Book stokes controversy over Estonian history

Anthology of articles examines disaster of Soviet occupation from various angles

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By Oula Silvennoinen
     
      In the Second World War, Estonia experienced what it was like to become a battlefield between great powers. The Soviet Union occupied the country in the summer of 1940, and a year later it was the turn of National Socialist Germany. In the autumn of 1944 the murderous Nazi occupation switched back to Soviet terror.
      Estonia’s suffering peaked - but did not end - with the forced collectivisation of agriculture and mass transports of people. Researcher Aigi Rahi-Tamm says that Estonia lost more than 17 per cent of its prewar population. This is a dizzying figure compared with the casualties inflicted by the war on Finland, for instance.
      Kaiken takana oli pelko (“Behind Everything was Fear”), a collection of articles edited by Sofi Oksanen and Imbi Paju, is a thorough work, visualising from many angles the dimensions of the social, cultural, economic, ecological, intellectual and moral disaster that falling under Soviet power meant for a small country.
      However, it does not wallow in a victim mentality. The facts are simply acknowledged. When composer Jüri Reinvere writes: “When we understood that there was no getting out of this hell, the Estonians also began to work together to uphold the new power.”
     
The 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union is approaching, but the struggle over its historical significance is perhaps stronger now than ever. Interpretations of the history of the Soviet period are sensitive material both in the Baltic States and in modern-day Russia.
      Russia has taken the role of selective heir of the Soviet Union, which means consistently and unabashedly legitimising the present order using the phraseology of Soviet patriotism.
     
The emphasis on continuity is acceptable when it serves the goals of the present administration, but it is forgotten immediately when talk turns to any kind of responsibility for the crimes of Soviet power.
      The degree to which the writing of history in modern Russia has been harnessed to serve those in power is underscored by the demonstration organised by the Nashi organisation in connection with the publication of the book.
      The book already answers the clumsy attempts at pressure in advance, through the conciliatory comments by Estonian-Russian poet Itor Kotjuhin.
     
While the Estonians were paying the price for the “implementation of the most violent utopia of humanity” in the decades that followed the war, little was known in Finland about the fate of the brother nation.
      During the war, the treatment of the tribal brothers under German occupation had awoken considerable interest and sympathy in Finland.
      When the war came to an end, the Iron Curtain fell across the Gulf of Finland as well. Active personal contacts were exchanged for official ties to Soviet Estonia. The silence was deafening.
      During the existence of the Soviet Union, it was not possible to discuss the reality that prevailed in Estonia very much. The price of careless speech was the kiss of death of being labelled “anti-Soviet”.
     
If Finnish silence was seen in Estonia as incredible cowardly toadying, from the Finnish point of view it was statesmanlike wisdom.
      It was not possible to start recklessly playing with Finnish interests by angering the Soviet Union with ill-considered talk with no benefits.
      The realisation that sheds light on the oddities of recent history on both sides of the Gulf of Finland is the understanding that Finland suffered more than territorial losses as a result of the Second World War.
      In spite of the outward signs of independence, and the appealing food commercials on Finnish television, the country found itself under a Soviet-style colonisation, wandering somewhere between the stick of the Red Army and the carrot of good trade ties with the Soviet Union.
     
The collection of articles approaches its subject from what seems like a dizzying number of different angles. Actually all that is missing is a text that would have opened up the mental landscape of Estonian communists, fellow travellers of Soviet power, and collaborators.
      The price of having so many voices is a typical characteristic of article anthologies: a certain unevenness and a lack of thematic discipline. Alongside articles focussing on research, there are polemics, interviews, and memoir texts, and all writers write what they have to say on their own terms.
      The number of pages rises to well over 550. This is not necessarily a weakness, but not all articles need have been put into the same book. For instance, the excellent article by Ivo Juurve on methodological questions of historical research clearly distinguishes itself from the rest of the group, and begs the question of whether or not some other channel of publication might not have been more appropriate.
      The usefulness and value of the book as a work of non-fiction would undoubtedly have been boosted by a consistent bibliography, at least in connection with texts that are research articles by nature.
     
The subtitle of the book promises to reveal “How Estonia lost its history and how to get it back”.
      The second half of the promise is wisely left up to reader to surmise.
      It is clear that an unambiguous security policy decision in the direction of the West has been a precondition for any kind of attempt at building a more honest image of the national past, both in Estonia and in the other Baltic republics.
      The length of the Soviet shadow and its darkness is reflected in the fact that arguments about events that took place 60 years ago remain part of today’s international political debate.
     
The book is good reading for today’s Finns.
      Ostensibly the volume is about affairs affecting the neighbouring country, but it also tells about us all the time. Anyone who suspects that history has no meaning in today’s world should travel to the Baltic countries and Russia, or alternatively they should read this book.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 24.3.2009
     
     
The writer is a researcher of history. His doctoral thesis on the cooperation of Finnish and German security police between 1933 and 1944 appeared last year.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Hundreds of listeners and a handful of protesters attend publication of book on Estonia (24.3.2009)
  Russian nationalists plan Helsinki protest (20.3.2009)

Helsingin Sanomat