Music and song are an integral part of the identity of Estonia, which for centuries has been under Russian rule, first under the czars and then the Soviet Union.
Image: David Keyton/AP Photo/picture alliance
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Estonia, a country created through music
Choral and folk music play an outsized role in Estonian history. Here's a look at 10 fascinating facets of the small Baltic country's music and singing tradition, from its origins to the modern day.
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Tallinn, City of Music
Some 70% of all activities in Estonia's music sector take place in the capital Tallinn, including festivals and concerts that range from hand bell music and bagpipe melodies to modern jazz and heavy metal. Tallinn also boasts stunning music venues like the Song Festival Grounds, seen here during the 2019 Estonian Song Festival. In 2021, Tallinn was named a UNESCO City of Music.
Image: David Keyton/AP Photo/picture alliance
German influence on Estonian music
The Baltic-German nobility's "Liedertafel" (literally, "songs table") tradition profoundly shaped Estonian choral music and possibly inspired the song festival tradition. Founded in 1849, the 'Revaler Verein für Männergesang' was the country's first choral society (Reval is the historic German name for Tallinn). In 2019, almost one in 20 Estonians either sang in choirs or danced in folk groups.
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Short-lived window to the West
After the Charles Lloyd Quartet from the US and other acts performed in Tallinn at the Soviet Union's first international jazz festival in 1967, Soviet authorities banned the event. News agency Reuters reported that the quartet received a standing ovation and their "tenor saxophone and flute playing probably gave Soviet jazz fans their first direct experience of what's happening in American jazz."
Image: Atlantic
Revolutionary spirit, embodied in music
The peaceful Singing Revolution ended the 47-year occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by the Soviet Union and led to their independence. In Estonia, spontaneous mass singing demonstrations in Tallinn galvanized Estonians in June 1988. The 'Baltic song and dance celebrations' played a key role in the protests in each country and today are UNESCO intangible cultural heritage.
Image: Вольдемар/RIA Nowosti/dpa/picture alliance
Protest rock
Nine 'Rock Summer' festivals were staged at Tallin's Song Festival Grounds between 1988 and 1997 with top international acts like Big Country, Bonnie Tyler and ZZ Top. The events heavily influenced the local music scene and allowed for protest: Alo Mattiisen performed his brand-new 'Five Patriotic Songs' at the first Rock Summer in Tallinn, whose slogan was 'Glasnost Rock – Rock For Peace!'
Image: Igor Mikhalev/RIA Nowosti/dpa/picture alliance
Celebrated music export
Over 20 million – that's how many plays Arvo Pärt's "Spiegel im Spiegel" piano and violin composition from 1978 has amassed over the years on Spotify. For this and other pieces, he used his own 'tintinnabuli' minimalist style. Born in 1935, Pärt studied Gregorian chant and plainsong. The devout Christian is one of the world's most widely-performed living classical music composers.
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Festival country
Estonia is home to a number of international annual music and culture festivals. Tallinn Music Week, launched in 2009, might be the most well-known one. Others include Jazzkaar Festival, Viljandi Folk Music Festival (pictured), Tallinn Chamber Music Festival and the Estonian Music Days, which celebrated its 42nd anniversary in 2021, making it the oldest continuously-held festival in Estonia.
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Ewert and the Two Dragons
Ewert plus two dragons – that makes three, right? Yet the Estonian indie rock band consists of vocalist Ewert Sundja, guitarist Erki Pärnoja, drummer Kristjan Kallas and bassist Ivo Etti. The four members say one of the dragons has two heads. This quirk certainly didn't hold them back: The 2011 album 'Good Man Down' won the quartet three Estonian Music Awards, including for the best album.
Image: Laura Rohtlaan
The early artist catches the tune
If you want to understand the Estonians' relationship with music, you also have to look at the school curriculum. Estonia is one of the few countries in the world where musical education is a compulsory part of general education. "Having a common education in music leads to a common understanding in general," former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves told DW.
Image: Kaupo Kikkas
Estonia's dance-pop queen
Kerli Koiv, better known as Kerli, is an Estonian singer-songwriter born in 1987. She was nominated for the MTV Europe Music Award for Best Baltic Act in 2008 and won four Estonian Music Awards, including three times in the "Music Video of the Year" category between 2009 and 2013, the year she also performed on "Dancing with the Stars." In 2019, Kerli released her second album, "Shadow Works."
Image: Mike Nelson/dpa/picture alliance
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Estonia's unofficial national anthem, "Land of My Fathers, Land that I Love,"sung by hundreds of thousands of people during the 1988 'Singing Revolution' in defiance of Soviet rule, is a cultural asset every Estonian values to this day.
Estonians have long used choral singing to celebrate and preserve their language and traditions under centuries of Danish, Swedish, German and Soviet occupation. It remains is a unifying force nowadays – not the least in integrating the large Russian-speaking minority that remained in Estonia after the end of Soviet rule and now makes up around a quarter of all 1.3 million people in Estonia.
Recently, Estonia's long-standing tradition of music gained recognition by UNESCO when its capital, Tallinn, was one of a dozen new cities selected to join the ranks of Auckland, Hanover, Kansas City, Varanasi and 47 other cities that make up the UNESCO Cities of Music Network.
The Cities of Music Network is part of the larger UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN), which encompasses seven themes: crafts and folk arts, design, gastronomy, film, media arts, literature, and music.
From runic singing to jazz
Estonian folk music traditions can be traced back to the Middle Ages when Tallinn was a Hanseatic city through which musical influences from Germany and other parts of the world flowed.
As early as 1680, the first opera, the German-language "Die beständige Argenia" was composed and staged in Estonia. The commonplace runic singing at the time remained widespread among Estonians until the 18th century.
In the early 18th century, Russia, under Peter the Great, conquered the Baltic region, including Estonia. A period of many changes in the country's society followed, resulting, among others, in a growing national consciousness.
While an Estonian identity was taking shape,theater and choir groups sprung up everywhere and the first song festival took place in 1869. Many songs composed around that time, such as the aforementioned "Land of My Fathers, Land that I Love," are still regularly on the program of today's festivals.
The second half of the 19th century also witnessed intense Russification, including introducing Russian as the primary language for schools, cultural institutions and the media.
Estonia finally gained independence in 1918 and during its 21-year independence in the interwar period, jazz and other musical genres flourished in the country. Many new clubs and music venues opened and 1928 saw the premiere of the first Estonian-language opera.
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Angst in the 'Soviet West'
After World War II, the majority of Tallinn's cultural ties with the West were severed and many members of the cultural elite escaped Soviet rule. Starting in the late 1970s, the small Estonian society grew increasingly concerned about another period of Russification, which led to many traditional songs being banned.
"Losing our language and identity through occupation and assimilation is part of our existential angst," Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Estonia's President from 2006 to 2016, told DW. "This is why joint singing and choral music are of outstanding importance in Estonia."
Despite reprisals and a lack of artistic freedom, Tallinn was the only place behind the Iron Curtain where one could watch Finnish television and listen to radio from abroad. As a matter of fact, Tallinn was referred to as the 'Soviet West' ("sovestki zapad") in the 1970s and 1980s. People from all over the Soviet Union came to Tallinn to experience a western atmosphere and way of life as much as was possible in the communist country.
Former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves adresses the crowd during the 26th Estonian Song Festival at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds on July 5, 2014.Image: Valda Kalnina/dpa/picture alliance
Through allegorical expressions and hidden messages, such as turning the "Badger House" poem, an allegory about the occupation of Estonia, into a popular song in 1987, singing remained a potent symbol of nationhood for Estonians and preserved a level of togetherness throughout Soviet rule. Many singing events also took place in secret for fear of Soviet censors.
During this time, Tallinn also developed one of the most progressive rock scenes in the Soviet Union and Estonian rock became an important part of Estonia's cultural identity. Together with choral music, it played an important role as a genre in the famed Singing Revolution.
The 27th song festival, entitled 'My Fatherland is My Love', took place on the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds in 2019. Around 35,000 singers participated in the celebration.Image: Kaupo Kikkas
Traditional songs, reanimated
Spurred by Glasnost and Perestroika, the Singing Revolution from 1987 to 1991 culminated in Estonia regaining its independence after half a century of occupation.
"Music played the most important role in bringing people together," Lennart Sundja, head of culture at Tallinn's Culture and Sports department, told DW. Sundja was a teenager when he attended one of the spontaneous mass singing demonstrations on the Song Festival Grounds in Tallinn in June 1988. That summer alone, 300,000 defiant Estonians peacefully demonstrated unity and their will to independence from the Soviet Union.
"This feeling of being surrounded by over 100,000 people and hearing those forbidden songs again for the first time – it was fantastic," Sundja said. Among the banned music sung back to life was the 1923 song, "Estonian Flag." But people also chanted new songs inspired by the zeitgeist, such as the 'Five Patriotic Songs' written in 1988 by Estonian musician and composer Alo Mattiisen, including "I am Estonian and I will remain Estonian."
30 years ago: The Baltic human chain for freedom and independence
As the Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse in 1989, Baltic nations made history. Millions of Estonians, Lithuanians and Latvians protested by forming a human chain. Their demand was independence.
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A failed German-Soviet pact
In the Estonian capital, Tallinn, on August 23, 1989 — the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union that ultimately saw the Baltic states fall under the auspices of the USSR — almost 2 million people formed a human chain. It stretched across the Soviet Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Nations annexed by the USSR were now demanding freedom.
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A calculated risk
The human chain in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius ran 600 kilometers (373 miles) long. People could sense change on the doorstep — but nobody knew how Soviet leaders would react. What is clear is that the Baltic nations found strength in unity
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/TASS/K. Jankauskas
The power of the people
The response was overwhelming: People from all walks of life — men, women, children, young and old — took to the streets. Even local communist politicians took part: Neighbors brought food and local law enforcement halted traffic. At 7:00 p.m. sharp, some 2 million people held hands for 15 minutes, forming the longest human chain in history. The images were a global sensation.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/R. Tonsing
A flashpoint in history
Fifteen minutes of "freedom" has been remembered by history as the Baltic Way. During the human chain, flags forbidden by the Soviets were waved defiantly, and folk songs were sung well into the night. Suddenly the hope of independence became a reality for three Soviet republics.
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Moscow on the defensive
In 1989, the Baltic states combined had a population of around 8 million people, 2 million of whom took to the streets to protest. Moscow did not employ force, but did try to downplay the human chain. In the long run, the Soviet Union was unable to quash the Baltic states' yearning for freedom. Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania regained independence in 1991.
Image: picture-alliance/ dpa
One twirl for a miracle
A tile in the pavement of the Cathedral Square in Vilnius, Lithuania is embossed with the word "Stebuklas," which means "miracle." The human chain between Vilnius and Tallinn also ended here. The site is imbued with mysticism: Anyone with a wish can stand on the stone while twirling around in the hope that it will come true
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/H. Heuse
Setting the stage for resistance
Human chains were a well-known form of protest even before the so-called Baltic Way. In 1983 in Germany, an estimated 400,000 protesters involved in the peace movement took to the streets to oppose US missiles being stationed in the country. People in southwestern Germany locked arms, forming a 10-kilometer (6-mile) human chain.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/T. Meyer
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Estonia's unifying force
Today, Maarja Nuut is perhaps the best example of an artist embodying the diversity and scope of Estonian music. The 35-year-old singer, violinist, electronic artist and composer is a trained classical musician with a background in folk music.
She's also been one of Estonia's most successful musical exports over the past decade. "The strength of Estonian music culture is its diversity and its many subcultures and communities that all do their stuff with great passion," Nuut told DW. "As a young country, we're still kind of searching for our identity, which can lead to unexpected and mind-expanding results."
But the ongoing pandemic has taken its toll. "The music community still feels tired and lost because of the pandemic," Nuut told DW. "We haven’t had enough support from the government. Many artists, especially small venues, are still struggling."
She hopes the €300,000 ($338,770) the city of Tallinn said it will spend annually on various City of Music initiatives — including improving accessibility to music and conditions for classical music as well as artist exchanges between Cities of Music — will provide a much-needed boost for Estonian artists after two years of the pandemic.
