A Cidade Branca

Black & White Plans

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Kuressaare [Arensberg] Castle

This castle has been built in honor of Veera Kivik Kriisa, the most incredible woman I have ever known (I’m pretty sure my loving wife Judy will not dispute this). Veera was born in Tallinn, Estonia in 1923. Her late teens were spent in an Estonia under Nazi domination, but in 1944 the tide of the war was turning and the Russians, more feared for their cruelty than the Germans, appeared on the verge of retaking her country. Most Estonians tried to flee to Sweden, but some including Veera ended up in Germany. Placed in the Geislingen Estonian Refugee Camp at the end of the war, she worked as a nurse at the little hospital. There she met Harri Kriisa, an Estonian pipe organ builder 12 years her senior. They dated for a year and then married, having their first baby in December 1948. Harri hoped to leave Germany for the coal mines of Belgium and then the sugar cane fields of Australia, but a serious war wound caused rejection after rejection. Then First Lutheran Church of Decatur, IL inquired about an organ builter for their new church, and Veera and Harri’s most improbable dream came true: coming to America and doing what Harri loved doing the most! The family arrived in September 1949. Harri built pipe organs, with the help of Veera and a growing family, until he succumbed to a heart attack in 1976. Veera was incredibly active, raising her three children Mare, Toomas and Tiina, and winning more than 4,000 ribbons at fairs across the state, especially for baking and knitting. She was also legendary for walking everywhere, come rain or shine. And she died at age 85 on August 29, 2008 - walking to buy her morning paper. Despite looking both ways, she was struck down by a reckless bus driver. She is missed every day in a hundred ways!

Arensberg (Eagle Castle) is located on the southern coast of Oesel [Saaremaa] Island at the western end of the Gulf of Riga. The first castle was wooden and dated from the 11 century. It was destroyed in 1227 by the Brothers of the Militia of Christ [the Swordbrothers] when they captured Oesel Island. The Swordbrothers were a military order founded just a few years earlier by Bishop Albert of Buxhovden (Germany), who had come to Riga in Livonia as both Preacher and Prince. He was determined to use his “crusaders” to expand Livonia into Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Kurland to the west and Russia to the east. Excavations show the original stone castle [see below] to be a rectangular enclosure with a tall watch tower 87 feet tall and 22 feet square in one corner, and a gatehouse at the opposite corner. It dates from 1260-63, the years following the overthrow of the native Oeselian rebellion. The Swordbrothers had become increasingly independent of the Church in Rome, and Pope Gregory IX ordered them to appear before him in Rome in 1235/6. The punishment of the Swordbrothers was severe and the order was virtually wiped out in 1236 in an unsuccessful invasion of Lithuania. The remnants were incorporated into the Teutonic Knights, who had come into the area from Hungary a few years earlier [they were apparently asked to leave none too politely!]

The current fortress, the most dramatic and best preserved of the Estonian “convent castles”, was built from 1338 to 1380 by the Teutonic Knights for the Bishop of Oesel-Wiek. The old watch tower was incorporated into the north-east corner of the new castle. The former gatehouse became a corner tower. Another outer wall was added in the 15th century, incorporating several round towers, and the earthen bastions were added in the 17th century. A massive portcullis was suspended above the dark, narrow entrance passage to the castle. The German knights and their Catholic bishops continued to have periodic problems with local and regional uprisings. The drawing below depicts the Teutonic Knights attempt to regain Arensberg from the now local Bishop of Oesel-Wiek in a wintertime siege. The Livonian Order of the Teutonic Knights collapsed in 1559 and the Bishopric of Oesel-Wiek forfeited Arensberg to the Danish government. In 1645 Arensberg passed to Swedish control in the Treaty of Broemsebro. The Russians burnt Arensberg to the ground in the Great Northern War of 1710. In 1836 the castle was sold to the Knighthood of Saaremaa, who gradually restored to castle to its former glory. In 1918, during World War !, Estonia renamed the castle Kuressaare. The Regional Museum of Saaremaa has several exhibits of religious and defensive nature, including torture instruments and dungeon tours. 

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