Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Estonia's Singing Revolution
When you are a humble nation of just a million people lodged between
Russia and Germany (and tyrants such as Stalin and Hitler), simply sur-
viving is a challenge. Estonia was free from 1920 to 1939. Then they had
a 50-year Nazi/Soviet nightmare. Estonians say, “We were so few in num-
bers that we had to emphasize that we exist. We had no weapons. Being
togetherandsingingtogetherwasourpower.”Singinghaslongbeenana-
tional form of expression in this country; the first Estonian Song Festival
occurred in 1869, and has been held every five years since then.
Estonian culture was under siege during the Soviet era. Moscow
wouldn't allow locals to wave their flag or sing patriotic songs. Russians
and Ukrainians were moved in, and Estonians were shipped out in an at-
tempt to dilute the country's identity. But as cracks began to appear in the
USSR, the Estonians mobilized—by singing.
In 1988, 300,000 Estonians—imagine...a third of the popula-
tion—gathered at the Song Festival Grounds outside Tallinn to sing pat-
riotic songs. On August 23, 1989—the 50th anniversary of a notorious
pact between Hitler and Stalin—the people of Latvia, Lithuania, and Esto-
nia held hands to make “the Baltic Chain,” a human chain that stretched
360 miles from Tallinn to Vilnius in Lithuania. Some feared a Tiananmen
Square-type bloodbath, but Estonians kept singing.
In February of 1990, the first free parliamentary elections took place in
all three Baltic states, and pro-independence candidates won majorities. In
1991, hard-line communists staged a coup against Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev, and Estonians feared a violent crackdown. The makeshift
Estonian Parliament declared independence. Then, the coup in Moscow
failed. Suddenly, the USSR was gone, and Estonia was free.
Watch the documentary film
The Singing Revolution
before your visit
(
www.singingrevolution.com
)
to tune into this stirring bit of modern his-
tory and to draw inspiration from Estonia's valiant struggle for freedom.
