Valdur Mikita 101, or, You can take the Estonian out of the wild, but you can't take the wild out of the Estonian.

Valdur Mikita* (b. 1970) is an Estonian writer and semiotician who is also a professor of liberal arts at the University of Tartu in Estonia. His best known works are the Linguistics Trilogy: "Metsik lingvistika" (Wild Linguistics) (2008), "Lingvistiline mets" (Linguistic Forest) (2013) and "Lindvistika ehk metsa see lingvistika" (Birdistics, or into the Forest with Linguistics) (2015). In the trilogy, he ponders the culture, psychology and the unique characteristics of Estonians.

As you may have already guessed from the alliterative tongue-twister wordplay in the titles, the trilogy is somewhat heavy going**, at least for a non-native Estonian reader such as myself. The title of "Kukeseene kuulamise kunst" (The Art of Listening to Chanterelle Mushrooms) promises even more alliterative fun, but overall it was a relatively easier read and I would recommend it as the equivalent of a "Valdur Mikita 101" for those who have yet to tackle the trilogy but who would like to have a basic introduction to his themes.

Mikita uses ten essays to describe and demonstrate elements of the Estonian character. Although the descriptor Baltic-Finnic is frequently used and may therefore cover other Finno-Ugric language groups such as the Finns, Samis, Karelians, Livs etc. who live in the vicinity of the Baltic Sea, more often than not Mikita returns to Estonians as being the main subject of his argument.

The main characteristics that he draws attention to are introversion; an attraction to nature; a love of the outdoors, especially forests; family gathering hobbies e.g. mushrooming, berrying; community social activities e.g. saunas, fires; a somewhat mystical attachment to outdoor nature locations e.g. specific trees and rocks; etc. That is just a short summary based on my quick recall but there were likely a few dozen other examples, the sum total of which did remind me of the personalities and habits of many native and non-native Estonians and which I find are part of my own nature as well.

Perhaps needless to say, there are no actual instructions for listening to mushrooms in the text***. Instead the chanterelle mushroom is an analogy for the Estonian or the Baltic-Finn:

And finally: the chanterelle is one of those mysterious mushrooms which has never been cultivated. It grows only in the wild. This stubborn mushroom has refused to come out of the woods, although for some more than a hundred years it has been told that life in the fields is so much better than life in the forest. Some parts of nature simply cannot be civilized, try as much as you like.
In this sense, the chanterelle is an Estonian.

Notes
* There is no English language biography on Valdur Mikita at Library Thing or Wikipedia, but a short bio and an excellent overview of his bibliography is available in English at the University of Tartu's Estonian Writers Online Dictionary at https://sisu.ut.ee/ewod/m/mikita
** The subtitle of the 2nd volume: "Lingvistiline mets: Tsibihärblase paradigma. Teadvuse kiirendi" (Linguistic Forest: The Wagtail Paradigm. The Accelerator of Consciousness) is itself enough to scare some away.
*** There is however, an alliterative joke about listening to blueberries. Unfortunately the near-homographic joke between "muusikat" (music) and "mustikat" (blueberries) is lost in translation:

"Tsivileeritud inimene kuulab muusikat. Eestlane kuulab mustikat - et siis sünesteet või nii..." (The civilized person listens to music, the Estonian listens to blueberries, so a synesthete of sorts...)

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