Empty Spaces and the Value of Symbols: Estonia's ‘War of Monuments’ from Another Angle

Abstract

Taking as its point of departure the recent heightened discussion surrounding publicly sited monuments in Estonia, this article investigates the issue from the perspective of the country's eastern border city of Narva, focusing especially upon the restoration in 2000 of a ‘Swedish Lion’ monument to mark the 300th anniversary of Sweden's victory over Russia at the first Battle of Narva. This commemoration is characterised here as a successful local negotiation of a potentially divisive past, as are subsequent commemorations of the Russian conquest of Narva in 1704. A recent proposal to erect a statue of Peter the Great in the city, however, briefly threatened to open a new front in Estonia's ongoing ‘war of monuments’. Through a discussion of these episodes, the article seeks to link the Narva case to broader conceptual issues of identity politics, nationalism and post-communist transition.

Acknowledgments

The authors also wish to acknowledge the useful comments on an earlier draft of this article provided by Dr Eva-Clarita Onken and two anonymous reviewers. Responsibility for any errors remains entirely our own.

Notes

This article is the first published output from British Academy small research grant ref. SG-39197, entitled ‘Public Monuments, Commemoration and the Renegotiation of Collective Identities: Estonia, Sweden and the “Baltic World”’

¹See http://www.historycommission.ee/temp/pdf/conclusions_en.pdf, accessed 8 February 2007; also Budryte (2005, pp. 185 – 86).

²On memory politics generally, see for instance: Gillis (1994), Cruz (2000), de Brito et al. (2001), Crawley and Reid (2002) and Gready (2003). This phenomenon can also be subsumed under the broad heading of heritage, which Graham et al. (2000, pp. 17 – 18) define as ‘that part of the past which we select in the present for contemporary purposes, be they economic, cultural, political or social’.

³In this regard, monuments also help to illuminate the relationship between what Elizabeth Jelin (1998) calls the different ‘layers and levels’ of memory—official, collective/social, and individual.

⁴With the exception of Nazi Germany and Sweden, no state gave full de jure recognition to Soviet sovereignty over the Baltic states, whose incorporation into the USSR after 1940 was condemned as a process of forcible annexation. The Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian states restored in 1991 thus claimed direct legal continuity from the republics originally founded in 1918. In line with this principle, Estonia and Latvia stipulated in 1991 – 92 that only citizens of the inter-war republics and their descendants could claim automatic citizenship; Soviet-era settlers and their descendents (30% of Estonia's population by 1989) who wished to obtain citizenship were required to undergo a process of naturalisation requiring them to demonstrate a knowledge of the relevant state language. Legislative changes introduced in 1999 extended automatic citizenship rights to everyone born in Estonia after 1992. However, despite ongoing progress in naturalisation, an estimated 20% of the population still lacked full Estonian citizenship in May 2004.

⁵Most normally associated with Will Kymlicka (1995, 2001) and Yael Tamir (1995), the concept of liberal nationalism implies the possibility of reconciling the universal demands of liberalism with particularistic attachments to a national culture; or, to paraphrase another key author writing on this concept, a belief that ‘political liberalism with its focus on individual freedom [can] accommodate the political demands of groups and conceptualise a multicultural society free of culturally based oppression and domination’ (Auer 2004, p. 30). For a further discussion in a Central and East European context, see Kymlicka and Opalski (2001). On ‘taming’ nationalism, see Budryte (2005).

⁶For a further interesting discussion on the contingent and contested nature of heritage in a Baltic context, see Mintaurs (2006).

⁷Here one thinks especially of Michael Billig's work on nationalism, which directs us to focus not on days of national celebration, but rather on the more mundane or ‘banal’ symbols and social forms which sustain and reproduce national identity on a day-to-day basis. In this regard ‘the metonymic image of banal nationalism is not a flag which is being constantly waved with fervent passion; it is the flag hanging unnoticed on the public building’ (Billig 1995, p. 7).

⁸Gready (2003, p. 1) observes that use of such commissions derives from a ‘post-Cold War rhetorical mainstreaming of human rights’, that has ‘entrenched a legal/quasi-legal orthodoxy as the preferred way to come to terms with the past’.

⁹Interview with the authors and Hans Lepp, Swedish Institute, Stockholm, 26 March 2007.

¹⁰See Rausing (2004). In this regard, Lepp contrasted Sweden's role with that of Finland, which he characterised as an historic ‘big brother’ to Estonia.

¹¹See Rausing (2004).

¹²Narva was recaptured by Russian troops in July 1704 and Sweden ultimately ceded the Baltic provinces, Ingermanland and part of Finland to Russia following a decisive reverse at the Battle of Poltava in 1709.

¹³Interview with the authors and Eldar Efendiev, Narva, 28 March 2006.

¹⁴It is revealing in this connection that Hans Lepp's first visit to Narva as Swedish cultural attaché in October 1991 was timed to coincide with the fifty-fifth anniversary of the unveiling of the original ‘Swedish Lion’ monument. Interview with the authors and Hans Lepp, Swedish Institute, Stockholm, 26 March 2007.

¹⁵‘The frontier location of Narva is the most characteristic feature of both the past and the present of the town. By the Middle Ages the historic border has been already running there, along the banks of rapid river swiftly flowing its waters out the Lake Peipsi into Baltic Sea and dividing the two civilizations—the Catholic European North and Orthodox Slavonic East. However, the border is not a mere line that separates, but also a place where two cultural worlds meet, mutually influence and interpenetrate each other.’ Available at: www.narva.ee/eng/, accessed 15 January 2007. On the early modern history of the town and the wider region, see Kirby (1990).

¹⁶Available at: http://www.narva.ee/eng/index.php?paremal/ajaloost/, accessed 15 January 2007.

¹⁷Weiss-Wendt (1997, pp. 36 – 40). At this time, around half of the city's population was Estonian by ethnicity. The other half consisted of Russians and other ethnic groups, such as Germans, Ingrian Finns and Jews.

¹⁸This was apparently the principal reason for the restoration of the old town hall, which had served as the seat of the Bolshevik government.

¹⁹As already noted, initial discussions with Swedish partners on the restoration of the Lion monument had previously taken place in October 1991, when Soviet-era leaders Chuikin and Mizui were still in office. This in itself suggests that the leadership was not averse to forging contacts with the West.

²⁰Interview with David Smith and Raivo Murd, Narva, 12 October 1994.

²¹A further example in this regard would be the T34 tank that still stands to the north of the city. This is a place where some newly-married couples go to have their photographs taken.

²²Interview with the authors and Evgeniya Torokvei, vice mayor of Narva, Narva, 27 March 2006.

²³Interview with the authors and Eldar Efendiev, Narva, 28 March 2006.

²⁴Sommer-Kalda (2000); interview with the authors and Eldar Efendiev 28 March 2006; interview with the authors and Galina Moldon, vice mayor of Narva from 1993 to 2005, 28 March 2006; interview with the authors and Hans Lepp, Swedish Institute, Stockholm, 26 March 2007; see also interview with Galina Moldon in Ivanova (2000).

²⁵This was done at the suggestion of Galina Moldon.

²⁶Interview with the authors and Eldar Efendiev 28 March 2006.

²⁷Interview with the authors and Eldar Efendiev 28 March 2006.

²⁸Available at: http://www.sirp.ee/2000/24.11.00/Varamu/varamu1-1.html, accessed 1 March 2006.

²⁹Interview with the authors and Eldar Efendiev, 28 March 2006; interview with the authors and Galina Moldon, 28 March 2006; interview with the authors and Hans Lepp, 26 March 2007.

³⁰Interview with the authors and Eldar Efendiev, 28 March 2006; interview with the authors and Galina Moldon, 28 March 2006. The aesthetic aspect of the Lion's location was also underlined by acting mayor of Narva Aksel Ers and Swedish Deputy Foreign Minister Lena Hjelm-Wallen in their speeches at the unveiling of the monument (see Sommer-Kalda 2000).

³¹It is, of course, possible that the Estonian government consciously and deliberately adopted a low-key approach to this commemoration, in the same way that from the Swedish side, the Narva days and the monument were depicted as a gift from the Swedish Institute rather than the Swedish government as such.

³²See, for instance, Totskaya (2000) and the discussion in D. Smith (2002b, pp. 102 – 3).

³³Interview with the authors and Eldar Efendiev, 28 March 2006.

³⁴Interview with the authors and Eldar Efendiev, 28 March 2006; interview with the authors and Galina Moldon, 28 March 2006; interview with the authors and Evgeniya Torokvei, 27 March 2006. Hans Lepp expressed a similar view in his interview with the authors on 28 March 2007, as did Ola Olsson, who served as a Project Director for the 2000 Narva events, when the authors spoke to him on 28 March 2007, also at the Swedish Institute.

³⁵Anonymous communication to the authors, March 2006.

³⁶Anonymous communication to the authors. The same commentator also observed that the explanatory plaque had most likely been removed from the site on account of its potential scrap value.

³⁷Interview with the authors and Eldar Efendiev, 28 March 2006.

³⁸‘I gde-to slishen sabel’ zvon’, Narvskaya Gazeta, 26 November 2003. Available at: http://www.gazeta.ee, accessed 15 March 2006.

³⁹‘Narvas taaselustati kolmandat korda P[otilde]hjas[otilde]ja lahinguid’ Toimetaja Kerttu Rannamäe, Autor Tanel Mazur, Eesti Päevaleht Online, 13 August 2006, available at: http://www.epl.ee/artikkel/350747, accessed 20 September 2006.

⁴⁰Meeting with the authors and members of the Narva Preobrazhenskii Regiment Historical Club, Narva, 29 March 2006.

⁴¹Recent suggestions for its use include a monument to the famous Estonian chess player Paul Keres (a native of Narva) or the placing of a ‘wedding tree’ where local couples could celebrate their anniversary.

⁴²Interview with the authors and Eldar Efendiev, 28 March 2006.

⁴³Following Ignatieff (1996), Paul Gready speaks of a need in divided societies ‘to liberate the present and the future from the burden of the past that threatens to overwhelm them. To come to terms with the past means superimposing serial time on simultaneous time’ (Gready 2003, p. 2).

⁴⁴Meeting with the authors and members of the Narva Preobrazhenskii Regiment Historical Club, Narva, 29 March 2006.

⁴⁵Irina Tokareva, ‘Peeter I mälestusmärgi püstitamine Narva p[otilde]hjustab vaidlusi’, P[otilde]hjarannik Online, 30 August 2006, available at: http://www.pohjarannik.ee/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3588, accessed 1 September 2006.

⁴⁶Irina Tokareva, ‘Peeter I mälestusmärgi püstitamine Narva p[otilde]hjustab vaidlusi’, P[otilde]hjarannik Online, 30 August 2006, available at: http://www.pohjarannik.ee/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3588, accessed 1 September 2006.

⁴⁷Irina Tokareva, ‘Peeter I mälestusmärgi püstitamine Narva p[otilde]hjustab vaidlusi’, P[otilde]hjarannik Online, 30 August 2006, available at: http://www.pohjarannik.ee/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3588, accessed 1 September 2006.

⁴⁸Iosef Kats, ‘Tsena simbola’, Molodezh' Estonii, 1 September 2006.

⁴⁹Iosef Kats, ‘Tsena simbola’, Molodezh’Estonii, 1 September 2006.

⁵⁰Iosef Kats, ‘Tsena simbola’, Molodezh' Estonii, 1 September 2006. In the grounds of Kadriorg stands a house used by Peter the Great, which is today a museum. At the time of writing, the suggestion to erect a Peter the Great monument in Narva appeared to have been dropped, especially after parliamentary leaders of the Centre Party—which until March 2007 formed part of the ruling coalition along with Ansip's Reform Party (Reformierakond)—refused to back the initiative by their local-level colleagues.