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I was thinking about just putting together a few photos for my next Post…… you know, pretty pics of quaint villages and cobblestoned streets. That would be easy as there is an abundance of those types of things to see.

But then something happened.

It was innocent enough, just a day of travel between countries, specifically Latvia and Estonia, when Aida (our wonderful Tour Experience Leader) put the DVD that she had mentioned to us earlier into the player. Filling our time with meaningful experiences is an important part of her responsibilities and providing us with options pertaining to this concept keeps her very busy.

                     So just when we all were reveling in the thoughts of possibly taking a road trip ‘nap’, the screen pops on and the story unfolds.

                     This is where my job gets almost impossible, as it is in fact, impossible to go on without employing every cliché that has ever been uttered by every person on this planet that has wanted to be free from the tyranny that has never been erased from our collective histories.

                     I am begging you to stay with me here.

                     Most of us remember the fall of the Soviet Union, it was there before us on our nightly news programming, usually headlining the broadcast until something a little more ‘current’ (?) popped up for a day or two. The Berlin Wall had been pierced almost two years prior and to say that the Iron Curtain was getting a little too rusty would be an understatement. But that was Germany and while we all know how close East Germany was to the Soviet Union, the more lenient policies of Mr. Gorbachev and a few ‘mistakes’ made innocently enough by East German officials led to the Perfect Storm of events that allowed thousands upon thousands of East Germans to flood the borders and stride across the “Line”. They were unimpeded by both their own military and that of the Soviets who were all boggled up with a war in Afghanistan and an economy that was bad and getting worse by the nano-second.

                                So, the Stage had been set.

                                All that was needed were a few cast members.

                                But it took another two years before the Opening Night was to occur.

                     Let’s assemble the cast.

                     To do this we need to rewind more than a hundred years to an innocent enough singing festival that was held in Tartu, Estonia, then a part of Imperial Russia. It was held every five years and eventually moved to the larger city of Tallinn where it is still held.

Now we’ll fast-forward to the Soviet times when the singing of ethnic, ‘old-timey’, ‘get a feeling of the good ol’ days’, ‘wish it were like that again’ songs were, get this…… forbidden. In their place were inserted songs about Lenin, Marx, Stalin, and the greatness of socialism and the Soviet ways of life. You may ask, “Why then did the people participate?” Probably for the same reason that they all go to the polls to “elect” their dictator with a “unanimous” vote. Not to participate would make you stick out like that proverbial ‘sore thumb’.

                     So our cast has been assembled and every five years they would gather at a special outdoor stage. It is an incredibly large venue that can hold 15,000 on stage and another quadrillion (or so) folks around it.

                                Let the festivities begin!

                                The key song that both sparked and unified the then reluctant participants was “Land of My Fathers, Land that I Love” which you can tell just by its title was emblematic of the undercurrent of repressed feelings of a nation of suppressed people.

           When the choir first sang it (I would have loved to have been in on the planning of that one!) the officials ordered them to stop, but to no avail. They then ordered the orchestra to play loudly over them but (oops!) someone forgot that there were those quintillions of folks in the festival audience who were not going to let a few trombones get in the way!

                                Guess who won that one!

                                Here we go!

                                1987-1988 the Singing Revolution gains headway (complete with another strictly forbidden exercise) of the display of the Estonian national flag.

                                1989 – The Baltic Way, a 420-mile-long unbroken human chain that linked Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia beginning at 7PM and lasting for fifteen minutes on August 23, 1989. Can you imagine the planning needed to accomplish that one!

                                Boom! September 1991 the full restoration of Independence of the three Baltic countries! YAY!!!!!!!

                     And that is ‘Restoration’ with an asterisk* because for all of recorded time, they were only independent for 22 years between the World Wars. Talk about perseverance!

                                                          ++++++++++                             

We are here.

We are here speaking with the people who endured the Soviet repression/suppression/whatever ‘pression’ you want to insert there.

We are here to listen to their stories.

We are here to see their incredible progress.

We are here to see the smiles on their faces when they speak of their good fortune.

 And we are here to see the sadness in their eyes when they relate the stories of their grandparents who they never saw again after they were sent to a gulag somewhere in Siberia.

Then Aida pressed ‘Play’ and nothing will ever be the same.

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I invite you to watch this indescribable documentary on the unfolding of these events.

It seems to be available on several platforms, Apple, Amazon Prime, HBO max, and if they don’t work, there are several teasers around, google it or go to TheSingingRevolution.com for more information.

                                I promise.