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Misty Spring #mist #forest #nature #city #tallinn #estonia #green #grass #tree #trees #wood #woods #fog #road #lasnamägi #lauluväljak #puud #landscape #maa #beautiful #linn #eesti #eestilinnad #udu #kevad #spring https://www.instagram.com/p/CSjbZLFM3uT/?utm_medium=tumblr

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On 23 August 1989, two million people came together all over the Baltics to form a human chain from Tallinn, Estonia to Vilnius, Lithuania to peacefully demonstrate the desire for independence from the Soviet Union.

This date also marked the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The pact and its secret protocols divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence and led to the occupation of the Baltic states in 1940.

In 1990, Lithuania restored its independence and so did Estonia and Latvia the following year. Nowadays, 23 August is an official remembrance day, known as the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism or as the Black Ribbon Day.

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On 23rd August 1989 at 7 pm Eastern European Summer Time, two million Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians linked hands to form a 675km long human chain that started from Tallinn, Estonia and ended in Vilnius, Lithuania to peacefully demand freedom that was forcefully robbed from them by Soviet Union because of the secret protocol that was part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

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Estonians in the Baltic Chain in 1989

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An addition to the essay i wrote about finno-ugric nations and colonialism in the tags of an earlier post.

As someone who has studied estonian folklore and myths, it makes me really disappointed that our older myths and legends that were part of a wider finno-ugric cultural sphere are completely gone. Our folklore has been heavily influenced by our colonizers (russians, germans, swedes, etc), meanwhile our more isolated brethren have managed to keep more of their original, ancient culture alive. What makes me even more sad is that, eventually, we started changing our own stories to "prove" to the west that we had enough greco-roman culture (aka the myth that estonians were actually the descendants of greek sailors ??)

F. R. Kreutzwald's work was, for example, typical of 19th century estonian scholars, where folklore was altered to draw parallels to western myths and legends. The belief being that we needed to alter ourselves to prove to be worthy (?) enough to fit in with the rest of europe, thus leading to a widespread censoring and "whitewashing".

Modern day estonians do not qualify as indigenous anymore due to the extent of westernisation, and yet i can't help but wonder what could have been, looking at our relative nations in Russia. The ugric nations in Russia are oppressed and cleansed, just like we were centuries ago. Estonians lost our original heritage and thus survived. We gained the privilege of being western at the loss of what had made us finno-ugric.

I hope this was somewhat informative and not too grueling a read. I've had a lot of thoughts on this topic recently, and wanted to jot them down. If reading this elicited any emotion from you, that's great! As a conclusion, i would request that people recognize that indigenous people exist in more places than canada, america and australia. The Russian government uses the exact same type of ethnic cleansing as those western governments.

Here's some easy reading on the topic if you find yourselves interested (apologies for the wiki link but there truly isn't much information on this,, guess why :// )

tagging people who might be interested: @official-estonia @keyboard-crat

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Reconstruction of a medieval costume from Estonia

source

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The original flag of Estonia survived Soviet occupation thanks to two members of Estonian Students Society, who hid it behind their farmhouse’s chimney wall for 50 years.

Nowadays, the original flag of Estonia is on proud display at the Estonian National Museum in Tartu.

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He're is Italy's Eurovision winning song "Zitti E Buoni" translated into Estonian, performed by Daniel Levi. And no, it's not the explicit version, our national broadcaster isn't that cool :(

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sinililled.

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kaev.

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venemäe.

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To The Unknown | juusohd

Location: Vilsandi, Saaremaa, Estonia

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“Wake up Baltics”, a song that was specifically made for Baltic Way

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On 14th June 1941, 10 000 Estonians, 16 500 Latvians and 18 500 Lithuanians were deported to Siberia in animal wagons by Soviet authorities. More than half of them never returned to their homeland.

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Here's the original article