Editorial: Estonian mystery

Illustration: Urmas Nemvalts

Estonian mystery – a comment by a foreigner casually overheard at the Song Celebrations... How creative-clear in capturing the great festivities dominating both Tallinn and rest of Estonia for the whole past week. A miracle, an enigma, a religious phenomenon – all in one. A tiny nation getting together every five years – and today it’s really all of us, adding the million glued to TV screens and Internet to the hundred thousand at the Song Festival Grounds – on a plot of ground to sing itself into a big eternal entity.

And thus has it been, basically since the festivals came into being. The Hungarian linguist Pál Hunfalvy, happening upon the Estonian song festival in his travels, in 1869, recognises the «voice of this nation created to sing, as is its tongue». And, sharing his excitement about the event with fellow Finns, the schoolmaster C.G. Svan noted the «joy blazing in their eyes». The prophecy by Mr Svan, dating 145 years ago, that a nation «with such a measure of national feeling, moral stamina and spiritual will to make headway on the path of education» is bound to make it, eventually – came to pass in 1918, and again in 1991.

But, having made it, we keep needing our souls cleansed and elevated. The almost inexpressible enlightenment that the soul encounters by singing and listening in harmony. Or, like it says in the chorus of this years’ namesake-song «Touch» by Kristiina Ehin and Tõnu Kõrvits: «Can’t you feel how for us lie still open / all the lofty and heavenly paths / as we do come together forsaking our troubles / just singing with joy in our hearts?»

The answer to this question – «Yes!» – became clear over three wondrous days at the dance stadium and singing grounds when God seemed to be Estonian – releasing such sunlight upon us after the damp and dark summer so far.

In ways deeply meaningful, the Song Festival Flame gets carried through the Counties, like a pilgrimage. Then culminating in a procession though the city of Tallinn, a great Message seems to bubble up inside the anticipating crowds.

Nothing easy and superficial about it – think about the countless days spent composing, organising rehearsing, hoping. Behind the mystery of the Celebrations, there lie a diligent tuning and hierarchy. Shaping our festivities almost into some ideal state, in which everyone knows his place and feels his worth and value, to make the whole work.

Thus, thanks are extended towards all parts of the Song and Dance Celebration mechanism: every dancer and singer, every folk group and choir, every dance and song teacher, every musician and conductor, as well as every administrator and organiser. And these – or actually: us – being so many, what we have here is an embodiment of Estonian dedication, hopefully lasting for the four ordinary years to come.

What about the great Message, launched towards heaven after hard practices – the festival being geared towards perfection! – and the grand outcome at the Grounds? The very one reflected in choir culture steeped in millennium-old runic verses and buoyed by German tradition, yet shaped into uniqueness by Estonians and other Baltic nations: not only worthy to last, last we will. Come what may!

Which is our message to the world. Which is the Estonian mystery.