Memories of the Baltic Way

In addition to many photos and printed materials, a contributor brought in a handmade blue, black and white Estonian tricolour flag mounted on a broomstick, while another person arrived bearing an old Sony portable radio. Both items had been present at the Baltic Way demonstration.

According to one account, people continued to mark the Baltic Way in a variety of ways after the actual event. For example, a 'green chain' was arranged at Rohuküla harbour as a follow-up, involving participants from the islands of both Saaremaa and Hiiumaa. One man invited his friends to his summer cottage in Kiisa, where he shared beer he'd brewed in his brand new kettle to mark the occasion. One woman brought a pretty light-coloured dress that she'd worn while expecting her first child on the stretch of the Baltic Way demonstration on the big road that circles the city of Türi. Also belonging to this category was a brown coat that had 'taken part' in the Baltic Way. The Tallinn House of Scientists contributed a set of minutes from a meeting that had been held to discuss the events of August 1989, to include the matter of participation in the Baltic Way. Another of their documents reflected brainstorming related to the 1989 legislation on citizenship.

Frank Drauschke, who is one if the initiators of this action to gather memorabilia, contributed his photos of the era. Drauschke, a young East German, had been hitchhiking in the Baltic States during 1989 and took part in the Baltic Way. A woman who had worked as a tourist guide at the Hotel Viru told the story of how she'd taken a group of Germans to participate in the Baltic Way.

A panel discussion that took place on the first of the collection days revisited the background of how the Baltic Way came about. Estonian MEP and Europeana 1989 National Ambassador Tunne Kelam advocated the idea of gathering people's memories and encouraged the public to participate. Mr Kelam previously contributed to a Europeana 1989 roadshow by having his Citizen's Registration Card uploaded to the Europeana website. Historian Küllo Arjakas spoke of the planning that went into the preparatory phase of the Baltic Way. He had with him a set of original meeting notes from the Estonian city of Pärnu that contained interesting details about a meeting of Popular Front members from all three Baltic countries as they laid the groundwork for the huge coming demonstration in which a huge number of people linked hands. Mr Arjakas contributed his notes for inclusion in the Europeana virtual archive.

Filmmaker Peeter Simm, whose documentary film 'The Baltic Way' was shown during the collection days, related stories about the making of the film. Simm happened to see a young man emerging from a forest path with a fishing pole on his shoulder, decked out with an attached Estonian flag. Simm had not been prepared to record the spontaneous event, and asked the young man to retrace his steps so that he could be filmed. Then a Russian TV crew appeared, and the lad had to walk out of the woods a third time. Later the Russian crew said that this is typical of Estonians, who always take the most direct route to their objective.

Press photographer Peeter Langovits, who worked for the Estonian news agency ETA, which was a TASS subsidiary at the time, recalled how he had covered the Baltic Way while on assignment. One of his photos had captured a red flag on which the hammer and sickle was equated with a swastika. TASS refused to disseminate this particular picture, but somehow it reached agencies abroad anyway and was eventually offered to TASS for commercial distribution. Recently, on 23 August of this year, Langovits took photos of marathon runners in Vilnius, Lithuania, who were participating in a race dedicated to the memory of the Baltic Way. Lithuanian runners were also bearing the Estonian national flag. TV reporter Andres Raid spoke emotionally of his memories, noting that he's never subsequently seen a sparkle in the eyes of his countrymen quite as intense as back then on the day of the Baltic Way.

All of the material that was contributed in Tallinn will be made freely accessible at the www.europeana1989.eu website, which also sports an interactive feature that enables visitors to upload additional relevant material. The result will be an intriguing and multihued digital archive that users can delve into for educational purposes, for research, or simply out of curiosity and interest. The archive will continue to accept materials until 23 August 2014, when the 25th anniversary of the Baltic Way is due to be celebrated.

Europeana and The Estonian National Library teamed up during the collection days with the Estonian Museum of History, which shared its existing materials and also gained new material during the Tallinn collection event. The UNITAS Foundation was also present, gathering life stories for its Kogu Me Lugu project.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who took part of and contributed to Europeana 1989!

Europeana and 1989
Europeana is a digital library, museum and archive that has - since 2008 - been carrying out the ambition of Europe's memory institutions to make the rich and diverse heritage of this part of the world available to all who are interested. More than 2,200 memory institutions and organisations contribute to Europeana from 34 countries. Europeana already contains some 29 million digitised cultural objects, thanks to which it's possible to discover, search and explore the cultural and intellectual heritage of Europe.

Europeana gets end-users involved as well, providing them with the opportunity to digitise and share their stories within the context of campaigns. Europeana 1989 is one of these campaigns. Seven countries are involved in the project - Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Germany. The campaign began in June in Poland, extended through the Baltic States during August, and will move on in the future to the Czech Republic, Hungary and Germany.

For additional information, please feel free to contact Annika Koppel of the Estonian National Library, who is also a member of the Europeana project in Estonia, tel. 5680 7260, [email protected]

Jüri Estam – Action Consensus PR, tel. 506 0832, [email protected]

Frank Drauschke – Facts & Files, tel. +49 (0)163 480 9862, [email protected]

Jon Purday – Europeana, tel. +44 (0) 788 551 6234, [email protected]