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The Singing RevolutionEstonian poet, Lydia Koidula, wrote My isamaa on minu arm in the 19th Century, which translates to Land of my fathers, Land that I love. It has become the unofficial national anthem of Estonia after it’s rise in popularity during the period known as the “National Awakening”. It played a critical role in Estonia’s independence movement over 120 years later as a non-violent resistance, known as Estonia’s Singing revolution took place to break from Soviet occupation.During the 19th Century, the country made effort to nationalise music, folk tales and language, which contributed to the foundation of the Singing Revolution, in which song became an effective non-violent weapon of resistance. Despite decades of being a pawn in the war of dominance between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union being brutally occupied by both countries, Estonians view themselves and their country as a nation that was never conquered. While Soviet rule meant music was strictly censored, and singing patriotic songs was a punishable offence, Estonian nationalistic messages were hidden in the melodies that only they could recognise from generations of choral tradition. No matter what they were forced to sing, or what they were prevented from singing, the collective act restored and reinvigorated a sense of Estonian unity. On 23rd August 1989, nearly 700,000 Estonians joined neighbouring Latvians and Lithuanians in a united act of resistance, “The Baltic Way”. Two million citizens formed an unbroken chain which covered 600km across the three countries. The choral expression of patriotic songs evoked memories of an independent homeland, helping all three countries achieve independence by 1991. These pivotal events will be forever remembered and celebrated by Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians. Koerv, A, “An Introduction to Estonia” Voice over with images/clips of the events leading up to and including The Singing Revolution.Either a reading of the original poem or performance of the song in Estonian (with English subtitles)The Baltic WayIn 1940, the Baltic states were occupied by the Soviet Union after entering an agreement with Nazi Germany on 23rd August 1939. This agreement was named the Hitler-Stalin Pact (or Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact – the surnames of the signatories: USSR Minister for Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov and the German Minister for Foreign Affairs Joachim von Ribbentrop). The effects of this pact were still present in the Baltic states at the end of the 1980s, despite the USSR denying the pact existing and continually protesting that the Baltic states had joined the Soviet Union of their own free will. On the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, those in the three Baltic states demanded that the secret protocols of the pact became public knowledge, as well as the renewal of independence for the three states. Two million people formed a human chain from Tallinn through to Riga and then Vilnius at 19:00 on 23rd August 1989. The event was organised by the national movements of the Baltic states: the Estonian Rahvarinne, the Latvian Popular front of Latvia and the Lithuanian Saiūdis. The participants grouped in the cities and villages where the campaign was going to take place, or travelled to the less inhabited territories where the Baltic Way was going through. Reuters, a news agency, reported that 700,000 people in Estonia, 500,000 in Latvia and 1,000,000 from Lithuania gathered together for the campaign. However, the official information of the USSR provided by TASS put the numbers at 300,000 Estonians, 500,000 Latvians and no published numbers from Lithuania. Due to the various sources of information and the different number of participants in cities and rural locations, the exact number of people who took part in the Baltic Way cannot be determined. Demonstations supporting the Baltic Way took place in numerous locations including Berlin, Leningrad, Moscow, Melbourne, Stockholm, Tbilisi and Toronto.The freedom of thought and speech was restricted for those in the Baltic states forced to live under the dictatorship of the Communist party of the Soviet Union. In 1986, they introduced the so-called openness policy regarding matters of environmental protection and Stalinism crimes. Opinions and discontent about the existing situations were beginning to be voiced more openly by newly formed public organisations. While the Baltic Way was the largest and most important campaign geared toward regaining freedom for the Baltic states, it was not the first. The 14th June 1986 saw the Freedom Monument in Riga celebrate the Remembrance Day for the victims of the 1941 Deportations. After that, the former political prisoners of the Baltic states agreed that a joint remembrance event would take place on 23rd August. Several thousand people participated in protests in Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn on 23rd August 1987. Tallinn’s demonstration went smoothly, but there were clashes with the police in Riga and Vilnius leading to several hundred people being detained. On 23rd August 1988, under the direction of the national movements, several tens of thousand people gathered and a remembrance campaign took place. The Baltic Awakening had developed from an enthusiast movement into a movement uniting all three countries. The biggest achievement that came from the protest campaign was getting the USSR to cave to the Baltic States and admit to all the past crimes committed. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact’s existence was acknowledged and it was declared invalid. It was one of the most important steps toward renewing independence for the Baltic States. The Baltic Way drew a lot of international publicity to the struggle of the three countries. It provided momentum to democratic movements elsewhere in the world, and provided a positive example to other countries that were striving to regain their independence and was the stimulus for the German reunification process. The Baltic Way showed that faith in democratic ideas can unify occupants of the Baltic States, and that a sense of brotherhood, unity and the shared common goal was strengthened by the campaign which saw the Baltic States renew their independence. Singing Revolution in The Baltic StatesOne of the least integrated parts of the Soviet Union were the Baltic States which had been forcibly incorporated as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, the secret protocols of which divided eastern Europe into two zones of influence under Nazi Germany and the Soviets. From 1987 nationalists in the Baltic States began to claim that the Soviet Union had occupied their countries illegally. In August 1989 2 million people in Lithuania signed a petition that demanded the withdrawal of the Red Army, while the leadership of the Lithuanian Communist Party started to discuss separation from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In Estonia, nationalists sought to deprive Russian who had settled in the country of voting rights, causing Russian workers to go on strike against these proposed changes. Moscow was confronted with the dilemma of either ordering military intervention or negotiating a ‘democratic’ way out of the stand-off. Gorbachev opted for the latter. The official party newspaper Pravda, while condemning ‘nationalist and chauvinist organizations’, announced that the Baltic republics would be permitted to challenge union-wide laws: that ‘national languages’ would be promoted to official state language; and that negotiations about a new relationship of the Baltic States to the Soviet Union would be protected by the Soviet constitution. In an interview with Pravda a few days later, the chairman of a committee established by the Congress of People’s Deputies to re-evaluate the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, finally admitted that the secret protocols existed but insisted that this did not mean the occupation of the Baltic States had been illegal. By this stage, however, thee concessions were insufficient to placate the Baltic peoples, who were increasingly demanding outright independence. At the same time, they were much too far-reaching for conservatives in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, who feared that Gorbachev was willing the break-up of the Soviet Union. On 23rd August 1989, the fiftieth anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a huge human chain of over 1 million people, singing religious and national songs, connected Tallinn to Riga to Vilnius, making this one of the most important events in the history of non-violent protest. Such peaceful protests, which were typical of the revolutions of 1989, made it difficult for the Soviet government to use force to quell the protests and placed it on weak moral ground. When later in August a commission of the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian Socialist Soviet Republic declared that the occupation of 1940 had been illegal, the chances of a reformed relationship with between Lithuania and the Soviet Union were scuppered. Given its challenge to the Soviet interpretation of the region’s past, it was no surprise that in March 1990 Lithuania was the first Baltic republic to declare independence after elections to the Supreme Soviet were won by a pro-independence majority. The Baltic crisis proved dangerous for the success of Gorbachev’s reforms. First, it demanded that he find new answers to the question of how to manage civil conflict as a time when the state of law he envisioned was not yet in place. Second, the debates over the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact reminded everyone how much the legitimation of the Soviet Union was based on lies and disavowals regarding the country’s past. The claim by oppositionist Vitautas Landsbergis that independence was a moral as well as political right chimed with the ongoing debate in the Soviet press about bringing justice to the victims of Stalin’s crimes. Third, nationalist agitation challenged the compromise regarding citizenship, ethnicity and nationhood that lay at the heart of the Soviet Constitution and that reflected the tension between the imperial aspirations of the Soviet Union and its commitment to a territorialized understanding of statehood. The Soviet leadership has neither a clear conception of how to address these issues nor any idea of how to negotiate divergent interests. In view of this, the messages sent by Moscow to the Baltic States were contradictory. Middell, M. ‘1989’ in Smith, A (2013). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism, Oxford University Press, Oxford ................
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