A Clash of Deep Memories

Abstract

In April 2007 Tallinn, Estonia, witnessed some events that were almost unimaginable in that orderly and peaceful city. Over the course of two nights, riots broke out, leading to one fatality; a hundred injuries, including those sustained by thirteen police officers; and a thousand arrests. These riots were not about a policy for the future but about a dispute over the past, a dispute between two mnemonic communities over a memorial to what is known in Russia as the Great Fatherland War of 1941–45. One community was the million ethnic Estonians who compose most of the country’s population, the second was the half million ethnic Russians who make up most of the remaining portion. The spark for these riots was the decision by Estonian authorities to move the Bronze Soldier statue from a small park in the center of the city to the Tallinn Military Cemetery on its outskirts. This memorial was erected in 1947 to commemorate the Red Army’s arrival in Tallinn in 1944, and it is something of a sacred site for Russians. In addition to the statue, the old location for the memorial included the graves of thirteen Soviet troops who died in 1944 and 1945. In the months leading up to April 2007, this memorial setting saw an increasing number of commemorative events such as field trips for children from Russian regions of Estonia. On some occasions these children carried red flags and portraits of Stalin, acts viewed by Estonians as pro-