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The Others and Othering in Visual Representations of Soviet-Era Song and Dance Festivals in Estonia
stylised and clichéd in others. While the ideological pressure eased somewhat after
the death of Stalin in March 1953, it is also likely that the need for strong political
statements dwindled as Soviet reality kicked in gradually and ceased to be an Other
in need of explanation and proof.
Emergent New Normality
Visual representations of the 1955 song and dance celebration are already indica¬
tive of this new situation characterised by collaboration between the national/Es¬
tonian Self and Soviet Other. At the centrepiece of the emblem designed for the
1955 celebration was a zither with the inscription “ESSR 15” and the flag of Soviet
Estonia; gone were references to the central government in Moscow. The emblem
can be seen on a placard designed by Raunam. The poster depicted a dancing
couple and an old man playing the zither against a backdrop of the masses stand¬
ing on the choral stand of the Tallinn song festival grounds (Fig. 10). The cover
of the guidebook by Asta Vender (1916-2014) and Soans featured a boy blowing
a shepherd’s horn (and not a trumpet!) and behind him a young blond woman
with flowers in her hand (Nöukogude Eesti 1955. a. üldlaulupeo juht). Raunam
used a similar motif in another poster he created for this occasion. People on these
drawings appear to have made peace with the surroundings circumstances: they are
no longer demonstrating and marching. However, their body language is restrained
and somewhat circumspect in comparison to exaggerated gestures on posters of the
1947 celebration.
Self and Other in Coffee-Table Books of Late Socialism:
Juxtapositions and Mergers
Even more complex, mutually constitutive relationships between the Estonian/
national Self and Soviet Other emerge from coffee-table books published in the
1960s to the 1980s, the period of late socialism. Depending on the selection of
photographs and their arrangement principles, song and dance festivals could be
used to showcase the ESSR as a model Soviet republic or represented as a local,
Estonian phenomenon.
This latter strategy can be seen in several books compiled and designed by the
artist Aarne Mesikäpp (b. 1939). His approach is reminiscent of the cinemato¬
graphic concept of montage: the creation of new meanings by means of juxtaposi¬
tion and “alternation between the author's fragmentation and the reader’s integra¬
tion’ (Huttunen 2005). While Mesikäpp has designed and/or compiled several
coffee-table books on this topic, the analysis here will have to focus on the black¬
and-white Laulusajand (‘Century of Song’; Mesikapp et al. 1969) and the coloured
multilingual Land of Song (Mesikapp 1985).
“Century of Song’, dedicated to the hundredth anniversary of song festivals,
begins with images of Estonian landscapes, fauna, and flora; moves on to peasant
architecture and past and present craftsmanship; and finally to images of choirs
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