Song as resistance: The strange story of Estonia’s singing revolution

 

“Mu isamaa on minu arm.” The unofficial national anthem of Estonia translates as “Land of my fathers, land that I love.” It began as a poem written by Estonian poet, Lydia Koidula, during the 19^th century, a period known in the country as the “National Awakening,” and played a critical role in Estonia’s independence movement from Soviet occupation over 120 years later in a non-violent resistance known as Estonia’s Singing Revolution.

The tradition of singing, particularly choral music and folktales, is deeply embedded in Estonian culture. Previously passed down orally through generations, during the 19^th century National Awakening the country’s leaders began an effort to collect and write down the stories and songs in the Estonian language. The country’s most well-known national story folktale, about Kalevipoeg, a mythical, ancient Estonian ruler, was transcribed into verse and published. During the same period, the first two Estonian language newspapers were founded, promoting the new cultural renaissance. In 1869, Koidula’s father, a publisher of one of the new newspapers, organized the country’s first Song Festival as part of the national consciousness raising and to encourage the use of Estonian as the national language. Fifty-one male choirs consisting of 845 musicians and an audience of 10,000 – 15,000 people attended.

That 19^th century effort to nationalize music, folktales and language contributed to the foundation of The Singing Revolution, in which song became an effective non-violent weapon of resistance.

Songs are not a unique form of protest. From the anti-war and Civil Rights songs of the 1960s and 70s in the United States to the Punk movement in the U.K. and the songs of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, songs have been used to express emotions, vent anger and call people to action. It was the unique history and style of Estonian music that made it an effective resistance tool.

• Traditional Estonian music involves choral singing. Unlike protest songs in many other movements where the musicians sang and the audience listened appreciatively, in Estonia singing happens in a deeply embedded choir tradition. It’s a collective act involving the physical gathering of citizens from all walks of life to raise their voices in unison.
• The tiny country of 1.4 million people has over 700 official choirs and almost every Estonian has been part of or been an audience member for a school or community choir.
• The protest songs weren’t newly created for the revolution; they were historic national songs, occasionally modified, passed down through generations to celebrate country and promote a unified Estonian culture and language.
• The 19^th century National Awakening about the importance of culture and the Estonian language contributed to a national attitude that carried into the successive 20^th century occupations of the country. Despite decades of being a pawn in the war of dominance between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and brutally occupied by both countries, Estonians view themselves and their country as a nation that was never conquered.

Though the Soviet Union certainly tried. From 1943 -1991 during its final decades of occupation, the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain strategically isolated Estonians along with its Baltic neighbors. They were denied access to Western news and the ability to travel outside its boundaries. Those who had not escaped already were stuck and if caught escaping, punished with deportation to Siberia or worse. Any travel into the country was heavily controlled and monitored by the KGB.

Particularly during the Stalin years, the Soviets imposed a form of cultural genocide on the country. Estonian artists, university faculty and teachers were among the first to be dismissed from jobs or deported to Siberia. The Russification of literature, music and the arts happened with restrictive requirements that new works of art were to be published in Russian using Soviet themes.

During those years, singing patriotic songs was a punishable offense. While the Soviets allowed the Song Festival to be held under their watchful eye, the music was strictly censored. Songs had to promote Communist virtues and leaders such as Stalin and Lenin. But Estonians who participated in those Song Festivals say that Estonian nationalistic messages were hidden in the melodies that only they could recognize from generations of choral tradition. And they say the collective act of singing, no matter what they were forced to sing, restored and reinvigorated a sense of Estonian unity.

At the 1947 Song Festival, Estonian conductor Gustav Ernesaks took to the podium and led the crowd of 28,000 singers and 100,000 audience members in a song arrangement that had slipped by the Soviet censors, “Mu iaamaa on minu arm,” the poem written by Lydia Kiodula over a century earlier. Soviet authorities, so confident in their occupation of the country, didn’t recognize that “Land of my fathers, land that I love” was about Estonia, not the Soviet Union.

Kiodula’s song continued to be sung in secret choirs and in a spontaneous demonstration by Estonians as they exited the Song Festival grounds during the 1960 Song Festival. By 1987, the first year of The Singing Revolution, mass demonstrations involving national songs took place in Tallinn. In May, 1988, performers in the university town of Tartu included patriotic songs in the Tartu Pop Music Festival.

By June, 1988, after the Soviet- approved annual Tallinn Old Town Festival, participants, in a spontaneous demonstration, walked the four kilometers to the national Song Festival Grounds to sing patriotic songs. By that September’s Song Festival, the resistance momentum had built. Accounts say 300,000 Estonians, a third of the small country’s population, came to the Song Festival Grounds to participate. In defiance of the Soviet dignitaries in attendance and KGB presence, the assembled crowd sang forbidden music. One third of the country singing in a mass choir of defiance became the revolution’s tipping point.

On August 23^rd, 1989 nearly 700,000 Estonians joined neighboring Latvians and Lithuanians in a united act of resistance called “The Baltic Way”. An unbroken 600 kilometer chain of two million citizens holding hands from Tallinn, Estonia, in the north through Riga, Latvia, and Vilnius, Lithuania, in the south was organized by the independence parties in all three countries to call international attention to their quest for freedom. Many of the leaders were the artists, writers and musicians who had not been deported or had returned under a less restrictive Soviet occupation. By 1991 all three countries had achieved independence and today are full members of the European Union.

Estonia knew it could not win a revolution over its Soviet occupiers by traditional means. It used the one tool it had to sustain the spirit of its people, to organize them and empower them through dark Soviet times — the choral expression of patriotic songs evoking memories of an independent homeland.

Today Estonia’s festival known as “Song of Estonia” continues to be held every five years on Tallinn’s Lauluvaljak Song Festival Grounds, the scene of the 1988 singing revolt. While the most well-known festival of song, it’s not the only one. It’s supplemented by a variety of choral singing events throughout the country including the annual Youth Song and Dance Celebration, the Estonian Night Song Festival and 700 local choirs.

Its Singing Revolution has been memorialized in a documentary.

Photo: Dennis Jarvis/Creative Commons