Review: The Singing Revolution (2006)
Mark R. Leeper
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This is a powerful and emotional account
of 71 years of the history of Estonia and especially
how the Estonian spirit freed the country from the
leash of the Soviet Union. The film combines beautiful
choral music with the dramatic story of the country's
fight for independence. Directors Maureen and James
Tusty and narrator Linda Hunt bring a dramatic tension
unusual in pure documentaries rising to a climax with
the account of the 1991 Soviet coup and its attempt to
seize the country. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4) or 8/10
In the 1990s I took the opportunity to travel both in Eastern
Europe and the Baltic Republics. This was shortly after the fall
of communism. I was struck that each of the newly liberated
countries took to freedom in distinctly different ways.
Czechoslovakia--it still had that name--seemed to involve itself
in artistic description of their joy of freedom with plays and
posters. Budapest seemed to be involved creating fancy upscale
department stores. There was less variation in the Baltic
Republics of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. I do believe in
Estonia that we were aware that there was a singing concert in a
church we visited. I think we did not know how vital singing was
to the Estonians. In fact, perhaps more than any other people,
the Estonian people consider singing to be a major part of their
soul that defines who they are.
The singing carried the people through some painful recent
history. Starting in 1940 they were occupied first by the
Soviets, then the Nazis, and then again the Soviets until the
early 1990s. Their desire to be a free and independent country
again they expressed in their singing. For that time it was
nearly the only outlet they had for their feelings of national
pride. Today they credit their freedom from tyranny to their
singing. THE SINGING REVOLUTION tells the story of those years
of occupation, how singing kept their nation alive, and how it
eventually proved more powerful than the chains that held them.
Estonia won the Estonian Liberation War and won its independence
from the Soviet Union in 1920. But it was the path between the
Soviet Union and the Baltic Sea. It enjoyed two decades of
independence while the Soviet Union desperately wanted a road to
the Baltic. The Soviets, emboldened by its agreement with
Germany, the illegal Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, occupied Estonia in
June 1940. The pact proved to be useless to the Soviets and
Germany took Estonia away from them in 1941. During the war a
full one quarter of the population died. By 1944 the Germans
could no longer hold Estonia and the Soviets took it back. Each
time the country changed hands tens of thousands were murdered
for defending their country or for supposedly having collaborated
with the other side. Tens of thousands of Estonians were
deported to Siberia and Russians flooded in to occupy the
country. Estonia remained under the Soviet heel until 1991 and
credits its eventual liberation to singing and especially to the
Laulipidu.
The Laulipidu is the Estonian Song Festival founded in 1869, a
huge event considering the size of Estonia. As many as 30,000
singers on a single stage will sing in combined choral harmony.
And the real event of the festival is always the singing of "Land
of My Fathers, Land that I Love". The Soviets during their
occupation tried to take over the song festival and turn it to
singing pro-Soviet songs, but they could not stop the spontaneous
singing of "Land of My Fathers". They had no way of arresting
tens or hundreds of thousands of people singing of their love for
their country.
Linda Hunt narrates the documentary story of Estonia from 1920 to
the eventual reinstatement of freedom and independence in 1991.
In 1985 the Soviet's could no longer deny the economic failure of
the Soviet system and instituted the economic revisions of
Perestroika and the relative freedom of speech of Glasnost.
These the Estonians leveraged to create what freedom they could
manage for their country. The film builds to a crescendo when in
1991 the coup in Russia removed Mikhail Gorbachev from power and
Soviet hard-liners sent tanks into Estonia to seize the country,
crack down on it, and control it. This was when the Estonian
people stood together in nationalism to hold back the tanks.
When the coup in Russia failed and the tanks were withdrawn
Estonia declared its independence to the sound of "Land of My
Fathers" and started the dominoes falling of the dissolution of
the Soviet Union. THE SINGING REVOLUTION powerfully tells the
story of those days and insets interviews with the major players
of the 1991 revolution.
This is history as moving as fiction and as entertaining. I rate
THE SINGING REVOLUTION a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 8/10.
Film Credits: <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0954008/>
Mark R. Leeper
mle...@optonline.net
Copyright 2007 Mark R. Leeper