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The Others and Othering in Visual Representations of Soviet-Era Song and Dance Festivals in Estonia
The coffee-table book titled Sulle, kodumaa (“To You, Homeland’) (Laido 1976;
compiler Maie Laido, designer Valli Lember-Bogatkina [1921-2016]) was pub¬
lished on the occasion of the 1975 song and dance celebration that was dedicated
to the 35" anniversary of Soviet Estonia and the 30" anniversary of Soviet victory
in World War II. Interestingly enough, it contains no photographs of local nature.
The book begins with a set of images that places Estonia firmly within the context
of the Soviet homeland: men and women in Estonian national costumes holding
hands against the background of the Long Hermann tower, flags of all the Soviet
republics, Lenin statue in downtown Tallinn. Then comes an overview of new col¬
lective farms, state farms, and sanatoriums demonstrating Estonia’s progress under
the Soviet rule and the Soviet powers care for the working people (Fig. 17).
The next section commemorates Soviet victory in World War II: photos of war
monuments in different Estonian towns and ceremonies that take place there on
the 9% of May or Victory Day; a procession of Red Army veterans from downtown
Tallinn to song festival grounds to commemorate the end of war. Only after these
compulsory topics are readers presented with images of the 1975 song and dance
celebration. Inserted in-between them are photographs of new monuments erected
in Tallinn on the occasion of recent Soviet jubilees. Song and dance celebration and
commemoration of World War II become interrelated—visually indistinguishable
from each other—when the torch of the festival fire is shown to be lit from an eter¬
nal flame at the feet of a monument dedicated to Soviet soldiers (Figs 18 and 19).'”
Form Becomes Content
All of the coffee-table books discussed here are rich in photographs depicting people
in national costumes of different Soviet republics (Fig. 20). As such, they elucidate
the use of folk dresses as national uniforms and indicators of diversity. Estonians
ethnic Others had to be present at song and dance celebrations for their presence
and participation testified to the multiethnic makeup and broad geographical scope
of the Soviet Union and to Estonians’ openness to internationalism. The Others
had to be easily recognisable and their performances were thus highly stereotypi¬
cal, especially at dance celebrations: Ukrainian folk culture was often represented
by hopak or kozachok, Romanian folk culture by hora, and so forth (Arraste et al.
2009). Dancers performed to symphonically rearranged musical accompaniment
and wore colourful stylised costumes that corresponded to the needs of large-scale
open-air performances rather than conveying regional folk traditions.
According to dance scholars (e.g. Kapper 2016), such choreographies had more
in common with ballet than with peasant ways of dancing. Official rhetoric em¬
phasised the equality of different Soviet peoples and their cultures, yet they were
2 The tradition of igniting the festival fire was established in 1960 when the new choral stand with a tall
fire tower was completed. Most fires of Soviet-era celebrations from 1965 onward were lit from eternal
flames that were kept burning at Tallinn’s two major World War II memorials.
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