Names
Köleri J. (Johann Köler, 1826-1899)
Painter, aka Ivan Petrovich Köler-Viliandi, worked mainly in St Petersburg. Portraitist to the Russian imperial family, noted for his 1864 Fr. R. Kreutzwaldi portree (or Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald reading “The Kalevipoeg” in manuscript) in the Estonian History Museum, Pikk, and his 1879 Tulge minu juurde kõik, kes teie vaevatud ja koormatud olete, mina tahan teile hingamist saata (Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28), a huge painting in the Tallinn Kaarli Kirik, attached to the wall, they say, by some 5000 nails. Along with Jakobsoni C.R. and others, member of ‘the Petersburg patriots’. Street known as Datschi (datcha) in the 1910-20s (see Õie).
Kollane (Adj.)
Yellow. Named after the yellow-painted wooden barracks demolished in 1870. Street names indicated by an adjective (occasionally an adverb or attributive) are in the nominative. As to why, however, it is not quite clear: the street was never entirely yellow in the first place. Perhaps the thought that an adjective requires a noun? Or to avoid the awkward use of a substantivized adjective, ‘the yellow’, or the idea of ‘yellowness’ (kollasuse)? But while ‘yellow street’ is strange, ‘street of the yellow’ sounds strange, and that in itself is a greater wrong to inflict upon an innocent name. See also Punane.
