved to the nearby county town of Pärnu in 1850 where, in 1857, her father started the first local Estonian language newspaper and where Lydia attended the German grammar school. The Jannsens moved to the university town of Tartu, the most progressive town in Estonia, in 1864. Nationalism, including publication in indigenous languages, was a very touchy subject in the Russian Empire but the rule of Czar Alexander II (1855-1881) was relatively liberal and Jannsen managed to persuade the imperial censorship to allow him to publish the first national Estonian language newspaper in 1864. Both the Pärnu local and the national newspaper were called Postimees (The Courier). Lydia wrote for her father on both papers besides publishing her own work. In 1873 she married Eduard Michelson, a Latvian army physician, and moved to Kronstadt, the headquarters of the Russian navy near St. Petersburg. In 1876-1878 the Michelsons visited Breslau, Strasbourg and Vienna. Koidula lived in Kronstadt for 13 years but despite spending her summers in Estonia, she never stopped feeling inconsolably homesick. Lydia Koidula was the mother of three children. She died on August 11, 1886 after a long and painful illness. Her last poem was "Enne surma - Eestimaale!" (Before Death, To Estonia!).
Koidula's most important work, "Emajõe Ööbik", (The Nightingale of the Emajõgi (the Mother River), was published in 1867. Three years earlier, in 1864, Adam Peterson, a farmer, and Johan Köler, a fashionable Estonian Saint Petersburg portraitist, had petitioned the czar for better treatment from the German landlords who ruled Estonia, equality and for the language of education to be Estonian. Immediately afterwards they were taken to the police where they were interrogated about a petition that "included false information and was directed against the regime". Adam Peterson was sentenced to imprisonment for a year. Two years later, in 1866, the censorship reforms of 1855 that had given Koidula's father a window to start Postimees were reversed. Pre-publication censorship was re-imposed and literary freedom was curtailed. This was the political and literary climate when Koidula started to publish. Nevertheless, it was also the time of the National Awakening when the Estonian people, freed from serfdom in 1816, were beginning to feel a sense of pride in nationhood and to aspire to self-determination. Koidula was the most articulate voice of these aspirations.
German influence in Koidula's work was unavoidable. The Baltic Germans had retained hegemony in the region since the XIII century, throughout German, Polish, Swedish and Russian rule and thus German was the language of tuition and of the intelligentsia in 19th century Estonia. Like her father (and all other Estonian writers at the time) Koidula translated much sentimental German prose, poetry and drama and there is a particular influence of the Biedermeier movement. Biedermeier, a style which dominated "bourgeois" art in continental Europe from 1815 to 1848, developed in the wake of the suppression of revolutionary ideas following the defeat of Napoleon. It was plain, unpretentious and characterised by pastoral romanticism; its themes were the home, the family, religion and scenes of rural life. The themes of Koidula's early "Vainulilled" (Meadow Flowers; 1866) were certainly proto-Biedermeier, but her delicate, melodic treatment of them was in no way rustic or unsophisticated, as demonstrated in the unrestrained patriotic outpourings of "Emajõe Ööbik". Koidula reacted to the historical subjugation of the Estonian people as to a personal affront; she spoke of slavery and the yoke of subordination as if from personal experience. By the time of the National Awakening in the 1860s, Estonia had been ruled by oppressive foreign powers – Danish, German, Swedish, Polish and Russian – for over 600 years. In this context, she was conscious of her own role in the destiny of the nation. She once wrote to a Finnish correspondent: "It is a sin, a great sin, to be little in great times when a person can actually make history".
The Estonian literary tradition started by Kreutzwald continued with Koidula but whereas The Bard of Viru tried to imitate the regivärss folk traditions of ancient Estonian, Koidula wrote (mostly) in modern, Western European end-rhyming metres that had, by the mid XIX century, become the dominant form. This made Koidula's poetry much more accessible to the popular reader. But the major importance of Koidula lays not so much in her preferred form of verse but in her potent use of the Estonian language. Estonian was, still, in the 1860s, in a German dominated Baltic province of Imperial Russia, the language of the oppressed indigenous peasantry. It was still the subject of orthographical bickering, still used in the main for predominantly patronising educationalist or religious texts, practical advice to farmers or cheap and cheerful popular story telling. Koidula successfully used the vernacular language to express emotions that ranged from an affectionate poem about the family cat, in "Meie kass" (Our Cat) and delicate love poetry, Head ööd (Good Night) to a powerful cri de coeur and rallying call to an oppressed nation, Mu isamaa nad olid matnud (My Country, they have buried you). With Lydia Koidula, the colonial view that the Estonian language was an underdeveloped instrument for communication was, for the first time, demonstrably contradicted. 
Below depicted the singing or Eastern Nightingale (Luscinia luscinia), sitting on a branch of linden.
In the history of Estonian literature Koidula left its mark, especially in poetry. Her patriotic lyrics proved to be highly relevant to the Estonian people are awakening, and Koidula as the mouthpiece of the people's feelings came to be called "The Nightingale of the Emajõgi" (est. "Emajõe ööbik") (the so-called collection of her poems in 1867). Most of her works is a romantic character: a passionate sympathy for the troubles and tribulations of the Estonian people, love of country and home, the desire to do something to help their fellow countrymen and to facilitate their participation.
Emajõgi is a river in Estonia which flows from Lake Võrtsjärv through Tartu County into Lake Peipus, crossing the city of Tartu for 10 km. It has a length of 100 km. The name Emajõgi means "Mother River" in Estonian.
The Emajõgi is sometimes called the Suur Emajõgi ("Great Emajõgi"), in contrast with the Väike Emajõgi ("Little Emajõgi"), another river which flows into the southern end of Lake Võrtsjärv.
In upper right corner is the emblem of the Bank of Estonia.
In fact, it is the same three azure leopards from coat of arms of the country.
On left side is the hologram strip.
Denominations in numerals are at the top.
Revers:
On the back of the 100 Krooni is a verse by Lydia Koidula from the poem "Unenägu" ("The Dream"), written in 1881:
"Silla otsad ühendatud,
Kandes ühte isamaad,
Tõe templiks pühendatud...
Nägu — millal tõeks saad?!".
In English:
"The ends of the bridge are connected,
Placing in one country
True temple dedicated to ...
The face - when will you get it ?!".
View of the stormy sea and Estonian limestone cliffs - Pakri cliff or Pakerort, near Paldiski.
Pakri or Pakerort coastal cliff, near Paldiski.
Pakri or Pakerort coastal cliff, near Paldiski.
Pakri or Pakerort coastal cliff, near Paldiski.
The North Estonian limestone cliff is the most attractive part of the 1,200 km. long Baltic Klint extending from Sweden to Russia.
The northern Estonian limestone coast is like a stony version of a world history book, bearing witness to tectonic plate movements and collisions, volcanic eruptions, meteorite impacts and the abrasive action of the sea and ancient rivers. Even now, 600 million years later, these sedimentory rock layers are exactly the same as they were deposited on the seabed.
The limestone klint originated from a tropical sea – at a time when the Baltic Shield was still drifting near the equator. The klint consists of the fossilized remains of the calcareous shells of marine organisms. Many fossils can be seen in it as well as in the surrounding landscape, such as corals and trilobites.
The thin layer of soil on the klint is home to unique plant communities – alvar meadows, rich in junipers, can be found in Estonia and some parts of southern Sweden. Between limestone layers there is oil shale, Estonia’s primary source of fossil fuel; it formed from primeval algae. Estonian oil shale is considered among the highest quality in the world. (www.visitestonia.com)
I'm on a limestone cliff Undva Pank, Saaremaa island. July 29, 2020.
I'm on a limestone cliff - Panga cliff, Saaremaa island. July 29, 2020.
Denomination in numeral and in words is centered.
Comments:
The paper of the banknotes contains security fibres of different colour.
The Sketches of the bills in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 Krooni are made by artists Urmas Ploomipuu and Vladimir Taiger. On banknotes are depicted cultural and architectural monuments in Estonia.
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