Singing Revolution

Name and Scope

The name "Singing Revolution" was first used in an article the Estonian artist Heinz Valk published in Sirp ja Vasar immediately after the spontaneous all-night singing demonstrations at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds on 10-11 June 1988. Valk himself and Estonian scholars link the phrase to Estonia's choral tradition, but outside Estonia the term's applicability is contested. Russian-language accounts hold that the concept applies first of all to Estonia and Latvia and less so to Lithuania. This entry follows the broad, widely current usage covering the whole 1987-1991 movement in the three republics, while recording that the name was consolidated after the fact and has been criticised for mythologising the events.

Background

The Soviet Union annexed the three Baltic states in 1940 under the secret protocols of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact, an annexation that was not widely recognised. During the occupation the Soviet authorities suppressed local languages, religious institutions and cultural expression, and carried out large-scale deportations and political repression. After the reconquest of 1944-45, armed resistance by the Baltic Forest Brothers continued until the early 1950s, and a smaller dissident underground remained afterwards. The all-union bilingualism drive of the late 1970s sought to institutionalise the primacy of Russian, but native languages held on, especially in Estonia. When Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika lifted restrictions from 1985, grievances over the Chernobyl disaster and the war in Afghanistan, and fears about demographic change, came into the open.

Course of Events

In February 1987 a public campaign against planned phosphorite mining, known as the "Phosphorite War", broke out in Estonia, and on 23 August 1987 a rally at Hirvepark in Tallinn demanded disclosure of the secret protocols. In Latvia the Environmental Protection Club was founded on 28 February 1987 and grew into one of the region's most influential mass movements, while the placing of flowers at the Freedom Monument by Helsinki-86 on 14 June 1987, the anniversary of the deportations, is widely cited as the start of the national awakening. On 1-2 April 1988 a joint plenum of Estonia's creative unions demanded self-management, sovereignty and citizenship; in May 1988 Alo Mattiisen's "Five Patriotic Songs" premiered at the Tartu Pop Festival. In June, participants in Tallinn's Old Town Festival moved to the Song Festival Grounds and sang patriotic songs together, the beginning of the night-singing protests. Popular fronts formed in all three republics in 1988 (Rahvarinne, the Latvian Popular Front, and Sajudis), and on 11 September 1988 an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people gathered at Eestimaa Laul in Tallinn, where Trivimi Velliste publicly demanded the restoration of independence for the first time. Estonia's Supreme Soviet adopted a sovereignty declaration on 16 November 1988, and in 1988-89 the three states became the first republics to proclaim sovereignty within the Soviet Union.

The Baltic Way and the Restoration of Independence

On 23 August 1989, the fiftieth anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet pact, roughly two million people formed a human chain of more than 600 kilometres from Tallinn through Riga to Vilnius. It was prepared jointly by the three popular fronts, and against a combined population of about eight million the scale of participation was overwhelming. In December 1989 the Soviet Congress of People's Deputies acknowledged the secret protocols and declared them void. On 11 March 1990 Lithuania became the first republic to declare independence restored; Latvia adopted its declaration on 4 May 1990 and began a transition period, and Estonia followed in May.

Repression and Bloodshed

Moscow responded with economic pressure and armed force. On 13 January 1991 Soviet troops attacked the Vilnius Television Tower and the parliament, killing 14 unarmed protesters and injuring hundreds; Lithuanians call the day the Day of the Defenders of Freedom. In January 1991 a defence of the barricades took place in Riga, and the Russian-language account records seven deaths there, as well as the shooting of eight Lithuanian customs officers and police on the Lithuanian-Belarusian border on 31 July 1991. One KGB officer also died in the Vilnius events. Any account that the Singing Revolution was achieved without bloodshed fails once the dead of January 1991 are left out.

Assessment and Limits

The movement is counted among the foremost examples of nonviolent collective action of the late twentieth century, and the role of the Estonian Heritage Society, Latvia's Environmental Protection Club and Lithuania's Sajudis in providing the first organisational framework is emphasised. Song and symbolism functioned to lower fear and widen participation under repression. At the same time it must be recorded that much of the Russian-speaking population did not join the movement, and that part of it opposed independence and formed organisations such as the Interfronts. The rapid turn of Baltic politics after the singing phase toward a pragmatic line and eventually toward NATO membership and Atlanticism is also part of assessing this period's legacy.