As said in the trailer of the movie, “Some revolutions are about hate, others about revenge, but one was about hope, and the music…that saved a nation.” Therefore here, music and nation are closely entwined. Music is not only Estonia’s culture, but is also used as a political weapon, and an expression of their desire for self-determination and independence.
As Karl W. Deutsch wrote in Nationalism and Social Communication, even the narrowest kind of power requires two things: first, the assembly of an effective inner structure within the individual or group; and second, the assembly of means to carry into effect the implications of this inner structure, to impose them on institutions in the outside world. (1966: 75) So the power of Estonia can also be analyzed in these two aspects.
For the first one, the inner structure usually means the relatively coherent and stable structure of memories, habits and value. On the one hand, music has been central to Estonian culture for centuries, on the other hand, the Estonians have experience the occupation of German and Soviet as well as the Declaration of Independence together, which make them strongly want the independence once more. And this is the common attitude they hold when they think themselves as a group, which is vital to the idea of “nationalism”, too.
For the second one, music has been central to Estonian culture for centuries. Although Estonia is one of the smallest countries in the world, it nonetheless has one of the largest collections of folk songs. As a result, singing is their way of carrying out their inner structure. Besides, what’s impressive is the number of people who gather together, and I think it also helps to make the Estonian more powerful. Imagine the scene when the Estonian people formed a human shield to protect the tower. At that time, Estonia had no army, nor many police, but the ordinary people were just as powerful to drive away the invaders. Another time is when they lit candles from the north to the south of Estonia, 600km long, which is sure to make the outside world stunned.
Because of these two factors, they have the strength to face those who oppose to them. Here I do not use the word “enemy”, because their fight was so special! They sang, and without any drop of blood, they changed a totalitarian rule. This is such a comparison to ethno-nations. Because for ethno-nations, they concern non-corporation with the outsiders, and take precautions against them, see them as “enemies”, and they can be inhumanly cruel, including violent expulsion and “cleansing” of non-nationals, all the way to organized mass murder, as the Nazis did. Actually, Nazi is an extreme nationalism. “Death or the dead were topics in 54 out of 102 songs in the official songbook of the German National Socialist Party in the 1930s.”(1966: 183) In their eyes, they only saw death, which contrasted so much to Estonian’s hope and peace, and which in turn eventually destroyed the Nazis themselves.
Apart from these, there is still something else about nationalism. Isaiah Berlin once proposed within his definition that nationalism consists of the conviction that people belong to a particular human group and that “...the characters of the individuals who compose the group are shaped by, and cannot be understood apart from, those of the group ...” (1979: 341). This helps us to understand the Soviet people’s view of Estonians, saying that they are bad and scoundrels. We cannot precisely tell who is right and who is not, but what we are certain of is that the concept within one nation can hardly be understood by outsiders. And this is one characteristic of nationalism.
And as for wars, they may bring harm to a nation. But if we think differently, it’s also a test. If a nation is unified enough, it will try every means to survive; if not, it will break up. Therefore, the fact that Estonia survives after so many difficulties is the best evidence that the Estonian people are so close together, and that they are worthy to have an independent nation.
