Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Koeru Rural Municipality, Järva County, Estonia
About Juhan Leinberg
- Juhan Leinberg (26 September 1812 – 28 August 1885), also known as prophet Maltsvet, was a founder of a religious sect named after him (the Maltsvetians) in Estonia. Juhan Leinberg was born in Järvamaa, Norra parish.
- In his youth he was a farmer, miller, barkeeper and seller in Tallinn.
- In 1854 he started holding preachings in Northern Estonia and called on people to give up collecting wealth.
- A short imprisonment in 1858 increased his popularity, the number of his followers reached 200-300 families.
- In 1860 Leinberg started to promote re-establishing to the Crimea, going there himself in February 1861.
- The most fanatic of the Maltsvetians waited in May and June 1861 at Lasnamäe for the coming of the "White ship" that was to take them to the promised land.
- The followers of Maltsvet also had an important part in the peasant rebels in Albu and Ahula in November 1861.
- By the mid-1860s, Maltsvet's influence had worn off.
- After his return to Estonia in 1865 he started in business again.
- Leinberg died in Järvamaa, Pruuna parish. The movement of the Maltsvetians is treated by Eduard Vilde (1865-1933) in the novel Prophet Maltsvet.
- Published in 1908, this was the third book of a trilogy that established Vilde as a writer.
- Like the others, it mixed fact and fiction, but was based on letters and notes of interviews with Crimean Estonians.Finnish author Aino Kallas wrote a short story titled Lasnamäen valkea laiva (The White Ship of Lasnamäki), which portrays the members of Leinberg's religious sect waiting for a white ship to take them into paradise, as Leinberg had promised according to the story.
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