Turistlik eskapism ja sümfoonilised variatsioonid: Tallinna vanalinn vaatefilmides 1960.–1970. aastail
Tourist Escapism and Symphonic Variations: The Old Town of Tallinn in the scenics of the 1960s and 1970s

Summary/Abstract: In Soviet Estonian culture of the 1960s and 1970s there emerged a widespread interest in the imagery and theme of the old town of Tallinn, which expressed itself in both academic and popular discourses, and in both visual and textual cultures. The media discussion, having originally sprung from the preservation and restoration movement quickly caught the attention of the local intelligentsia and soon carried overtones of a latent national resistance. The latter set the unique historic environment of the old town in opposition to the official architectural paradigm of modernism which neutralised local differences; and so this interest formed a bridge to the local tradition across the cultural rift opened up by the Soviet occupation. However, this desire for difference was reduced by a wave of general obsession with the Middle Ages to a romantic-nostalgic retro-image – the so-called ‘fashion of the old town’, which equated the Middle Ages with the old town of Tallinn and generated an explosion of Gothic or ‘archaic’ imagery distributed via the applied arts, interior design and a number of scenic, feature, documentary and concert films.The current article concentrates on representations of the Old Town of Tallinn in four Estonian scenics: ‘Toompea’ (dir. Valeri Blinov, Eesti Telefilm, 1977), ‘The Mosaic of Tallinn’ (‘Tallinna mosaiik’, dir. Andrei Dobrovolski, Tallinnfilm, 1967), ‘Pikk Street’ (‘Pikk tänav’, dir. Hans Roosipuu, Tallinnfilm, 1966) and ‘The Secrets of Tallinn’ (‘Tallinna saladused’, dir. Ülo Tambek, Tallinnfilm, 1967).

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