Estonia has always looked for ways to leverage itself globally. Vabamu’s next exhibition, “Global Estonians”, will do just that.
Opening in summer 2025, this major exhibition will highlight the history of Estonian migration, eastwards and westwards, voluntary and forced, from the late 19th-century through the restoration of independence in 1991, and beyond. When Estonians move, they carry a small part of their homeland with them. “Global Estonians” wants to capture these stories.
For Estonians living overseas, either now or in the past, we need your help to make the exhibition a success. Please send Vabamu a photo* and describe in 100 words or less your idea of Global Estonia. Think of how you and/or your family, friends, home, and work represent Estonianness. Submissions, due by the end of 2024, may be included in Vabamu’s exhibition, which everyone is invited to visit next summer.
March 25th 2024 marked the Remembrance Day of March Deportations – in 1949 Soviet repressive regime took more than 20,000 people from their homes across Estonia and deported them to various places in Siberia.
Youth Movement NoVa invited survivors of deportations to come to Vabamu and share their personal stories about growing up in Siberia. In fact, this was already the 4th event in the series called the Meetup of Generations in which the “Siberian kids” tell their stories to the kids who have been born and raised in independent Estonia. This time the members of the Broken Cornfower Association also brought along some tools they had used in Siberia that helped them survive the harsh conditions there.
For example, Eha Kaljuvee showed a grain grinder that her father, a well-known farmer in Estonia, had built in Siberia from spare parts of a Soviet tractor: “There was always a queue for that grinder in our village, even the local Russians were using this.”
Tiia Niinemaa showed the youngsters how to make waterproof shoe mending material out of regular thread and a piece of dried tar. The shoes mended with this thread would last several other harsh winters and kids could even enjoy sliding on ice in those shoes (without telling their parents).
Enno Uibo, who had been deported with his family as a small kid just shy of his 4th birthday, was surprised to hear that youngsters were mostly interested on how it was to come back from Siberia. Enno returned in a group of pre-teeners five years later as the deportees below the age of 16 were granted amnesty after Stalin’s death in 1953. Enno returned home to find that not much was left of his parents’ house but a piece of basement.
“In our wagon there were such active people who got organized the minute we took off,” Malle Annus, who was just 7 years old when she was deported with her mother and two younger sisters, recalls the three-week long train ride to the remotest territories of the USSR. “There was a chimney in the middle and opposite of it they slashed a hole in the floor, took the bottom off of a bucket and put it in the hole and cushioned it with bed linen. One family had taken a metal bed frame that was placed to lean on the wall across the bucket and covered it with a blanket – and so it became a restroom for all of us!”
About a hundred students who took part in the event at Vabamu were listening very attentively to the unbelievable survival stories shared by deportees. “Those things they had to go through were just horrible,” one student reflected on his emotions after the event. “But I really loved meeting them because they were all such lovely people. It also made me understand how deportations really happened (during the night, the journey took them 2-4 weeks, and the conditions were really appalling). I also realized there was a difference between the two deportations: in 1941 Soviets mostly deported well-educated people active in political or cultural fields but in 1949 they took those who refused to join collective farms or had been assisting the forest brothers.”
Another student commented that now she realizes how history can be told in numerous ways: “In the history classes we can read about the Soviet regime and the term “deportation” is being explained, and our teacher will tell us more. But it makes a stark difference to hear this from a living source – a person who went through the ordeal of being deported – that turns facts into real stories, the number of deportees on paper turn into living humans with faces and lives. It is particularly important not to forget these people and their stories. And hearing their stories put our everyday lives in a perspective: it helps us understand how good our life is in free Estonia.”
NoVa is inviting all 14-19-year-olds interested in current affairs to participate in the discussion on how wars today are being fought not just physically but also online. The event will take place at Vabamu Museum on April 5th at 4PM.
As an introduction into the discussion we will hear about the latest research at Tallinn University on what techniques are used on social media to polarise audiences in military conflicts and how any one of us can avoid falling into a trap set up by an online-scammer.
If you are interested in participating in the discussion, please sign up here
For the discussion part we will form two groups:
The first group will be discussing: – information disorder. What are mis, dis and mal-info? – are filter bubbles real? What about echo-chambers? – propaganda techniques, also visual, e.g. war memes. – what is expected from images in times of conflict? We will look at some famous war images from history and from today. – what is compassion fatigue? How to support yourself emotionally and psychologically in difficult times
The second group will discuss: – information pollution of the social media landscape: – everyday examples of mis, dis and mal-information – scam victim attitudes online – scam containers on social media – production of gullibility and false trustworthiness – trust-building strategies used by scammers
The speakers and discussion moderators are:
Jaana Davidjants is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Baltic Film, Media and Arts School, Tallinn University. Her PhD thesis is on social media-based activism of conflict and war, focusing on the Middle East and Caucasus. Jaana has worked for 15 years in visual communication. She is especially interested in images and storytelling in the context of conflict and crisis.
Photo: TLU
Patience Gombe is a Research Assistant at the Baltic Film, Media and Arts School, at Tallinn University. She completed her Masters in Screen Media and Innovation and her thesis was on disinformation on social media. Her specific focus was on trust-building strategies that scammers use on social media. Patience has worked for 16 years in several industries around the world, including Television production, Television broadcast, social media and marketing. She is especially interested in how media is used to affect and shape society.
Vabamu’s Youth Movement NoVa wrapped up the year 2023 with a word inventing initiative Sõnaus that inspired 1122 persons and 32 school groups to submit more than 3000 new words to the Estonian language. All submitted words will be added to the glossary on the NoVa study platform.
Sõnaus is a word invention initiative that was first announced in 2010 by the then President of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves to look for better words to help the citizens better communicate with the state. The winning word from that year was “taristu” that has easily replaced “infrastructure”. In 2020 Vabamu picked up the initiative and Sõnaus set the all-time record with 4000 new words.
This time around, President Ilves was in charge of the committee of ten language experts who had the difficult task of choosing 50 best words from the 3350 words submitted, and then narrow the choice down to eight most spot-on and well-sounding words that replace direct translations or otherwise clumsy descriptions of environmental phenomena in our everyday lives.
For example, the word “kõdusti” was recommended to replace “komposter” (obviously also composter in English), “iilitiivik” instead of “tuulegeneraator” or wind turbine and “digikelts” (digital permafrost) for “digiprügi” or digital waste. The latter was also chosen a favourite of the followers of the Sõnaus Facebook and Instagram accounts, collecting 650 votes.
The most active school, Jüri Gymnasium just on the outskirts of Tallinn, submitted 240 words and they received a well-deserved prize: an invitation to visit Vabamu and the President’s Office in Kadriorg. Sõnaus was also supported by Green Capital Tallinn 2023 and Institute of the Estonian Language.
The authors of the winning words were awarded with prizes by Estonian President Alar Karis at the final ceremony at Vabamu on December 8th. This date also marks the 143th birthday of one of the most prolific Estonian language innovators, Johannes Aavik, a Saaremaa-born school teacher, translator and writer who had to flee Estonia in 1944 but even far from home he kept writing on the matters of language innovation until his death in 1973 in Stockholm.
President Alar Karis congratulates Anneli Aasmäe-Pender, the teacher of the most active school from Jüri, at Vabamu. Photo courtesy of the President’s Office.
