Discourses of Modernity tells a compelling and long overdue story of the ways in which Estonian modernities, its nation- and state-building have been narrated and presented, but also constructed and reconstructed, by its major literary figures. Extending from the emergence of the national identity in the nineteenth century to the post-Soviet transition period, the book not only fleshes out the shaping of key modern ideas and imageries, such as freedom, change and History, in literature, but also places these in their broader historical and political contexts. While a major contribution to Estonian and Baltic intellectual history, Discourses of Modernity also integrates these into the wider European history of literary, cultural and political ideas.