Choir of Thousands Echoes Nation's Resistance to Soviets

The voices of tens of thousands of choir singers rang out in the rain in Estonia on Sunday, and a huge crowd of spectators erupted in applause, unfazed by the gloomy weather. The Song Festival Grounds in the Estonian capital of Tallinn was filled with spectators Saturday evening despite the downpour, and drew even more on Sunday, the AP reports. The traditional Song and Dance Celebration, which decades ago inspired resistance to Soviet control, attracted performers and spectators alike, many in national costume. The four-day event centers around Estonian folk songs and patriotic anthems and is held roughly every five years. The tradition dates to the 19th century. In the late 1980s, it inspired the defiant Singing Revolution, helping Estonia and other Baltic nations break free from Soviet occupation.

• United: Rasmus Puur, a conductor, ascribes the spike in popularity to Estonians longing for a sense of unity in the wake of the global turmoil, especially Russia's war in Ukraine. "We want to feel as one today more than six years ago (when the celebration was last held), and we want to feel that we are part of Estonia," Puur said.
• The finale: The main, seven-hour concert on Sunday night culminated with "My Fatherland is My Love"—which Estonians spontaneously sang at the 1960 festival in protest against the Soviet regime. This anthem has been the closing song since 1965, and many describe it as the highest emotional point of the event. This year, a choir of over 19,000 singers performed it, with spectators singing along and waving Estonian flags. A few other songs followed, with patriotic chants in between, and after the concert was over, the audience erupted in more singing.
• The resistance: The tradition of massive first song-only, then song and dance festivals dates to the time when Estonia was part of the Russian Empire. The first song celebration in 1869, in the city of Tartu, heralded a national awakening for Estonians, when Estonian-language press and theater and emerged. Estonians had to sing Soviet propaganda songs in Russian during that time, but they were also able to sing their own songs in their own language, which was both an act of defiance and an act of therapy, Elo-Hanna Seljamaa, an assistant professor, told the AP. The complicated logistics of putting together a mass event like that taught Estonians to organize, she said, so when the political climate changed in the 1980s, the protest against the Soviet rule naturally came in the form of coming together and singing.

• International support: The unity extended beyond Estonia's borders. During the Singing Revolution, 2 million people in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined hands to form a 370-mile human chain that protested Soviet occupation of the Baltics with a song. In 2003, the United Nations' cultural body, UNESCO, recognized Estonia's folk song festival and similar events in Latvia and Lithuania for showcasing the "intangible cultural heritage of humanity."
• One voice: It's good to have all Estonians doing the same thing, Taavi Pentma, an engineer who took part in the dance performances. "So we are, like, breathing in one and the heart is beating (as one)." Marina Nurming recalled attending the gatherings in the 1980s as a teenager. This year she traveled to Tallinn from Luxembourg, where she now lives, to take part as a choir singer—her longtime hobby. The Singing Revolution, she said, is a time "when we sang ourselves free."