Page 356 [356]
354
Eda Kalmre
demolition of ruined buildings. At the time, many architecturally valuable houses
that could have been repaired were pulled down.
The ‘menu of images’ in Soviet times also lacked pre-war photographs, as in
Estonia the ideology of the Soviet regime was entirely built upon the denial of the
independent first Republic of Estonia (1918-1939). Everything connected with
the first Republic was prohibited and condemned, from insignia to photographs
and literature published in the 1920s and 1930s. No photo book was published on
even a remotely related topic.
It could be said that during and after the war, photos of ruins became a weapon
of propaganda (see also Demski, this volume). Both warring sides tried to show
destruction caused by the other as more extensive. Some publications from that
time provide evidence for this. For example, in 1941, under Nazi German occu¬
pation, a collection of ten photographs was published, called Tartu. Bolievikkude
poolt hävitatud linnaosi. / Dorpat. Von den Bolscheviken zerstörte Stadtteile ("Tartu:
City Parts Destroyed by Bolsheviks’; Kriisa 1941). Under the Soviet regime no
photo book was published with either pre-war or post-war photographs; however,
the photos existed in private collections taken mostly by amateur photographers.’
Soviet-period documentary photographs have been called ‘the cultural sign of
fear’ (Linnap 2007: 63). This referred to the prohibition on taking photos of cer¬
tain objects (bridges, monuments, military personnel, and also accidents and ca¬
tastrophes, because “nothing of the kind ever happened in the ideal Soviet Union’,
etc.) but in a sense it included the whole of Soviet photographic culture.
Under the Soviet regime, not only photographs but also film and video
chronicles of towns destroyed by the war were strictly controlled and used for
propaganda purposes. Pearu Tramberg of the Estonian Film Archives reminisces:
In this respect, the post-war time was tough: in addition to the usual Soviet
Glavlit® censoring of feature films, military censors reviewed everything pro¬
duced on film until the mid-1950s. For example, the wreckage caused by the
bombing in Tallinn could not be filmed. If, accidentally, some ruins had been
caught on camera, it was removed during film montage. The exception was the
5 "The interpretation of post-war destruction may still be a question of politics and power in Estonia. The
capital of Estonia is Tallinn. Recently, an article about the bombing of the Old Town of Tallinn in 1944
caused much furore. The article was published in the newspaper issued by the Central Party (Keskerakond),
which enjoys the support of the majority of Russian-speaking voters. The party-minded editor had omit¬
ted from the historian’ article the paragraph stating that Tallinn Old Town was bombed on March 9 and
10 by Red Army air forces (Ranne 2014; Abiline 2014).
° The official purpose of Glavlit was to prevent publications of information that could compromise state
secrets in books, newspapers and other printed matter, as well as in radio and TV broadcasting. In effect
it tried to curb the publication of any ideas that deviated from the official standpoint. The methods used
included pre-censorship, entailing proofreading drafts of publications before they were sent to print, as
well as post-publication censorship which entailed proofreading printed publications, and destroying or
limiting access to runs deemed eligible for censorship (www.Estonica.org/et/Glavlit/).