August Gailit
Estonian writer (1891–1960)
August Gailit (9 January 1891 – 5 November 1960) was an Estonian writer.
Life
Georg August Gailit was born in Kuiksilla (near Sangaste Castle), Sangaste Parish (now Otepää Parish), Kreis Dorpat, Governorate of Livonia, the son of a carpenter and grew up on a farm in Laatre. From 1899 he attended schools in the parish and the town of Valga from 1905, then from 1907 a municipal school in Tartu. From 1911 until 1914 he worked as a journalist in today's Latvia and Estonia in 1916 until 1918. In the Estonian War of Independence he participated as a war correspondent.
From 1922 until 1924 August Gailit lived in Germany, France and Italy. After that he worked as a freelance writer in Tartu and from 1934 in Tallinn. From 1932 until 1934 he was the director of the Theater Vanemuine in Tartu.
In 1932, August Gailit married the actress Elvi Vaher-Nander (1898–1981), and his daughter Aili-Viktooria was born in 1933.
With the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Gailit fled with his family in September 1944 to Sweden, where he worked as a writer.
The public source identifies “August Gailit” as estonian writer (1891–1960). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around August, Gailit and Estonian.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “August Gailit”, the useful work is to connect “estonian writer (1891–1960)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q761368. VIAF identifies the subject as 51846206. The Library of Congress control number is n85247103. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1891, 1960, 1899 and 1905.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “August Gailit” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.