‘Singing oneself into a nation’? Estonian song festivals as rituals of political mobilisation

Abstract

This article argues that Estonian song festivals were a powerful ritual of political mobilisation. Throughout their history, however, they had to be accommodated to narratives of ruling regimes. Taking Patrick Hutton's concept of such events as a ‘moment of memory’ with which images of the past are being reconstructed in a selective way, song festivals are on each occasion made to suit present needs. During the history of Estonian nationhood, these needs have been guided first and foremost by forms of political authority: during years of independence, the festivals were to serve different purposes than under imperial or Soviet Russian rule. Thus, the concept of ‘singing oneself into a nation’, popular in Estonian history textbooks, is only partly true. Although the performance of the festival changes only slightly through the years, its political significance changes enormously.

Comparative aspects of the Song and Dance Celebration of the Baltic countries in the context of nation-branding processes

“…Social singing became a symbol which, according to Habermas, helped nationals transcend their inherited loyalties to village and clan, landscape and dynasty and construct a new form of collective identity generating an imaginary unity and making them aware of a collective belonging that, until then, had been merely abstract and legal, and only this symbolic construction makes the modern state into a nation-state (Habermas 2001: 85). It was social collective singing that became the transnational phenomenon capturing nineteenth century Europe and mobilising people to form nation-states (Leerssen 2015;Habermas 2001;Brüggemann and Kasekamp 2014).…”

The nation and the city: urban festivals and cultural mobilisation

“…A first all‐Estonian song festival was held in Tartu in 1869 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of peasant emancipation in Livland, with 845 singers and an audience of 10,000–15,000. The movement gathered in strength with further festivals held in 1879, 1880, 1891, 1894 and 1896; and from 1873 (when the first National Song Festival was held in Riga) the cue was taken up in Latvia as well (Brüggemann and Kasekamp ; Raun : 75–76; Tall ). The Baltic Germans had delivered the inspiration, the organisational design, and the community‐bonding and nation‐mobilising function; the native populations fitted these made in Germany vehicles with their own ethnic payload, Estonian, Latvian or Lithuanian.…”

“…This emerged in 1988 as the most powerful survival of pre‐Soviet public culture: it was above all in choral demonstrations (the so‐called ‘Singing Revolutions’) that the power of the USSR was challenged publically and collectively, and the nationalist mobilising power of mass singing found its most extraordinary manifestation (cf. Brüggemann and Kasekamp ; Ginkel ). At this moment, the Baltic Song and Dance Celebrations (Vilnius adopted the pattern in 1924) have been recognised by UNESCO as part of the immaterial world heritage .…”

Explaining age differences in positive attitudes towards national commemorations: the role of what people commemorate

“…This study contributes to the knowledge and understanding of national commemorations in several ways. First, it is known that in many countries the content of national commemorations is dynamic and continuously adapted to changing societal conditions (Brüggemann and Kasekamp ; Hermoni ; Olick ; Schwartz ; Schwartz ; Vom Hau ). As a result, different age cohorts are socialized with different ideas on what is important to commemorate.…”