Harri Mürk's biography at Estonian Wikipedia

I was thinking of Harri in advance of next week's 100th Anniversary of Estonian Independence and the 9th year since Harri's passing on February 24, 2009. I wanted to look at this same Blog again and did a Google search to obtain the link. I noticed then that a new biography of Harri was also posted at the Estonian version of Wikipedia. The author is unidentified but some of the facts and details do seem to be sourced from this Blog here.
The Estonian version is at Harri Mürk
A mostly understandable (Estonian pronouns are non-gender, so there is a bit of a mix of he/she) Google Translation into English is at Google Translate.

One year later - Feb 24th 2010

To Remember Harri

Often In the rising of the sun

and in its going down,

we remember him

and his love of nature

In the blowing of the wind

and in the chill of winter,

we remember him

and his love of winter

In the opening of buds

in the rebirth of spring

and as the garden grows

we will remember him

In the blueness of the sky

and the warmth of summer,

we remember him

and his trips to Estonia - the land he loved

In the rustling of leaves

and in the beauty of autumn,

we remember him

at Haloween and Michealmas

In the beginning of the year

and when it ends,

we will remember him

for the celebrations we shared.

When we are weary

and in need of strength,

we will remember him

and his spirit will heal us

When we are lost and sick at heart,

we remember him

as the friend we could depend on;

When we have joys

we yearn to share,

we remember him

and the laughter we shared

So long as we live,

he too shall live,

for Harri is now a part of us,

and we will remember him.

Celebrate his life!

on this his death anniversary

i miss him

tony

If you wish to see pictures from Estonia of Harri's memorial there, you can view them at:
http://picasaweb.google.ca/torontosouza/HiiumaaAndHarriSService#

Lives Lived: Globe and Mail June 01, 2009

Harri William Mürk
Teacher, writer, translator. Born June 8, 1954, in Toronto. Died Feb. 24 in Toronto of a heart attack, aged 54.


Monday, Jun. 01, 2009 04:13AM EDT


When Harri Mürk was a professor of Estonian studies at the University of Toronto, his students could be found working on Estonian verb conjugations while savouring a still-warm apple upside-down cake that he had baked, along with tea and a small glass of cognac. Harri was a man of multiple talents and passions. It is dizzying how much he accomplished in his brief 54 years.
Harri was the son of hard-working immigrant parents Aksel and Alja Mürk, who came to Canada from Estonia via Sweden as refugees in 1951.
Harri and his childhood friends attended Estonian church, school, scouts and summer camp, keeping their language and culture alive in Toronto's small Estonian community, most of whose members had escaped the Soviet occupation in 1944. Harri was a talented folk dancer and choir member who travelled to Estonian cultural festivals across North America.
Harri wrote, performed in and directed countless plays, poetry recitals and performance-art pieces throughout his life. In his teens and 20s, he was the go-to guy if you needed a young romantic lead for a Toronto-Estonian community theatre production. His acting gifts were innate, his Estonian was impeccable and he cut a dashing figure on stage.
Fluent in nine languages, Harri had a doctorate in linguistics from Indiana State University. He taught Finnish at the University of Toronto, and as chair of the university's Estonian studies he taught Estonian language, literature and folklore during his 16 years there. He translated many important Estonian works into English – plays, an anthology of folk music and music scores, including the work of eminent composer Veljo Tormis. Harri recently completed a translation in verse of the Estonian national epic poem Kalevipoeg by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald.
For the past nine years, Harri was a geography teacher and librarian at Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute. Here he sparked many young minds, entertaining students with tales of travel, his pride in being Estonian and his impish sense of fashion. Last Halloween he dressed up as a globe, wearing a sweater decorated with a map of the world. The school was closed in mourning the day he died.
Harri lived the past 16 years with his partner Tony Souza. They had a diverse and eccentric group of family and friends who came together at their famous parties. Their annual summer solstice garden party featured tables of lovingly prepared Estonian and Indian food. There was music, Estonian dance and fire rituals – a summer solstice rite – and Harri's humorous reminders to be yourself, but fabulously.

By
Christina Prozes and Alan Teder Harri's friends, and Tony Souza Harri's partner.

art from the children on April 5

Stuart Von Wolff's speech at the memorial

We are all here as Harri’s friends. Everyone here has experienced Harri’s warmth and kindness and generosity – his joy, his fun and – I daresay – his fabulous food.

Many have attested to the fact that Harri was a teacher who made a difference. I am honoured to share a few thoughts with you about my friend: Professor Dr Harri Mürk: the brilliant, infuriatingly multilingual scholar and my inspirational mentor.

I first met Harri at the University of Toronto, quite a number of years ago, and knew him first in a very academic context. I know that every friend of Harri knew of his love of, and devotion to,
his beloved Eesti and of his perfect language abilities in Estonian and English. But Harri had an incredible, truly exceptional gift for ALL languages.

Harri was an esteemed expert on Finno-Ugric languages. I do not mean only the Balto-Finnic languages, although he certainly knew a lot about Finnish and Karelian, Inkeri and Liivi, and other languages closely related to Estonian.

But Harri could cite data or rattle off intringuing tid-bits about
Saame, Mari, Komi, or Udmurt;
he knew about Samoyedic languages like Nenets and Selkup.

And Harri was generous in sharing this knowledge. It is owing to him that I was able to incorporate data from a fascinating variety of Estonian from Kodavere. Poor Harri! I drove him crazy while working on my first masters, and badgered him to check my bad Estonian, which he always did: always with good humour, and always thoroughly and attentively, the best example of academic research.

Harri demonstrated integrity in an academy that all too often falls short of its espoused ideals. In English, people teach their children to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. In Finnish, adults remind children ‘on aina oltava rehellinen’ – one must always be honest. And honest Harri was. His honesty allowed him to voice his frustration with me: “How is it that you can speak all these languages so well, but have such a heavy Finnish accent in Estonian??”

And Harri had the right to be irked by this, especially since his Finnish was practically flawless. But then we laughed together and knocked back yet another ‘snabbli vodski’, moving our discussion from the realm of theoretical linguistics to his trying to convince me why Finnish Koskenkorva vodka was not the best… I think it’s the only argument in which Harri failed to convince me.

Harri’s linguistic gift went beyond Finno-Ugric languages. I could always rope Harri into debates about structures in all sorts of Western Indo-European languages: Irish, Welsh…
French or Spanish or Romanian, German or Afrikaans,
Danish or Dutch or Swedish.
Truly a linguistic genius, Harri was familiar with them all. But he was so humble, I don’t know that we all knew the depth of his genius.

His abilities, coupled with his humility, his availability for assistance, and his patience, coalesced to create the best mentor any doctoral student could ever wish for – and I know that the academy has lost a truly great scholar, who made positive, helpful and huge intellectual contributions through his talks and translations, his prose and his verse, and his wonderful Handbook of Estonian forms.

While modest to a fault, Harri was always quick to acknowledge the contributions of others. When he published his Handbook he insisted on acknowledging many of us in a great work that really is a monument to him – and to him alone.

Harri could often comfort and diffuse tension with his humour. But he also was a shining example of respectful conduct, through which he inspired people’s trust. Anyone whoever met Harri, however briefly, no matter the context, instinctively felt and knew that he was a dear and genuine soul.

I don’t know what I’m going to do without my quiet hero, Harri.
To all Harri’s family, I thank you for sharing him with me, and pray that you be comforted. I take comfort in Tony’s words and image, and look up to the Heavens for my Harri star.