Thousands celebrate traditional Estonian song and dance in Tallinn
Perhaps, it's because the four-day gathering is only held once roughly every five years, a tradition dating back to 19th century to honour Estonian cultural heritage. Nowadays, it's heralded as the 1980s event that inspired the defiant Singing Revolution, helping Estonia and other Baltic states break from from Soviet occupation.
The Song Festival Grounds, a massive outdoor venue in the Estonian capital Tallinn, was filled with spectators Saturday evening despite an enormous rainstorm, and packed out again on Sunday, with even more people attending.
This year, tickets to the main event - a seven-hour concert on Sunday featuring choirs, - sold out weeks in advance.
Kinship
National costumes, folk songs and patriotic anthems can be seen and heard throughout the celebration as both participants and spectators of all ages seem to burst with pride and joy, united in song and dance.
The theme of this edition was "Iseoma" or Kinship and that was demonstrated through traditionally sung patriotic anthems as well as a mix of folk songs sung in various dialects and regional languages. There were also new pieces written especially for the occasion.
The main concert on Sunday night culminated with a song called 'My Fatherland is My Love' – a patriotic tune Estonians spontaneously sang at the 1960 festival in protest against the Soviet regime. This anthem was the closing song of song celebrations since 1965, and many described it as the highest emotional point of the event.
This year, a choir of over 19,000 singers performed it, with the spectators singing along and waving Estonian flags. A few other songs followed, with patriotic chants in between, and after the concert was over, the audience spontaneously erupted in more singing.
Rasmus Puur, a conductor at the song festival and assistant to the artistic director, ascribes the spike in popularity to Estonians longing for a sense of unity in the wake of the global turmoil, especially Russia's war in Ukraine.
'We want to feel as one today more than six years ago (when the celebration was last held), and we want to feel that we are part of Estonia,' Puur told The Associated Press on Friday.
Soviet occupation
The tradition to hold massive first song-only, then song and dance festivals dates back to the time when Estonia was part of the Russian Empire.
The first song celebration was held in 1869 in the southern city of Tartu. It heralded a period of national awakening for Estonians, when Estonian-language press, theater and other things emerged, says Elo-Hanna Seljamaa, associate professor at the University of Tartu.
The festivals continued throughout a period of Estonia's independence between the two world wars and then during the nearly 50 years of Soviet occupation.
The Soviet rulers were into 'mass spectacles of all kinds, so in a way it was very logical for the Soviet regime to tap into this tradition and to try to co-opt it,' Seljamaa said in an interview.
Estonians had to sing Soviet propaganda songs in Russian during that time, but they were also able to sing their own songs in their own language, which was both an act of defiance and an act of therapy for them, she said.
At the same time, the complicated logistics of putting together a mass event like that taught Estonians to organize, Seljamaa said, so when the political climate changed in the 1980s, the protest against the Soviet rule naturally came in the form of coming together and singing.
The unity extended beyond Estonia's borders. During the Singing Revolution, two million people in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined hands to form a 600-kilometer (370-mile) human chain that protested Soviet occupation of the Baltics with a song.
In 2003, the United Nations' cultural body, UNESCO, recognized Estonia's folk song festival and similar events in Latvia and Lithuania for showcasing the 'intangible cultural heritage of humanity.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Euronews
6 days ago
- Euronews
Connie Francis, singer of viral TikTok hit 'Pretty Little Baby', dies
Connie Francis, the hugely successful pop star of the 1950s and 1960s whose hits include 'Pretty Little Baby', has died aged 87. Her death was announced today by her friend and publicist, Ron Roberts, who did not immediately provide additional details. Francis - born Concetta Rosemarie Franconero on 12 December 1937 - was a top performer of the pre-Beatles era, rarely off the charts from 1957-64. Able to appeal to both young people and adults, she had more than a dozen top 20 hits, starting with 'Who's Sorry Now?' and including the No. 1 songs 'Don't Break the Heart That Loves You' and 'The Heart Has a Mind of Its Own'. Her version of 'Who's Sorry Now?', an old ballad by Ted Snyder, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, gained huge popularity when American TV and radio legend Dick Clark played it on his American Bandstand show in 1958. Francis followed with such teen hits as 'Stupid Cupid' and 'Everybody's Somebody's Fool'. Her records became hits worldwide as she re-recorded versions of her original songs in Italian and Spanish - among other languages. Like other teen favorites of her time, she also starred in several films, including Where the Boys Are and Follow the Boys. She also dated fellow teen idol Bobby Darin, who had volunteered to write songs for her. However, when her father, George Franconero, heard rumors that the pair were planning a wedding, he stormed into a rehearsal and pulled a gun on Darin, ending their relationship and seeming to set Francis on a traumatic path. She chronicled some of it in her autobiography, 'Who's Sorry Now?'. 'My personal life is a regret from A to Z,' she told The Associated Press in 1984, the year the book came out. 'I realized I had allowed my father to exert too much influence over me.' Although her acting career had faded by the mid-1960s, Francis was still popular on the concert circuit when she appeared at the Westbury Music Center in Westbury, New York, in 1974. She had returned to her hotel room and was asleep when a man broke in and raped her at knifepoint. He was never captured. Francis sued the hotel, alleging its security was faulty, and a jury awarded her $2.5 million in 1976. The two sides then settled out of court for $1,475,000 as an appeal was pending. She said the attack destroyed her marriage and put her through years of emotional turmoil. She suffered further tragedy in 1981 when her brother George was shot dead as he was leaving his New Jersey home. Later in the decade, her father had her committed to a psychiatric hospital, where she was diagnosed as manic-depressive. At one point she attempted suicide by swallowing dozens of sleeping tablets. After three days in a coma, she recovered. Her 1961 hit song 'Pretty Little Baby' gained new admirers this year, with the track going viral on TikTok. Thousands of videos have been created with the song on the app, and it has been featured in videos from popular influencers and celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner. 😭 Francis recently posted about her viral hit on Facebook: 'My thanks to TikTok and its members for the wonderful, and oh so unexpected, reception...' She wrote that she was 'clearly out of touch,' because when she found out the song was trending on TikTok, her initial response was to ask: 'What's that?' RIP Connie Francis: 1937 - 2025
Euronews
07-07-2025
- Euronews
Thousands celebrate traditional Estonian song and dance in Tallinn
Among the numerous music festivals spread across Europe each year in Europe, there are few which unite and spark an entire country's imagination like Estonia's Song and Dance Celebration. Perhaps, it's because the four-day gathering is only held once roughly every five years, a tradition dating back to 19th century to honour Estonian cultural heritage. Nowadays, it's heralded as the 1980s event that inspired the defiant Singing Revolution, helping Estonia and other Baltic states break from from Soviet occupation. The Song Festival Grounds, a massive outdoor venue in the Estonian capital Tallinn, was filled with spectators Saturday evening despite an enormous rainstorm, and packed out again on Sunday, with even more people attending. This year, tickets to the main event - a seven-hour concert on Sunday featuring choirs, - sold out weeks in advance. Kinship National costumes, folk songs and patriotic anthems can be seen and heard throughout the celebration as both participants and spectators of all ages seem to burst with pride and joy, united in song and dance. The theme of this edition was "Iseoma" or Kinship and that was demonstrated through traditionally sung patriotic anthems as well as a mix of folk songs sung in various dialects and regional languages. There were also new pieces written especially for the occasion. The main concert on Sunday night culminated with a song called 'My Fatherland is My Love' – a patriotic tune Estonians spontaneously sang at the 1960 festival in protest against the Soviet regime. This anthem was the closing song of song celebrations since 1965, and many described it as the highest emotional point of the event. This year, a choir of over 19,000 singers performed it, with the spectators singing along and waving Estonian flags. A few other songs followed, with patriotic chants in between, and after the concert was over, the audience spontaneously erupted in more singing. Rasmus Puur, a conductor at the song festival and assistant to the artistic director, ascribes the spike in popularity to Estonians longing for a sense of unity in the wake of the global turmoil, especially Russia's war in Ukraine. 'We want to feel as one today more than six years ago (when the celebration was last held), and we want to feel that we are part of Estonia,' Puur told The Associated Press on Friday. Soviet occupation The tradition to hold massive first song-only, then song and dance festivals dates back to the time when Estonia was part of the Russian Empire. The first song celebration was held in 1869 in the southern city of Tartu. It heralded a period of national awakening for Estonians, when Estonian-language press, theater and other things emerged, says Elo-Hanna Seljamaa, associate professor at the University of Tartu. The festivals continued throughout a period of Estonia's independence between the two world wars and then during the nearly 50 years of Soviet occupation. The Soviet rulers were into 'mass spectacles of all kinds, so in a way it was very logical for the Soviet regime to tap into this tradition and to try to co-opt it,' Seljamaa said in an interview. Estonians had to sing Soviet propaganda songs in Russian during that time, but they were also able to sing their own songs in their own language, which was both an act of defiance and an act of therapy for them, she said. At the same time, the complicated logistics of putting together a mass event like that taught Estonians to organize, Seljamaa said, so when the political climate changed in the 1980s, the protest against the Soviet rule naturally came in the form of coming together and singing. The unity extended beyond Estonia's borders. During the Singing Revolution, two million people in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined hands to form a 600-kilometer (370-mile) human chain that protested Soviet occupation of the Baltics with a song. In 2003, the United Nations' cultural body, UNESCO, recognized Estonia's folk song festival and similar events in Latvia and Lithuania for showcasing the 'intangible cultural heritage of humanity.'
France 24
17-06-2025
- France 24
Queer astronaut documentary takes on new meaning in Trump's US
But the story of astronaut Sally Ride, whose queer identity was a secret when she blasted off more than four decades ago, took on a "completely different meaning" after the re-election of President Donald Trump, Costantini told AFP. "When we started making the film, it didn't seem all that political to celebrate queer love or women astronauts," said the director of "Sally", which started streaming on Disney+ in many countries on Tuesday. "Just a few years ago, there was a pride flag that flew in space, and (NASA) had vowed the next person on the Moon would be a woman." But that vow has now been removed from NASA's website, just one of many changes at the US space agency since Trump returned to the White House in January. "Employees have been asked to remove symbols of gay pride, pride flags, trans visibility flags," Costantini said. Now, the director hopes the documentary "serves as a reminder that these rights are not guaranteed, that they were hard fought and they were won by people like Sally" and her partner Tam. "It's our responsibility to carry the torch and continue the fight for equality." 'It was hard on her' After boarding the Challenger space shuttle on June 18, 1983, Ride became the first US woman to fly to space. It was two decades after Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova made the voyage. NASA only started allowing women to apply as astronaut recruits in 1977. Ride, who had a PhD in astrophysics from Stanford University and was an accomplished tennis player, was one of six women selected out of more than 8,000 applicants in the class of 1978. Ride received the same training as male astronauts, but was treated quite differently. Journalists asked whether she cried when facing difficulty. NASA engineers asked about what make-up she would need in space. They even worried whether 100 tampons would be enough for her six-day journey into space. "I felt the women hadn't paid their dues like we had," Mike Mullane, another astronaut in the class of 1978, said in the documentary. When Ride returned to Earth, the image of the 32-year-old in her blue jumpsuit, curly chestnut hair, piercing blue eyes and confident smile was seen around the world. But Ride struggled to come to terms with her new status as icon. "It was too much for her," Tam O'Shaughnessy, who was Ride's partner for 27 years, told AFP. "She was an introvert and it was hard on her." The two women founded a nonprofit dedicated to teaching girls science. But the world would only learn they were in a relationship until after Ride's death from pancreatic cancer at the age of 61 in 2012. "Sally did not like labels," O'Shaughnessy said. "She was a queer woman. And so I think it's great that she's sort of become a part of the (LGBTQ+) community after death." O'Shaughnessy expressed concern at reports that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants to change the name of a Navy ship currently named after famous gay activist Harvey Milk. "There's a research vessel called 'Sally Ride' and it crossed my mind that might change, too" she said. "It's just shocking. All of this is hard to swallow." © 2025 AFP
