President Lennart Meri and Mrs. Helle Meri visited Stratford-upon-Avon at midday today, on March 19, and were received at the Shakespeare Centre by Angela Colbeck, the Mayor of Stratford-upon-Avon, and Joan MacFarlane, member of the City Council and the former Mayor, who showed the Centre to the President.

President Meri had a present for the library of the Shakespeare Centre - seven volumes of the translation of the complete works of Shakespeare to the Estonian language. President Meri, whose father Georg Meri has translated many of the famous Englishman's works into Estonian, but was never able to visit England, said that his father would have been immensely proud of the present for the museum.

The Museum Director Roger Pringle and his wife, the Library Director Marion Pringle, were delighted with the present, and considered also the President's personal relation to the present was very important. So far, there had been only four translations of Shakespeare's work in the Museum, namely ''Midsummer Night's Dream'', ''King Lear'', ''Macbeth'', and ''Hamlet'', all of them published in the 1920s.

In the Museum, the President was also given a brief summary of other contacts the Museum has with Estonia this year. On the Shakespeare Week, which took place in Stratford of late, three teachers from Estonia were able to participate due to the support of the British Council, and two school theatres from Estonia will participate in the project of performing Shakespeare's plays. The President told of his impressions of the new performance of ''Hamlet'' at the Tallinn City Theatre.

After a visit to the house were Shakespeare had been born, and a tour of the city, the Mayor Angela Colbeck and the City Council Member Joan MacFarlane hosted a lunch in honour of the President in the historic Town hall of Stratford.

From Stratford-upon-Avon, the Estonian President travelled to Leicester, where he met Estonians at the Estonian House of Leicester. In his address to nearly a hundred of Estonians living in England, The President said that often their young compatriots in Estonia have not understood that after the escape to a foreign country, people had to start their lives all over again and that there were few other peoples in the world, of whom a quarter had to flee their home country at once, as it happened in Estonia in 1944. The President emphasised that now, Estonia has set itself clear goals, and that for further development, we need to accede to the European Union and NATO, to build up the Estonian Defence Forces, and to act so that everybody would have a good life in Estonia.

The President gave an Estonian-language globe as a present to the Estonian House of Leicester.

President Meri and Mrs. Helle Meri will be returning from a week's working visit to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on Sunday late night, by a regular flight of the Estonian Air Company.


Press Service of the Office of the President
Kadriorg, March 11, 2000

back | archive of press releases | main page