EESTI KULTUURIPOLIITIKA AJALOOLISEST PERIODISEERIMISEST
ON THE HISTORICAL PERIODISATION OF ESTONIAN CULTURAL POLICY

Summary/Abstract: The article presents one of the possible periodisations of Estonian cultural policy. The introduction discusses the content and reliability of periodisation as a method of putting down history. Further on the term “cultural policy” within the context of this article is examined and an overview description of the different periods of Estonian cultural policy is provided. The summary of the article indicates links between the contemporary problems of Estonian cultural policy and the historical experience of earlier periods. The current interpretation of culture in Estonia has been established and results predominantly from, on the one hand, a strong view of cultural policy corresponding to an ethnic-nationalist cultural policy set by President K. Päts, and on the other hand, the hierarchical cultural policy that perpetuated cultural institutions that followed during Soviet times. Both were guided and led from above. The (pro)totalitarian cultural policy led by Konstantin Päts shaped the national identity. The objective of Päts’ ideology was a homogeneous and strong nation state. The cultural policy model of the era of Konstantin Päts and the network of institutions suited the Soviet authorities, who adopted it. The system continued functioning purposefully, although the ideological content changed and the measures used were far from the soft follow-up censorship of the Päts era. The new content proceeded from the manipulative rhetoric of a totalitarian state shaping the Homo soveticus, the actual expression of which resulted in a hierarchy of culture and censorship. This was implemented through a deeper institutionalisation and centralisation. As a sub-trend of the new ideology, the national psychology was retained as a form of covert resistance, which was also one of the key factors in attaining re-independence. In connection with the appearance of a new world order an elitist mentality proceeding from the laws of the liberal market economy was added to the cultural policy and its earlier national and hierarchical institutions. Right-wing politicians started to say that culture must be able to manage itself, so that the state can deal with professional culture alone. The problems of the current cultural policy predominantly proceed from the fact that Estonia’s experience of a democratically functioning cultural policy, as opposed to models guided from above, is scarce. There is a desire to retain a system developed to shape a monolithic and homogeneous society, although we are dealing now not with a homogeneous, but with a heterogeneous multicultural society, which has its own nation state. Cultural policy conceives culture as an established system of cultural institutions, not as a collection of many sub-cultures, whose abundance and whose vitality may also strengthen the cultural common consciousness of the nation...

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