Located within the forgotten half of Europe, historically trapped between Germany and Russia, Estonia has been profoundly shaped by the violent conflicts and shifting political fortunes of the last ...century. This innovative study traces the tangled interaction of Estonian historical memory and national identity in a sweeping analysis extending from the Great War to the present day. At its heart is the enduring anguish of World War Two and the subsequent half-century of Soviet rule. Shadowlands tells this story by foregrounding the experiences of the country's intellectuals, who were instrumental in sustaining Estonian historical memory, but who until fairly recently could not openly grapple with their nation's complex, difficult past.
This volume represents a significant advance in understanding post-war Baltic history. It explores what happened in rural society when a wave of persecution was launched in the Estonian countryside ...after the Second World War in connection with collectivization. It also answers questions about the reactions of Communist Party representatives, local councils, the farm population, the accused, and the not-yet accused.
Under certain conditions, some rumours, which were established as part of folklore already long ago, may become fixed in the memory and the subconscious of several generations. This is what happened ...with the rumour about a human sausage factory after the Second World War. In Tartu, Estonia, this rumour obtained a symbolic meaning and power due to the politics of the totalitarian Soviet regime. The memories of the post-war period are still vivid in the collective mind, and the onetime rumour of sausage factories incorporates the population's tensions, pain, loss, choices, defiance and irreconcilability. The individual and community emotions that are brought to a focus in this discourse are an indicator of defining social boundaries and behaviour, of 'us' and 'them'. When describing the events that took place in Tartu, folklore becomes a powerful tool with which to construe the meaning of the era at the social level. Through documents, photos and people's memories, the book offers an insight into the city of Tartu after the Second World War and reveals the several layers of meaning represented by rumour in this period.
This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Estonia covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, glossary, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has ...over 300 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture.
Soldiers of Memory explores the complexities and ambiguities of World War II experience from the Estonian veterans' point of view. Since the end of World War II, contesting veteran cultures have ...developed on the basis of different war experiences and search for recognition in the public arena of history. The book reflects on this process by combining witness accounts with their critical analysis from the aspect of post-Soviet remembrance culture and politics. The first part of the book examines the persistent remembrance of World War II. Eight life stories of Estonian men are presented, revealing different war trajectories: mobilised between 1941 and 1944, the narrators served in the Red Army and its work battalions, fought against the Soviet Union in the Finnish Army, Waffen-SS, Luftwaffe, the German political police force and Wehrmacht, deserted from the Red Army, were held in German and Soviet prison and repatriation camps. The second part of the book offers a critical analysis of the stories from a multidisciplinary point of view: what were the possible life trajectories for an Estonian soldier under Soviet and German occupations in the 1940s? How did the soldiers cope with the extreme conditions of the Soviet rear? How are the veterans' memories situated in terms of different memory regimes and what is their position in the post-Soviet Estonian society? What role does ethnic and generational identity play in the formation of veterans' war remembrance? How do individuals cope with war trauma and guilt in life stories? Offering a wide range of empirical material and its critical analysis, Soldiers of Memory will be important for military, oral and cultural historians, sociologists, cultural psychologists, and anybody with an interest in the history of World War II, post/communism, and cultural construction of memory in contemporary Eastern
European societies.
The article treats the activities of Estonian exile publishers in the Soviet Union (1918–1937) and in the West (1944–1991), concentrating on the publications of translated literary works. The ...analysis includes the study of the motives for publishing literary translations and the functions these publications were supposed to fulfil in these two different contexts of production and reception. The publishing of Estonian-language literary works in the Soviet Union is studied in the framework of national and cultural policies of the 1920s and 1930s, which determined the development of minority publishing. The output of translated literature by Estonian-language publishers is compared with the all-union translation policy and its preferences in the selection of authors for translation. The treatment of the Estonian-language publishing in the West focuses on the activities of Andres Laur and his publishing house Orto that issued most of the literary translations. The translation publications by other publishers (Vaba Eesti, Eesti Kirjanike Kooperatiiv) represent alternative modes of selection, illustrating the variety of motives.
What are the actual Estonian economic outlooks? By what does Estonia differ from rich and successful countries? These topics are dealt with in the report written by researchers from the University of ...Tartu. This report has been commissioned by the Estonian Development Fund from the University of Tartu based on the contract for services from 28 June 2007 and completed by Tartu University Faculty of Economics and Business Administration on 29.11.2007.
Flat-lying Early and Middle Ordovician limestones exposed along the northern margin of Estonia provide key insights into the early Paleozoic biosphere and climatic history of the Baltic Platform and ...potentially offer a site for calibrating the duration of the proposed Moyero Reversed Polarity Superchron (MRPS). Past paleomagnetic analyses on these rocks have been focused primarily on determining paleomagnetic pole positions and have been hampered by relatively weak remanent magnetizations. We therefore applied techniques of the Rock and Paleomagnetic Instrument Development (RAPID) consortium using thin-walled, low-noise quartz glass sample holders on an automatic system to enhance magnetostratigraphic resolution. Our results, based on over 400 oriented core samples spanning the stratigraphic interval from the Volkhov Stage, into the Uhaku Stage (Dapingian and Darriwillian, Middle Ordovician), expand upon the results of previous work. We isolated a stable characteristic magnetization of reversed polarity and the presence of an interval of magnetically Reversed polarity lasting into the Middle Ordovician. The interval begins in the Dapingian and is interrupted by a short normal period in the mid-Darriwillian (concurrent with the Yangtzeplacognathus protoramosus conodont Subzone) before returning to Reversed polarity. In addition, we recognize a magnetic overprint of apparent normal polarity held in antiferromagnetic phases.
•The Moyero Superchron is studied in Estonia, detecting a short normal period that ends it•A high-sensitivity RAPID system was successfully used on weakly magnetized sediments•The paleopole, a high-temperature overprint, and the end of the superchron were found to be similar to previous work•Rockmagnetics of the sites are reported and indicate multiple magnetic carriers
Conspicuously few body‐fossil taxa are known to span the Ediacaran–Cambrian boundary, a pattern usually taken to signal either a terminal Proterozoic mass extinction, or taphonomic failure. We draw ...attention to the emerging record of small carbonaceous fossils (SCFs), which exhibit continuous preservation spanning this critical interval. Here we focus on the enigmatic SCF Cochleatina, a morphologically complex coil‐shaped problematicum that ranges across the Ediacaran–Cambrian divide, and is potentially among the oldest fossil occurrences of metazoans. We report new material of Cochleatina canilovica from the Ediacaran of Estonia and Ukraine, which offers new characters for assessing its palaeobiology. Significantly, new specimens include sets of three‐alike triplets of Cochleatina adhering to organic sheets, suggesting a clustering habit, or grouping of elements within an individual during life; an important step in constraining the morphology and ecology of this Ediacaran–Cambrian problematicum. We present revised systematic descriptions for Cochleatina and C. canilovica, and critically evaluate previous biological interpretations, drawing comparisons with metazoan, algal and protistan analogues. We reject hypotheses supporting Cochleatina as a metazoan mouthpart, and suggest new grounds for viewing Cochleatina as a potential multicomponent predator that trapped protists among microbial mats. Most occurrences are from Baltica, but we synthesize sporadic reports of Cochleatina from other palaeocontinents, pointing to its global distribution during the latest ˜10 myr of the Ediacaran and majority of the earliest Cambrian Fortunian Stage. As a rare example of an ‘Ediacaran survivor’, Cochleatina highlights the broader significance of SCFs as a novel means of tracking evolutionary patterns through the Proterozoic–Phanerozoic transition.
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