The Baltics - Tallinn & Riga

1969 Laulupidu - Tallinn

This photo gives some idea of the scale of the Song Festival Grounds. The stage is large enough to accommodate 15,000 singers. The chorus in the center of the stage was performing when I took this photo. Below the chorus, center-front, you can see a military band that accompanied the singing.

The song festival was not explained to us very well. In fact, if you have read my last few posts you know considerably more about Laulupidu than I did when I was there. I don't think that we were even told the reason for the huge stage - to allow for performance by the combined choirs. What we were told focused on the "celebration of the Soviet Union" angle. I have to confess that both the event and the facility puzzled to me. It seemed like an odd location for a major Soviet cultural event - a relatively small city far from the main Soviet population and government centers. But there was an energy in the audience - a sense that this was a special event. What I was missing, of course, was an understanding of Laulupidu's special significance to Estonians as an expression of their traditional culture and national identity.

Unfortunately, we were not there for any of the massed choir performances. We spent an hour or two at the amphitheater and heard performances by several choirs. The singing was fine, and the crowd was large, energetic and enthusiastic. I was not disappointed, however, when our keepers rounded us up and herded us back to the buses. It had already been a full day, and our hosts from Intourist had a special dinner planned to welcome us to the Soviet Union. I was looking forward to a meal and then off to the hotel for a good night's sleep. 

We did not know about it at the time, but after we left the Song Festival Grounds a dramatic and unanticipated event occurred. One of the participants in the 1969 Laulupidu was Heinz Valk, a young Estonian artist and journalist who would become a voice of the independence movement of the late 1980's. He tells what happened at the close of the 1969 festival:

"And so it was at the famous anniversary Laulupidu of 1969. ... The choirs finished the official program, but refused to leave the stage. The officials told the brass bands to drown out the singing, but it didn't work. The whole crowd began shouting, 'Mu Isamaa on Minu Arm! Mu Isamaa on Minu Arm!'"

The singers refused to leave. The audience refused to leave. The chanting went on. Someone began singing the banned national song. Then more joined in. The singing spread through the amphitheater, among singers and audience alike. Looking for a way to calm the situation, the festival officials allowed Estonian composer Gustav Ernesaks to take the conductor's podium. Everyone knew who he was, and the spontaneous singing died away. Waiting. Then, with great dignity and passion, Ernesaks led the singers and audience, more than 120,000 voices, in "Mu Isamaa on Minu Arm," the tender, treasured national song that he had composed before the 1947 Laulupidu.
 
(Music link: "Mu Isamaa on Minu Arm")

Heinz Valk again:

"And in the end, it turned out that we had prepared five years for this Laulupidu, [but] the main purpose of it really was to come together as a nation, and sing this one forbidden song. Each person could go to work the next day knowing that the Estonian spirit survives. Yes."

Needless to say, we were told nothing of this.

The main source for my account of the events at the close of the 1969 Laulupidu is the archive footage and interviews included in the 2006 documentary film, The Singing Revolution. (Link: The Singing Revolution)