A leading Estonian poet, Marie Under began publishing her work in the early years of the twentieth century, attracted considerable attention with her erotic love sonnets, and influenced a school of neoclassic poets. After the second Soviet Union invasion of her homeland, in 1944, she became the best-known Estonian writer in political exile.

The daughter of Leena Kerner Under and Prido (Priidu, later Friedrich) Under, a schoolteacher, Marie Under was born on 27 March 1883 in Tallinn. She attended a private German girls' school in Tallinn from 1893 to 1898. Thereafter she worked briefly as a salesclerk in a bookstore, wrote poems in German, and studied the piano with Theodor Teder, the organist at St. Charles Church. Through Teder she met Eduard Vilde, the founder of realism in Estonian literature. Vilde introduced her to literary and journalistic circles in Tallinn and found her a secretarial position in the editorial office of the radical...