Nokk kinni, saba lahti : valimik satiiri ja huumorit

“Nokk kinni, saba lahti...” provides an overview of the work of Romulus Tiitus (1906–1982) as a feuilletonist and caricaturist over a period of roughly three decades. While Tiitus’s work during the years of the bourgeois republic was characterized by a progressive and democratic outlook, after 1940 he became a prominent master of Soviet Estonian satire and humour.

Romulus Tiitus, an artist and essayist, was born in Rakvere into a working-class family. In the 1920s, he studied at the State School of Arts and Crafts in Tallinn, at the Faculty of History and Linguistics of the University of Tartu, and at the Pallas Art School. From 1927 to 1940, he worked on the editorial staff of the satirical newspaper Sädemed in Tartu.

During the first year of Soviet rule, he worked in Tallinn as a freelance artist and journalist. During the German fascist occupation, R. Tiitus was arrested as a Soviet activist. After the liberation of Soviet Estonia, Tiitus became a member of the editorial staff of the newspaper Õhtuleht and the magazine Pikker.