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The Others and Othering in Visual Representations of Soviet-Era Song and Dance Festivals in Estonia
Soviet-era song and dance celebrations were prime venues for elaborate displays of
a Soviet Estonian culture “nationalist in form, socialist in content”. The flourishing
of these festivals had to testify to Estonia’s and Estonians’ thriving in the socialist
brotherhood of peoples.
This chapter traces these contradictory goals and meanings in posters, booklets,
and coffee-table books published on the occasions of song and dance celebrations
held in the 1940s—80s.* Discussion of the 1940s—50s zooms in on hand-drawn
posters and illustrated booklets that would accompany the festivals of the first post¬
war decades. Juxtaposing visual representations of the first three Soviet-era song
and dance celebrations held between 1947 and 1955, the chapter explores strate¬
gies used by the Soviet regime—in the immediate postwar years, an Other from the
point of view of the general population—in order to establish itself vis-a-vis Estonia
and Estonians and to instil into the masses a new political system and way of life.
The mid-1950s are said to have constituted a turning point with the majority
of Estonians starting to collaborate with the Soviet system (see discussion in Annus
2012: 36). In the words of Epp Annus (Ibid.), “This happened not because of any
growing faith in communist ideology, but because of a growing realization that the
new regime was incontestably established and would be in place for the foreseeable
future”. This period of Estonia’s “achieved incorporation into the Soviet Union”
(Ibid.) is analysed by looking at coffee-table books published in the 1960s—80s.
Typically of this genre, coffee-table books dedicated to song and dance
celebrations were richly illustrated with photographs, of unusual shapes and sizes,
and bound in stiff covers. Containing very little text, these books were meant for
entertainment and light reading. Similarly to posters, booklets, and other printed
matters, they were published by state publishing houses in large quantities and
had to pass censorship. Their contents were thus designed to convey a politically
correct picture of contemporary Estonia as a prospering Soviet country. As bound
picture books of decent quality, coffee-table books on song and dance festivals
made an appropriate present for foreigners. Most volumes explored in this chapter
were aimed simultaneously at local and international audiences, containing text in
Estonian and in Russian as well as in English, Finnish, and/or German.
The chapter discusses different visual strategies used in coffee-table books to
represent song and dance festivals during the period of late socialism, arguing that
more complex interactions between the Estonian Self and the Soviet Other, na¬
tional form and socialist content had emerged by the 1960s in comparison with
the top-down monologues of the immediate postwar years.
> Topics explored herein correspond to recurrent themes in Soviet-era documentaries and video films
about song and dance celebrations. Discussion of these materials had to be omitted from this chapter due
to space restrictions. For the same reason, the analysis here focuses on all-Estonian celebrations and does
not include the tradition of youth song and dance celebrations established in 1962.
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