Juhan Leinberg


Leinberg, Juhan

 

Born Sept. 14 (26), 1812, in Norra Volost (small rural district); died Aug. 16 (28), 1885, at the estate of Vaigita, Pruuna Volost; buried in Paide. Estonian peasant preacher, popularly known as the prophet Maltsvet.

Leinberg was at different times a miller, an innkeeper, and a merchant. In the mid-1850’s he founded the sect of the Maltsvetites. Between 1860 and 1862, a number of Maltsvetites, most of them tenant farmers, migrated to the Crimea, in protest against oppression by the landowners. The movement soon declined, and even Leinberg returned to Estonia in 1865.