Arvo Kirkmann was born on July 21, 1939 and died on February 27, 2017.
He was an Estonian proverb scholar, “one of the leading paremiologists in the world.”
Kirkmann graduated from Tartu University’s Department of Estonian Philology in 1962.
He stayed on there till 1969 as a researcher at the Literary Museum in Tartu.
Between 1970-1972, Kirkmann did postgraduate studies there, then went on to work as a researcher at the Institute of Language and Literature, then the Institute of Estonian Language, and finally at the Estonian Literary Museum.
Kirkmann was a member part of the Tartu Paremiology Group, a group of scholar that did major work on not only Estonian proverbs, but cooperated on comparative work with other proverb scholars in the Balto-Finnic area, led by Matti Kuusi.
Kirkmann was also named “professor extraordinary” at Tartu University in 1992, then in 1997 was named to the Estonian Academy of Sciences. He has also been named to multiple boards and committees.
He was honored by the 2014 volume of Proverbium dedicated to him as a Festschrift.
Kirkmann was honored by a symposium held in his honor in 2014, whhich was titled “Scala naturae: Symposium in honour of Arvo Krikmann’s 75th birthday” and was held at the Estonian Academy of Sciences in Tallinn.
Arvo Kirkmann passedv away at 77 years old.