Tartu ülikooli hoidja Jaan Sarv
Creators: name: Lõbu, Terje
Publisher: name: Tartu Ülikooli ajaloo küsimusi
Year: 2020

description: Jaan Sarv (1877–1954), who is primarily known for being a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Tartu, had an important part in launching the Estonian-language university at a time when Tartu was governed by the Commune of the Working People of Estonia. In December 1918, a stressful time for the Republic of Estonia, when the Red Army was approaching Tartu, the University’s curator Peeter Põld was forced to leave the city to save his life. He appointed Jaan Sarv as his substitute. Sarv, who had thus far been a teacher, took over the responsibilities of curator on 20 December 1918 and managed to keep the university safe. The university had not started Estonian-language instruction yet, but both economic and personnel issues needed to be solved. Sarv managed the university’s buildings and assets but also had to find firewood for heating. To organise all of this, he had to try and keep the university staff away from political chasms since workers’ councils were also formed within the institution at the behest of the communist powers. Managing the university became especially difficult for the honest- minded Sarv starting from the first days of 1919 when Artur Vallner, commissary of the Commune of the Working People of Estonia’s education and culture administration, arrived in Tartu and appointed Sarv the head of the Commune of the Working People of Estonia’s university, a command that he could not contradict. Sarv was tasked with preparing the university’s budget and articles of association. At a time when red terror held sway over Tartu, the only fulfilling activity available for Sarv, a humane and independent thinker, was writing the articles of association for the university. Although he had to use the term ‘the Commune of the Working People of Estonia’, the document that Sarv wrote cannot be considered the articles of association of a communist university. While the University of Tartu never started functioning with the structure Sarv had planned, several of his principles found favour with those who directed the university’s work in later periods. One must commend Sarv’s effort and ideas in preparing a platform for the Estonian-language university, since he had nothing to emulate in founding a university for a newly created nation state. In late January 1919 when Tartu was freed of the red forces and the university’s curator came back, Sarv could leave the position that had been so averse to his nature. As a consolation prize for maintaining and protecting the university under a foreign regime, Sarv was permitted to go on a study trip to Europe that he had been planning already the previous year so as to implement the best foreign educational experiences upon his return to Tartu. Sarv spent his time in the libraries of Helsinki, Copenhagen and London absorbing new knowledge from March to August in 1919. When Sarv returned home, he became Professor of Mathematics and Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and continued contributing into building the system of higher education with Estonian as the language of instruction. Sarv taught mathematics at the University of Tartu until 1951. Sarv was a person who liked to come up with original ideas but tried to get rid of supervisory positions as quickly as possible with the pretext that “the Monomakh’s Cap didn’t fit [him]”.
description: Tartu Ülikooli ajaloo küsimusi, Vol. 48 (2020): 100 aastaga pärisorjusest emakeelse ülikoolini