Original subtitles

What role can singing play when a nation is faced with annihilation by its

neighbors?

Can culture hold a people together?

For centuries, the small country of Estonia has faced these questions.

With the Baltic Sea to the west and Russia to the east, Estonia is a gateway

between Europe and Russia and has always been a desired place.

People here have faced wave after wave of occupiers.

Danes, Swedes, Germans, Poles, Russian Tsars, the Soviet Union, all have seen

the value of this land.

But Estonia's darkest and bloodiest chapter began in 1939 when the Soviets

crossed the border.

Within months, thousands were executed.

Others disappeared.

In one night, 10,000 men, women, and children were taken from their homes,

loaded into cattle cars, and shipped to slave labor camps in Siberia.

More than half never returned.

Then the Nazis came.

They withdrew and the Soviets returned with a vengeance, this time staying for

50 years and nearly eradicating the Estonian nation.

After five thousand years on this land, Estonians almost ceased to exist.

For centuries, people here from all over the country have come together, joined

voices and sung.

In Estonia, fairy tale heroes are not brave noblemen who slay dragons and save

damsels.

Their hero is the shrewd old barn keeper who sits by the fire, waits,

Watches and acts only when the time is right.

Patience is a weapon.

Caution a virtue.

This is the story of how culture saved a nation.

When I was seven

I took part first time in the Song Festival, singing in the boy choir.

And I just remember the first feeling when I'm just one singer with all

others, 20,000 singers.

You are part of the one nation or part of this country and

it's just a great feeling.

It was a lullaby, I still remember that. The

most

important thing to understand Estonian history

is our singing tradition.

Singing is a part of growing up here, and so too is a sense of the country's

history.

After centuries of occupation, Estonia gained its independence in 1920.

For two decades, this new country flourished. It was a nation of high

literacy rates, a strong economy, and an optimism for the future.

But by 1939, the major European powers were becoming restless, and there was

little room on the international stage for this small country of one million

people.

All the singing in the world couldn't prevent the events to come.

Up until 1939, Estonia was an independent country. And then in 1939,

Hitler and Stalin signed a pact which divided a lot of Europe between them and

actually was the basis for starting World War II.

Hitler and Stalin's plan would devastate Europe.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a military agreement between the Nazis and

Soviets. containing a secret clause that divided the continent between Germany

and the Soviet Union.

Estonia was to be taken by the Soviets.

Within days of the signing, Hitler invaded Poland.

Then over 25,000 Soviet soldiers poured into Estonia.

And within a year, there were more than 80,000. One Soviet soldier for every 12

Estonians.

In 1940 there came the total occupation of Estonia and we had no

possibilities to organize our defense because we were alone.

The first months of 1940 meant taking people out of their

houses and then...

arresting several thousands, executing them.

The idea of this was to destroy all resistance of the society.

Teachers, scientists, writers, politicians, everybody who has been a

member of Estonian government or the prime minister was killed.

Estonians lived in fear of arrest, execution, or a sentence to Soviet

concentration camps, the gulag.

No one was safe.

The greatest fear was a knock on the door in the middle of the night.

Local Soviet officials would grab any convenient person to fulfill prisoner

quotas.

One third of those deported to Siberia were children.

Because the values were given, not given away.

Because it was so ridiculous, you know.

Because when you have to go to school, and the piano exam is today, and you're

supposed to be somewhere in Kiski or somewhere in Puuri, then you have to say

that it's very ridiculous.

But of course there was a person who was incredibly harsh, and it was a woman,

who had no idea where the very little four children were.

My grandfather was sent to Siberia. Why?

That maybe he had a bit more land than others.

There were...

various methods of torture, physical torture, psychological torture, too.

The hunger, the cold, these were

unsuitable for surviving.

This was a very hard time for our parents.

Nation. Yeah, all the nation, because...

We don't understand why they were taken and sent to

Siberia. For what?

Nobody listened to us. And I suppose that is this feeling being left behind

the curtain where nobody can hear what is going on here.

And what was going on really was the most direct, severe genocide, really.

I have to tell you that I was born free.

And because of that, I know exactly how this freedom came about.

What kind of people you were, what kind of a bird you were. How this vanilla and

waffle ice cream became healthy.

We started to learn about tricking when I came back from Siberia.

The first year of the Soviet occupation became known as the Year of Suffering.

But the Estonian nation still survived.

In 1941, Hitler betrayed Stalin

and broke their agreement.

The German army invaded Russia and also stormed across the border.

into Estonia.

It was now the Nazis' turn to devastate the country.

Nazi ideology replaced Soviet propaganda.

Young Estonians were either forced into the German army or shot.

But within three years, the war turned against Hitler.

Germany retreated and Soviet troops once again invaded Estonia.

So what are you supposed to do within a four-year time span when you have both

your enemies there opposing each other and opposing you? Aha! Who were those

Estonians who cooperated with the Russians?

We had to get rid of you.

And then three years of German occupation and the Russians come back.

Ha! Who were those who cooperated with the Germans?

With grisly memories of a year of suffering, 70,000 Estonians fearing

death fled the country.

But it wasn't an easy escape.

Some drowned in small fishing boats.

Some were killed by Soviet planes.

Others were captured.

But thousands eventually made it to the West, where they would preserve the

Estonian language and culture, hoping that someday they could return home.

All our family was torn apart.

Part of the family was...

Deported to Siberia, part of the family escaped to the West. Some stayed here

and some were killed.

But the rest of the world knew little of Estonia's suffering.

In 1945, Stalin convinced the Americans and the English that he would soon set

up free elections in Estonia.

Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to this deception, and Stalin walked away with

Estonia in his firm grip.

World War two officially ended soon after But for Estonians this was just

the beginning of a new long chapter of Soviet occupation

The country was devastated

having lost over one-quarter of its population

There was

Tens of thousands of people who nevertheless decided to fight because

they were sure that you couldn't give this country away without fighting. Only

nation who fights for its freedom can have it, even if this fight is lost.

30,000 young men and women took to the woods.

to fight for a free Estonia, ambushing Soviet soldiers and sabotaging military

convoys. They called themselves the Forest Brothers.

I went to the forest and started living there. I made a bunker for myself.

Then we met another forest friend.

We lived with them.

Alfred Kármán lived in the forest for eight years.

One month and seven days.

And so life went on.

We didn't have that hope.

We didn't have any kind of hope to live on as long as

possible.

Our last men who stayed in the forest... Our

understanding was as follows.

As long as Relv stayed...

Like many Forest Brothers, Kármán placed his hopes in the promise that the West

would eventually pressure the Soviets to leave Estonia.

This never happened.

In 1952, he was captured, interrogated, tortured...

and then sentenced to 25 years of hard labor.

With the occupation fully entrenched, The Soviets next began an intense period

of Russification.

Tens of thousands of Russian workers were relocated to Estonia, sometimes

forming entirely new cities.

Russification was one of the main tools for keeping the Soviet

Union together.

Farms were taken from their owners and collectivized. Those who resisted were

arrested and sentenced to Siberia.

Anything that could bring back memories of pre-Soviet life was destroyed.

Estonia no longer existed.

It was now a Soviet Socialist Republic.

But there was one thing holding Estonians together, giving them hope.

Singing.

For thousands of years music has been a vital part of life here.

In fact, this tiny country has one of the largest collections of folk songs in

the world.

And since the 19th century, Estonians have traveled from all over the country

to join voices in massive song festivals.

These festivals were as much about national identity as music.

Every corner of the country where they had a small singing group had the right

to participate.

They practiced the songs all winter and then they came together, all in national

folk costumes.

Twenty, twenty-five thousand singers on the stage at the same time.

But with the Soviets in power, things changed.

In 1947, after years of war,

the Song Festival continued.

But now, the Soviet propaganda machine realized that this huge gathering

provided the perfect opportunity to show how delighted Estonians were to be

living under communism.

But the festival also presented an opportunity to Estonians.

Conductor Gustav Ernest Sachs composed a new piece of music to premiere at the

festival. The lyrics were taken from a well-known national poem written a

hundred years earlier by Lydia Koidula.

Its title was Mu isama on minu aram, or Land of My Father's

Land That I Love.

Surprisingly, the song slipped by the Soviet censors.

and suddenly 25 000 voices were singing a love song to their former country

the song was sung in estonian not russian and in a matter of moments it

became the unofficial national anthem

and

it's a beautiful song the words are so nice and definitely it was a sign of

where all this pain and love and belief in the future of this nation.

And I guess this very moment was important for all Estonians.

And it is still the case today.

Everyone has the opportunity to live through the fact that we are Estonians.

We have our own culture.

We are one nation.

We are so few that we have to accept it. We are who we are.

Throughout the 1950s and 60s, life under the Soviets consisted of communist youth

groups, mayday parades, and thousands more deportations to Siberia.

People couldn't express anything that might be construed as political opinion,

fearing the omnipresent shadow of KGB surveillance.

It was all behind the scenes, constant, psychological.

pressure. It was an amazing monster.

And you never know how big it was, where it was, who in your family or your

friends, who were the agents.

So there was never an official face of the organization.

It was always behind the scenes in the minds of the people.

And they were very effective in making you scared.

Even the simplest traditions, like celebrating Christmas at home, were

forbidden.

the Christmas tree home every Christmas, but the curtains was closed because if

someone saw that you have Christmas tree in your house, it was very bad.

I am not absolutely aware that most of Estonians thought that we can be free.

We just try to find that way how to make this life better, more honest, more

open, more happy.

So much depended on the family situation, because parents couldn't

speak easily.

At school, they taught a lot of crap, but I did get some hints from my

parents. My father mostly told how things really were.

I still have inside me the things that we talked between ourselves.

had to be kept in our house and never to be spoken, even to our closest friends

at school. I couldn't talk about these things outside.

Because Soviets were afraid, of course, of the big enemy there outside,

wanted to come in and wanted to destroy all this beautiful socialist happiness

that we are living.

That was the main issue.

Throughout the years of occupation, the song festivals continued, with two days

of Estonians begrudgingly singing songs about communism and Lenin and Marx.

But at the end of the festival, they sang the traditional Estonian songs as

well.

Everybody actually came to this lullaby to sing these four additional songs.

But this was emotionally so strong feeling that...

It was worth to sing these scrap songs and then the real emotional songs in the

end.

1969 was the 100th anniversary of the song festivals and Estonians were

anticipating a large celebration.

But the Soviet authorities were looking to squelch the Estonian spirit.

So they discouraged the wearing of traditional Estonian folk costumes and

forbade the singing of Muissima on Minu Arum.

the unofficial national anthem that premiered at the 1947 Song Festival.

I remember this time all singers want to sing

and we started to sing without leader and

then not once time Two times, three times, all need more, more, more.

It was a very, very good feeling.

It's an interesting thing. If 20,000 people start to sing one song, even

without the conductor, then you just cannot shut them up. It's impossible.

The Soviets were forced to let the song's composer, Gustav Ernesax, take

the stage and conduct the song.

And in the end, it all came down to the fact that the duration of the song,

which had been prepared for five years,

its main purpose was to come together

and sing together with the people the one forbidden and most

important song.

And all the people could go home with the knowledge of their everyday work,

that the spirit of Estonia lives on.

In the 1970s, the song festivals did keep the Estonian spirit alive.

But the oppressive reality of daily life still consisted of long food lines,

incessant propaganda, and little hope for anything resembling freedom.

Hey.

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power.

Educated by the Stalinist school system, he was a firm believer in communism.

Soviet television took pains to show Gorbachev, a man from a new generation,

with Prime Minister Tikhonov and Foreign Minister Gromyko, men from the Stalin

days, men born before the Bolshevik revolution.

That was probably done to show the Soviet people and the world that there

is continuity inside the Kremlin.

While he intended to maintain the communist grip on the Soviet Union,

Gorbachev could no longer deny the crumbling economic devastation.

of the past 70 years.

So he planned to modernize the Soviet system, introducing the concepts of

glasnost and perestroika. And perestroika means relative freedom

within the Soviet system.

And glasnost means, this is a Russian word for free speech.

And let's say Gorbachev and his cohorts had been traveling in the

West. They must have seen something with their own eyes.

Why don't we have this prosperity back home?

We have tried and tried and tried, and we are poor. We don't have anything.

People are unhappy, and so on.

And Gorbachev was relatively intelligent, and he decided to launch a

major campaign of renewing the Soviet system, but within the system felt that

the communists should remain.

But he made one very, very basic fundamental mistake. He didn't realize

that... Whenever you give free speech to people, then things get out of hand. The

ghost gets out of the bottle.

But the Estonians here, that had their own ghosts, they thought, ah, our big

chance.

If we are going to change something, okay, let's do it.

Let's do it the real way. Let's do it our way.

And, of course, that wasn't exactly what Gorbachev had in mind.

In 1987, Estonians took their first step in testing this new openness.

The Soviets had unveiled a plan to begin strip mining in Estonia. Some decided to

push the limits of glasnost and organized protests against the mines.

At first I think that this environmental issue was more safe because even in

Soviet Union you could speak about the environment, about nature.

They calculated that by taking non-violent action and speaking only

about the environment, Gorbachev wouldn't use force to stop the protests.

In light of Glasnost and Perestroika, this would have been an international

embarrassment for him.

The strategy worked and the mines were halted.

Soon after, a small group of activists decided to try something riskier.

to openly speak about politics and history and the Soviet occupation.

along with Tiet Madison and Heike Ahonen, decided to openly contest the

legality of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

All three had previously spent hard prison time for anti-Soviet activities.

They planned the demonstration but couldn't publicize it, so they depended

on word of mouth and the illegal Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.

On the morning of August 23rd, With KGB agents watching every move and taking

photographs, the group arrived, thinking that only a handful of people would be

brave enough to show up.

Surprisingly, several thousand people appeared.

It could have led to 10 years of labor camps and things like that.

The police shut off the public address system, so demonstrators used rolled-up

paper megaphones to be heard over the crowd.

talked more, and they understood that they're not arrested again, and then

they talked even more.

The

demonstration

at Hirve Park was the first time in 50 years that anybody had spoken publicly

against the Soviet occupation.

and gotten away with it.

And

more

Estonians began to stand in defiance. At the end of 1987, the

Heritage Society was formed.

Using discussions about Estonian culture as a cover, its members planned to push

free speech to the next level, exposing the truth about Estonia's brutal Soviet

history. If Gorbachev says that there is free speech, if there is glasnost, if

there is freedom, then let's talk about history as it was. Let's tell the truth.

So the basic message was, let's tell the truth.

Within four months, the Heritage Society had grown to 10,000 people.

In April of 1988, they decided to organize a demonstration celebrating

Estonian history and culture.

It was held in the university town of Tartu.

The demonstration was monitored by Soviet police.

The feeling was that KGB would like to provoke something, to show that here is

something... going on, which could be called violence, which will need then

some armed intervention or something like that.

Since the beginning of the Soviet occupation, it had been illegal to fly

the Estonian blue, black and white flag.

But several of the organizers had an idea.

They decided to have all three national colors, black, blue and white, as

separate flags, side by side.

so that in practice you had the full national flag.

There are some memories in the life which will never go away because they

changed you.

I remember this feeling that, oh, there's so much people.

And then you see the old ladies crying.

They just stood, looked at us, and they cried.

It was...

It was something which you always remember.

The demonstration at Tartu was a success, but the main people to speak

out were a relatively small group of activists and students.

Over the next few months, word spread and more and more Estonians began

gaining courage.

Two months later, a summer celebration concert in the capital city of Tallinn

erupted into a spontaneous declaration of hope.

There was so, so many people.

This square was full of people.

and all the people were very, very happy.

So we went

there with the friends and it was great to see that.

All the strangers, they were just singing like one man.

And we were handing hand in hand and it was great.

I still have chicken skin.

I remember that.

And then we saw something absolutely...

fabulous absolutely incredible yes we saw our national flag and

suddenly there was a guy with a motorcycle who had our estonian flag

and it was really great feeling to see but

then when this first step was done then suddenly in a moment the flags started

to blossom everywhere it was like some

Like spring is coming and then things started to blossom.

A few Estonian flags had come out in previous demonstrations, but never had

they been so brazenly flown before so many people in one place.

Word spread, and for almost a week, thousands more people arrived each

night. And now, average citizens brought flags they had been hiding in their

homes. for nearly 50 years.

It may sound today a bit silly. It may sound even naive. Those days, it was so

natural to express our feelings by singing and declaring that we have

rights for our own country.

And that's what I got so much inspiration from, that in the morning

when I got home and when I got to the first coffee, I immediately sat down at

the table and wrote this song called Revoluziooni and gave it to the

audience. When here in the country the revolution is made by destroying,

burning, killing, burning, then we started to make our revolution by

crying and singing.

In the heart, there was a little bit afraid feeling that this was not free

country here.

This was Soviet Union.

After those nights, there was no turning back.

The revolution had a name and widespread support from common Estonians.

No matter what happened next, it was clear that singing would be the fuel for

change.

But a broad range of movements began to emerge, all with conflicting strategies

about how best to achieve freedom.

Some were cautious, others quite bold.

The Heritage Society, led by Trevimi Velista and Mart Llar, used the cover of

Glasnost and Paris Troika to generate open discussions about Estonian culture

and history.

They knew that talking about Estonia's past would undermine Soviet authority.

And it matched perfectly with Gorbachev's idea of Glasnost free

speech, so that you could freely speak about what had happened, you could

freely speak about history, and everybody understood immediately that

there must be something more in it than just speaking about the past.

And it gave people a lot of hope.

The Estonian National Independence Party.

led by Lagla Parek, was quite bold.

Its leaders publicly declared that under international law, the Republic of

Estonia was still an independent nation.

They wanted the Soviets out of Estonia.

Few Estonians openly supported the Independence Party, still living in fear

of Soviet reprisals.

The Popular Front appealed to the masses by offering a safer strategy, working

with the Communist Party to push for greater freedoms from within.

But they had no intention of declaring independence.

The Popular Front offered people some level of hope, but without forcing them

to challenge Soviet authority.

Edgar Savisa announced its formation on a TV show.

in April of 1988.

There were tensions amongst the leaders of these different movements, but in the

end most Estonians chose to stand up for freedom, showing up at any demonstration

regardless of who organized it.

Gorbachev was surprised by the groundswell for independence, so he

attempted to quiet the unrest by replacing the old hardline Estonian

Communist Party leader with a moderate named Vaino Valyas.

Valyas acted as a buffer between the Estonians and Moscow.

And when confronted by independence-minded protesters, he had a

tendency to look the other way.

Meanwhile, the Russians who had been relocated to live in Estonia began to

get nervous.

Since 1940, the Russian population in Estonia had grown from 8% to over 40% of

the nation, mainly due to the Soviet policy of Russification.

With help from Moscow, some people started their own anti-independence

movement called Interfront.

In the wake of glasnost, Estonians were finally able to speak out. But the

Heritage Society, the Independence Party, and the Popular Front all had

very different strategies for gaining freedom.

And now, Interfront was working against any change whatsoever.

It began to appear that Estonians lacked a unified voice and that the energy of

the first protests would be lost, that the movement would fizzle out into a

series of disagreements, even over how best to define independence.

The Popular Front organized a mass rally at the Song Festival grounds.

No one anticipated the turnout.

More than 300,000 people showed up.

Nearly one in every three Estonians was here.

We wanted to make a big folk song, at the same time a song of joy, at the same

time a political celebration and we thought that the best place to invite

the people is the song of Tallinn.

Besides everything, it's a symbolic place.

The Popular Front wouldn't let independence party leaders take the

stage, feeling that their views were too radical, that they might push the KGB

too far.

But they did invite heritage society leaders, assuming that their speeches

would carry a softer message about Estonian culture.

I wrote my speech just a few hours before I spoke.

And it was a very spontaneous speech, and I didn't read much of it.

I read some passages, but I mostly spoke by heart. And then I also spoke the

Stoner language should be the language of this country. And I also spoke about

Russia's role in history, and I compared Russia to the bear of Europe, who just

turns his eyes to the West, looking for honey in Western Europe.

Savisar was very cross and very disappointed because of the way I spoke,

because I was too radical, I went too far, and this is why everybody remembers

that speech.

I was sitting there and looking at the people, and it was like an ocean. And

then with every speech, that ocean started to wave more and more because

the emotions were coming higher and higher, and I felt that that is a

moment.

a great risk.

And if there will be any match, then the fire could go and there could be

something which you cannot keep under any safety.

And then I constructed the same sentence.

Once we will win like this.

Once we will win like this.

Then I went all over Estonia and kept singing.

I left it unsaid, and the people began to cry out, Hey, say that line!

It was not only the will of the people, but it also showed very

clearly the black central power that it is very, very risky to start dealing

with direct access methods.

Very important is that Estonian nation is very small and

we have no more weapons than singing.

This being together, singing together, this was our power.

A sense of hope and unity was everywhere.

With Vaino Valyas now heading up the Communist Party in Estonia, lawmakers

felt that they could risk making changes.

First, they brazenly passed legislation declaring that Estonian laws would take

precedence over those of the USSR.

A delegation of Estonian Communist leaders were immediately called to

Moscow to face an angry Gorbachev.

Working within the existing communist structure, the Estonian Supreme Council

kept pushing forward, almost taunting Gorbachev.

It made Estonian the official language of the nation rather than Russian and

replaced the Soviet hammer and sickle flag with the Estonian blue, black and

white.

The news agency TASS said Soviet leaders have ordered the Baltic states of

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to drop a series of what are called radical new

laws about economic and political freedom.

The Kremlin says those laws violate the Soviet constitution.

Estonian Communist Party leaders found themselves having to strike a delicate

balance with Gorbachev. On one hand, cautiously working to increase Estonia's

relative freedoms within the Soviet Union. On the other, avoiding any direct

confrontation that could lead to a military crackdown.

But show the example of the depth of responsibility and respect for the law.

And everything else I am ready to listen to, as well as comrades, and discuss.

But at the same time, I am convinced that within the framework of socialism,

we must look for answers.

And socialism allows us.

Moscow kept on denying that the Soviet occupation of Estonia was illegal.

So on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,

more than a million Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians created a 600-kilometer

human chain.

It was something unimaginable.

It was never seen before.

It was... We felt that this was something big.

it was an extraordinary show of mass defiance in the baltic region of the

soviet union a human chain of protests that reached across the three baltic

republics from estonia in the north to lithuania in the south

it was very important

feeling inside and i remember that it was it made me shaky actually it was

such a great feeling to be there that me ellen because i was important i was part

of the chain

In the Soviet Union today, the Communist Party issued a stern warning to

nationalist groups in the Baltic states, accusing them of whipping up hysteria in

the region.

Four months later, Gorbachev was finally forced to admit that there were secret

clauses within the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that led to the original Soviet

invasion of Estonia.

But this acknowledgement didn't change the fact that 50 years later...

Estonia still remained occupied.

So a group of Estonian activists developed a new tactic.

The idea was that Estonia had been illegally occupied in 1940 and

Soviet passports had been imposed upon Estonians.

This didn't mean that Estonians had been legally converted into Soviet citizens.

It was simply political violence.

Therefore, Estonian citizenship still exists.

So, since Estonian citizenship still exists, why don't we register all of the

people who are Estonian citizens?

A campaign was begun to register people as citizens of the Republic of Estonia,

rather than the USSR.

In essence, denying the legitimacy of the Soviet occupation.

It started quite slowly because in the beginning we gave everybody a small

ticket, that registration number and so on, that I am registered citizen of the

Soviet Republic.

They were called the tickets to the Siberia. And it was possible that they

can be the tickets for Siberia, especially for those first 5,000 who

were registered.

It was easy to start.

The rest was...

A huge unknown.

But within months, 860,000 people, nearly every adult, had registered as

Estonian citizens.

This was an overwhelming referendum publicly expressing the desire for a

truly independent nation.

In February of 1990, the newly registered citizens voted for an

alternative governing body called the Congress of Estonia.

In March, the Congress of Estonia met for the first time.

Moscow wasn't happy. But Gorbachev's new policies made it nearly impossible to

prevent the Congress from meeting.

For 50 years, most Western nations had not recognized the legality of the

Soviet occupation under international law.

Therefore, many representatives felt that the Congress of Estonia was in fact

the legitimate governing body of the country.

But in reality, the Congress of Estonia had no army, no police, no money, and no

organized government.

There was a tempting idea that The Congress of Estonia

rightfully could proclaim it supreme authority in the country. In other

words, take the power.

Then it could have provided a pretext for Gorbachev

and Moscow to intervene and crush the movement.

So after much debate, the Congress of Estonia decided it would not declare any

official authority.

At least, not yet.

But now the hundreds of thousands of Russians living in Estonia saw the

writing on the wall.

They stood to lose the privileges that they had enjoyed for decades if Estonia

moved towards independence.

Interfront played into these fears and began organizing increasingly hostile

protests.

I remember they had really big gatherings at public places, which were

really scary to see that there are so many.

people in numbers who are against the independence.

There was a feeling that they are a really strong threat.

To support the unity of the Soviet people in Estonia.

To protect from whom? From whom?

The Estonian government spoke correctly with the Russians and correctly solved

all the questions.

Estonians are very cunning people.

They speak very well with you, and keep a knife in their chest. That's what

Estonians are like.

In May of 1990, the Estonian Supreme Council made it illegal to fly the

Soviet hammer and sickle flag.

An angry Gorbachev publicly reprimanded Estonia for violating Soviet laws.

The very next day, Interfront protesters marched on Tompea, the capital of

Estonia. They shouted a list of demands, including the restoration of the Soviet

flag and the resignation of the Supreme Council.

But this demonstration was different.

The hostility was escalating. And for all intents and purposes, it was

starting to look like an attempted coup.

And then there could have been a conflict.

It could have been elementary.

Because, first of all, no one came out to the people.

No one wanted to listen to their demands. But then there were hotheads

who began to crack these gates and so on.

They were shouting, they were climbing into windows, they were dragging down

the Estonian flag and so on.

Eventually, the crowd broke through the gates and found themselves in the

courtyard, ready to storm the building and take officials hostage.

Word of the attack spread quickly, and Prime Minister Edgar Savisa got on the

radio to inform the public.

Within minutes, thousands of Estonians flocked to defend Tompea.

Interfront was now trapped within the courtyard with no way out except through

the Estonian crowd outside.

But it was really a tense situation because everybody thought that now the

first violence starts.

If it goes violent, there might be a big problem.

It seemed that violence was inevitable.

But the Estonians remained level-headed.

Eventually the crowd parted, allowing a column of Interfront members to run the

gauntlet and retreat.

In this situation, the Estonian crowd kept very calm, very cool.

For me, the real value, the real symbol of this Estonian type of making

politics, making it calmly and without blood, but making it so that you will

have your objectives, your aims to be fulfilled.

It was a major, major, really, victory we had that we didn't have any drop of

blood.

Any drop.

Thank you, thank you!

Things weren't going as peacefully in the other Baltic countries.

Lithuanians were engaged in their own battle for independence.

In January of 91, Soviet soldiers killed 14 people who were part of a

demonstration at the TV tower.

Hundreds more were wounded.

The Soviet leadership thought that a dozen of our victims will just be a good

lesson. What they forgot was the role of the free media.

The people who were slaughtered were recreated as symbols.

Less than a week later, six more people were killed in Riga, Latvia.

Many thought Estonia was next.

In preparation for an expected Soviet attack, Estonians put up barricades

around the capital.

It was something we expected from the Soviets.

It was a normal way of behavior to protect their power, to protect their

occupation, to protect their ideologies. And we were prepared that they will

repeat it in all Baltic countries.

The Soviet system was collapsing.

And Gorbachev's policies were not working.

Communist hardliners in Moscow felt that he had not gone far enough in

suppressing the Baltic independence movements.

And people in the Baltics were as anti-communist as ever.

In fact, they were emboldened.

Gorbachev was desperately short of time. He was always late.

Always the ideas came a little too late.

In a final attempt to hold the Soviet Union together, Gorbachev agreed to a

massive restructuring in which the USSR would become a group of semi-independent

republics sharing a common presidency and military.

Communist hardliners were appalled.

One day before the agreement was to be signed, they arrested Gorbachev, staged

a coup, and seized the government in Moscow.

In the morning of 19th of August, when I listened to the radio news, it was like

a nightmare dream.

So the old, old things have returned.

Soviet military reinforcements immediately rushed across the Estonian

border to put down any independence-minded resistance.

When the tanks were in the streets, we didn't sleep at all in the night.

Then we were afraid.

Absolutely. This was very, very bad. Very bad days.

This was not first time in Estonian history.

Our grandfathers was in Siberia and was killed and we afraid about our

children's future.

This was hard time.

One thing I told everybody, move your family out.

If you are the leader of any...

At Tallinn's airport, crack paratroopers landed and then moved into positions on

the outskirts of town.

Witnesses say fear is everywhere as Estonians wait for the military to

strike.

This is awful.

I worry about my children, this woman says.

What is to become of us?

Two young Estonian policemen were called upon to defend the country's primary

broadcast tower in order to keep the Soviet military from taking over the

television and radio broadcasts. If they failed in their mission, Estonia's only

source of information would be silenced and replaced with hardline communist

propaganda.

Many of these tanks tonight are reportedly moving toward the television

station.

Estonians, expecting some kind of assault, have ringed the TV station with

trucks in a last ditched attempt to protect this precious source of

information.

The young policeman spent the night stationed at the tower, waiting.

Meanwhile, members of the Estonian Supreme Council realized that this might

be their last chance to act.

They called for a special session at the capital.

Be there tanks shootings or be there the happy end It was clear that we have

to act anyway because we have to restore Legitimate state of Estonia is something

which which is the will of people and there have to be resolutions I have to

be legal solution for that The coup presented a window of opportunity to

reaffirm Estonia's independence to the world a few members of the Supreme

Council invited leaders of the Congress of Estonia to the capital.

This was a controversial move, but it was also a critical step to ensure that

any resolution reflected the wishes of all Estonians.

For hours, the Supreme Council and the Congress of Estonia debated details of

the resolution.

With Soviet troops closing in, they held a vote.

The resolution passed unanimously.

After years of disagreement about how best to achieve freedom the competing

Estonian movements came together in order to give the world one common voice

of Estonia's desire.

to reclaim its independence.

And suddenly we saw over the TV these events in our Parliament House.

It was 11 o'clock and three minutes at night.

I remember exactly this time because the camera was showing this clock.

I remember to the end of my life these feelings.

This feeling was fantastic.

The

vote

for independence was a

symbolic triumph, but it didn't stop the coup in Moscow.

The conflict was far from over. At dawn, Soviet tanks arrived at the TV tower.

Many Estonians headed to the streets to form

human shields outside the TV and radio stations.

So I called to my mother and I said, come now to babysit my children. I have

to go there and protect the radio and TV station.

The natural thought was that I have to be there.

It's your place where you are living.

The people hated Soviet regime.

If this regime was attacking you, they just went to resist it.

You are doing what you have to do.

You haven't had any guns, any arms to fight

with the tanks. And it's stupid actually to fight with your fits.

But somehow it felt so that you have to stay here.

Everybody knew this was hopeless, but they were ready to give their

assistance.

And those were brave people.

By mid-morning, Soviet troops had stormed the tower and were preparing to

break down the door on the 22nd floor.

But the two police officers devised a plan.

Their plan would have killed anyone in the immediate area, including the two

policemen, but it would also have then left the tower undefended.

Their trump card...

was really a bluff.

However, given the uncertainty of events in Moscow, a confused Soviet army waited

a crucial 12 hours debating what to do next.

Boris Yeltsin, the freely elected president of the Russian Republic,

denounced the coup leaders.

We must demand their immediate resignation and bring them to justice.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the head of the Soviet Union, remained powerless under

house arrest.

Boris Yeltsin stepped in to face down the coup leaders.

Yeltsin was head of Russia, the largest of the 15 Soviet countries.

and his power base was strong.

He publicly declared that Russia was seceding from the Soviet Union, just as

Estonia had done the night before.

The coup collapsed, and the Soviet troops in Estonia were ordered to leave

the TV tower.

Within days,

the Soviet Union completely dissolved.

One by one, each of its 15 countries announced their independence.

Around the world, countries formally acknowledged Estonia as an independent

nation.

I believed all the time.

I believed all the time that Estonia will get free.

I always felt inside that Estonia is free and has been free it's just a

temporary occupation here somewhere deep inside you felt that it is not true that

there is something else and it was it was it was our destiny it was always

there

For me, it feels like it's normal now.

We just do our song festival and we sing our songs what we like,

and it's one part of our culture.

And we are free, we can do what we want.

Because this singing tradition goes from heart to heart.

from family to family from mother to daughter and this is like you can't

describe this is uh they they want to sing and say sing and we are

very happy for it

If it rains, so what?

It is free in our heart, in our mind. All these possibilities are now

real, but was not real when we were young, young people. Everything has

changed now. Absolutely.

It's a very unbelievable example how a totalitarian rule

could be changed, not by violence, but through...

creating a democratic alternative.

I think that to have freedom through singing was the

most important thing maybe in my life.

It's very important that the Estonians were able to save the language.

They were able to save the culture.

They were able to save the national thought about themselves.

They were able to save something which can be called Estonianess.