Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Luunja Rural Municipality, Tartu County, Estonia
About Eduard Sõrmus
- Eduard Sõrmus (July 9, 1878 — August 16, 1940) was an early 20th-century Estonian violinist.
- He was sometimes known as the Red Violinist (der rote Geiger). Sõrmus was born in the Luunja borough, Tartu County, in the Governorate of Livonia (present-day Estonia).
- He inherited part of his interest for music from his mother Leena, who had a lovely singing voice and who used to sing during her daily tasks.
- When Sõrmus was 6 years old, his father gave him his first violin.
- Sõrmus´s first music teacher was a local tailor named Gustav Puks.
- Sõrmus went to Hugo Treffner Gymnasium in Tartu from 1888.
- In gymnasium, he continued playing violin with Johann Kelder, who was a medical student in the University of Tartu.
- Sõrmus then gave his first concerts in his farmstead and in a neighbouring house.
- In 1899, Sõrmus went to university and started studying law at the university.
- After a year in the faculty of law, he changed his studies over to history and languages.
- In 1902, Sõrmus continued his violin studies at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory under the hand of violin master Leopold Auer.
- Sõrmus became active in the Russian Revolutionary movement and eventually took part in the 1905 Russian Revolution.
- In 1904, he began touring, giving violin recitals and giving ardent speeches of proletarian sufferings and miseries.
- That was enough to be listed in the police's list of most wanted.
- In 1906, because of his revolutionary activity, he was forced to flee Russia, so he toured Europe giving recitals.
- After this he continued his studies with Henri Marteau in Berlin and Lucien Capet in Paris.
- Sõrmus spent World War I in Paris and London, after which he returned to Russia for a couple of years and then toured the continent again.
- One concert was held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1934 where his wife, Virginia, played the pianoforte.
- He died in a nursing home in Moscow whilst his wife, Virginia, was visiting her family in Britain. Sõrmus was a labour activist.
- He gave a number of charity concerts, the proceeds of which went to help the poor, and concerts to children.
- Near Dresden, there is a children´s orphanage which was built with donation money collected during Sõrmus's concerts. In the 1920s, he was mainly active in Germany.
- There is a street named after him (Eduard-Soermus-Straße) in the city of Zwickau, Schumann's birthplace. The 1912 Marc Chagall painting Der Geiger was inspired by Sõrmus.
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