The Power of Song by Guntis Smidchens

The Power of Song by Guntis Smidchens

Author:Guntis Smidchens [Smidchens, Guntis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Entertainment, Music, Music Styles, Folk & Traditional, History, Scandinavia
ISBN: 9780295804897
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: 2014-03-28T04:00:00+00:00


NATIONAL AWAKENINGS

The purpose of Gorbachev’s glasnost was to restructure and strengthen the Soviet economy; open public discussion of environmental policy was allowed within this frame. In the Baltic, however, environmental issues were tied to questions of sovereignty over the country’s natural resources, and public discussion inevitably shifted to national sovereignty. Gorbachev hinted that glasnost could now extend into previously censored “blank spots” of Soviet history; in the Baltic, this led to public rejection of the Soviet government’s historical legitimacy. It is not surprising that rock songs quickly filled every crack that opened in Soviet censorship during the early Gorbachev era; rock musicians could compose, perform, record, and broadcast new songs more quickly (and loudly) than choral composers and choirs.

On February 25, 1987, an Estonian television broadcast broke news of a massive plan to expand the strip mines in the Virumaa District of northeastern Estonia, for the purpose of extracting phosphorites to be used in agricultural fertilizer. The project would poison an enormous region’s groundwater and rivers, destroy large areas of the landscape, and bring in thirty to forty thousand immigrants. Estonian public reaction compounded quickly, creating an unprecedented unity among local environmental clubs, scientists, and progressive members of the Estonian Communist Party.85

Rock musician Alo Mattiisen’s song “Not a Single Land Is Alone” carried the movement’s message. It was aired on the radio only once, against the broadcast manager’s orders, several weeks before its live premiere at the Tartu Music Days. This one broadcast sufficed to bring the song national fame. Then, although banned from Soviet airwaves, the song was picked up by Finnish radio stations and broadcast south back across the border.86

A lineup of popular musicians recorded this series of stanzas about each of Estonia’s districts (“lands”), concluding with Virumaa (Viru-land). Through a play of words, the song’s political meaning extended beyond the immediate objective of halting the destruction of nature, and revived the idea of Estonian sovereignty over the territory of Estonia. In the last stanza, the meaning of “land” switched from a place-name suffix to “land” as a synonym for “country.” If the strip mining plan were to be stopped and Viru-land’s groundwater were to remain unpolluted, “Only then I’ll be able to say that I live in my own land.” Not only were all local districts of Estonia called to unite to defend one of their own, but all of the singers in Estonia were considered a single political unit:

If all the wells of Viru-land

Can keep their water clean and clear,

Then I’ll be able to say

That I live in my own land,

I live in my own land.

Nature knows, fatherland knows:

We must all help each other now.

Not a single land is alone,

I don’t want, can’t abandon you, Viru-land!

Not a single land is alone.

In the Soviet Union before 1987, policy related to natural resources was directed by the central government in Moscow, not by the national republics. And so, as the “phosphorite war” gained force, it became clear that Estonians were claiming the right not only to stop this particular project but to reclaim sovereignty over their national territory.



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