Culture and Science

There were some places in our republic in the old days—the islands, for instance—where but fifteen years ago people had never seen a motion picture and did not know what radio was where a book was a rarity and only the local government office received newspapers.

A mere fifteen years ago the Island of Rukhnu a splotch of land in the middle of the Gulf of Riga, seemed to be right outside the civilised world.

There was no school; the local curate would gather the children together from time to time and teach them reading and writing. Libraries were unknown. Only the lucky few who visited the mainland now and again knew what a cinema was like.

Today the island has everything one would expect to find in a modern civilised place. Many of those who have completed their course at seven-year school now study at technical schools on the mainland.

There are two libraries—one especially for children—and they receive every new book which comes out. The local people are keen readers, and nearly everyone belongs to the library.

Pictures are shown regularly, twice a week, and are very popular. The local club sponsors various amateur art circles, and the drama group gives regular shows. Every now and again there is a concert by the local choir or folk dance ensemble.

The fishermen here are quite prosperous: they have radio sets and many have TV on which they watch programmes from Riga it is nearer than Tallinn).

Everywhere on the island is supplied with electricity.

Of course, not everywhere in Estonia was so backward as Rukhnu. But signs of cultural development are to be seen everywhere.

Today 875 copies of newspapers and magazines are published to every 1,000 of the population in the republic. The average number of film attendantes per head of the population is fifteen a year; the average number of library books borrowed, eight.

In Estonia today books are something everybody has. A short while ago I had a chat with Peeter Kurvet accountant of a book store in the small town of Viliandi. He told me that when he was a young man he'd dreamt of collecting a library of his own but found he could not start even a small one.

The first volume of Anton Tammsaare's novel Truth and Justice, for instance cost about five crowns more than a worker could earn in two days. Today, he says, one can find books in every home. "In former times my shop sold only five or six books a day. But recently we sold out in one and a half days the 520 copies we had of the Selected Works of the Estonian author Oscar Luts.

"Before, our customers were mostly white-collar workers—teachers doctors and lawyers. A peasant very rarely dropped in. Today, though, they simply clamour for books. In the village of Heimtale our agent Erno Pur sold 6,000 roubles' worth of books in one month."

The republic's network of cultural institutions will extend considerably In the coming seven years. The oldest Estonian "Vanemuine" theatre in Tartu will soon move into a new building. There will also be a bigger building for the Tallinn Conservatoire.

Big panoramic and wide-screen cinema houses will be put up in the Estonian capital; new cinemas houses of culture, clubs and other institutions will go up everywhere in the republic.

The Estonians are genuinely proud of their music. Singers of the Tallinn "Estonia" Opera and Ballet House enjoy both Soviet and worldwide fame: Tut Kuusik recently toured in China, while George Ots gave performances in Finland.

Apart from classical pieces, the Opera House also stages such operas as Flames of Revenge and Bard of Freedom and ballets such as Kalevipoeg (Kalev's Son) and Gold Spinners, all by the eminent Estonian composer Eugene Kapp.

Gustav Ernisaks, another celebrated Estonian composer, is the author of the popular operas Stormy Shore and Baptism of Fire.

Tallinn also has a drama theatre named after Victor Kingisep, the Estonian revolutionary; it has been granted the title of an Academic theatre for its achievements.

We have already mentioned the Tartu "Vainemune" theatre named after the legendary god of song), which has dramatic, operatic and musical comedy companies. Apart from several other professional theatres elsewhere in the republic, there are also a number of amateur theatres.

Songs are very popular among Estonians. Every collective farm and village usually has its own choir. District Song Festivals take place every year and the Republic Song Gala once in five years. The next Song Gala, in July 1960, for which extensive preparations are now being made, will honour the twentieth anniversary of Soviet Estonia.

The Communist Party pays much attention to the development of science.

Estonia now has its own Academy of Sciences—founded in Soviet times—whose members elaborate problems of paramount importance for their republic's economic development, notably the chemical processing of shale and the mechanisation of its mining and concentration.

Everything is being done to promote science. Some 70 million roubles will be spent in the coming seven years to build and equip new institutes for the Academy; and a big astronomical observatory is to be erected in southern Estonia.

Tallinn has its own TV centre, whose programmes are watched even in southern Finland and which regularly exchanges TV programmes with Leningrad There are plans to build a new TV studio in Tallinn and TV retransmission stations in other cities of the republic in the next seven years.

It is expected that eventually people will be able to watch TV programmes from Moscow, Riga, Vilnius and Minsk. Colour TV is to start in the republic towards 1965.

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And so we see that in every field of economy and culture Soviet Estonia has a wonderful present and a still more beautiful future.

"Estonia, Wonderful Present—Marvellous Future" was published by
Soviet Booklets, London, England, in December, 1959, as part of the series
"THE FIFTEEN SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS OF TODAY AND TOMMORROW."
We do not endorse the Soviet account of historical events or their circumstances contained therein as factual.
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