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Eda Kalmre
The Meaning of Photos in the Context
of Memory and Remembering
Photos visualise our memories of places, people, and historical periods. I first con¬
templated the role that historical photos play in keeping our memories when I was
selecting photos and caricatures to illustrate my research about a local post-war ru¬
mour. My first book on this topic dwelled also on this issue and was published both
in Estonian and English (Kalmre 2007, 2013). The book describes one specific
rumour, according to which there was a factory that made sausages out of human
flesh in the ruins near the open-air market in the centre of Tartu.
After the Second World War, two different cultures and ideologies faced each
other in Estonia. One of these, representing the position of the foreign rulers, had
clear political, economic and social advantages. Since physical conflict was out of
the question, the other, oppressed group had only a linguistic and cognitive arsenal
at their disposal. Spreading rumours gave the Estonian population the opportunity
to safely release their discontent and distrust towards the foreigners who had come
to power. For this reason, people were cager to spread and believe the sausage fac¬
tory rumour (Kalmre 2013).
The sausage factory story was silenced in Soviet period (which lasted from the
end of WWII until the 1990s)—it was one of many memories that could only be
talked about later, in independent Estonia’. Today, the rumour is still significant
for the pre-war generation, and many believe it to be true as it pertains to their per¬
sonal fate and empiric experience from the time. During my research | interviewed
more than 30 people who were children or adolescents shortly after the war, most
of whom had visited the place near the market in the ruins. In the interviews, they
described the rumour as originating among people who visited the open-air market
beside Emajégi river in the centre of Tartu. Thus, the post-war city with its build¬
ings, streets and bridges became part of the rumour my interviewees reminisced
about.
Looking for suitable photographs for my publication, I worked in several
archives and browsed my informants’ personal photo collections. My primary goal
in choosing the photos was to visualise the distant past for the present-day reader.
In selecting historical pictures of Tartu I tried to emulate the manner in which my
informants remembered and described the city: before the war, and later, when it
was in ruins. To achieve this, the majority of photographs are positioned between
chapters in threes, and each triplet tells its own story about a place important for
' Estonian independence was re-established in 1991.