I IS FOR INDEPENDENCE
The centre of Tallinn is festooned with strange blue graphics hanging from the lampposts. They're everywhere. On Liberty Square. On the Toompea. It looks like a large number 18. Or is it 100? What could it mean?
It seems Estonians enjoy a bit of typographical jiggery-pokery as much as their design-savvy Scandinavian neighbours. The graphic is, ingeniously, simultaneously an 18 and a 100, the official logo of government-led celebrations to mark Estonia's hundredth year as an independent sovereign nation in 2018.
It's a big word, "independence", freighted with overtones of occupation, of
foreign governance, and of times when most of mainland Europe's borders
were in a state of constant flux, the era of nation states.
It's a word that resonates deeply with us too, a group of Scots, five years down the line from a divisive referendum on Scottish independence, and currently in the middle of a period of political and economic uncertainty caused by Brexit and its jingoistic promises to "take back control" of everything from borders to budgets as the UK strives to seek "independence" from the EU
What is Estonia now? Who is it independent from? And what does it mean to be independent in an increasingly interdependent world?
It's not a straightforward matter to discuss Estonian independence. There have been many periods of foreign rule, many periods of independence - though the idea of Estonians, or maarahvas or whatever name they gave themselves, as a distinct cultural, linguistic, ethnic unity living in this part of the world has remained pretty constant through thousands of years of upheaval.
From what I could gather, and despite the ubiquity of the centenary logos, it is independence from the Soviet occupation from 1944 to 1991 that has had the greatest impact on Estonians today and which has given the country such a release of nationalist positivity.
We meet Mari Tammeougu, who has decided to set her own clock back about 150 years. She wears the traditional
19th century costume of her region. She spins and dyes her own yarn that she uses to make her own clothes and those of her children. She makes her own traditional leather slippers. Cures her own mutton. She's also self-employed, making a living out of teaching forgotten skills, songs, customs, to locals and their children.
It's hard to imagine anyone who better embodies the spirit
of independent Estonia.
"In the Soviet time, there was no interest for reviving old Estonian customs," she explains. "The Soviets didn't want it, local councils didn't encourage it."
Only after independence in 1991 did the desire emerge to resurrect the old customs, the old Estonian traditions. But by this time the older generations were dying out and the memory was being lost. The days after independence were "a free-for-all". It took time to build up the pride that Estonians now have in their traditions and heritage.
Mari started from scratch. With a background in academic research (she has a PhD in biology) Mari interviewed everyone - particularly the older women in the region - about everything. She asked what they knew - and about what their mothers and grandmothers knew - about the songs they once sang, the recipes they used, how they wore the costume.
Mari researched maps and noted the names of forgotten places,
documented the grammar and intonation of the
local dialect,
gathered instructions for how to
wear traditional costume. And she put it all in a book.
For me, Mari stands as a living embodiment of Estonian independence. Proud, fiercely and passionately proud, of who she is and where she comes from, and of her place in that lineage, regardless of the political winds sweeping across that part of the country, her country, that she has invested so much energy into preserving.