Maakodu eesti NSV-S. Kultuurilised kujutelmad ja argised asjad
Countryside Homes in the Estonian SSR: Cultural Imaginaries and Quotidian Life

Summary/Abstract: The article is interested in the interconnection of cultural imaginaries and everyday materialities; these phenomena are explored in the context of commonly shared ideas about countryside home-life in Soviet Estonia. Based on Soviet-era fiction and poetry, and supported by life-writing and interviews, the essay outlines some basic strategies that are foregrounded in cultural imaginaries of the era: a nostalgic regard for the “authenticity” of pre-Soviet Estonian farm life, a belief in the salutary nature of countryside surroundings, and an ironical attitude towards summer-homing as it is performed by modern city dwellers. The poetry of Hando Runnel, as it presented in the 200-page volume of his collected poetry Kodu-käija (A Visitor of One’s Own Home, 1978), offers many images of countryside life, while references to Soviet style collectivized agriculture are notable for their absence in this oeuvre. Runnel’s visions occasionally include, however, markers of urbanization and images of country people settling into cities – as well as their corollary: abandoned farm homes. Like many of Runnel’s poems, his poem Üks veski seisab vete pääl (A Water Mill Stands over the Water) was adapted for a pop song lyric and gained huge popularity. In the 1980s, this poem came to represent dreams of a new beginning: the water mill is empty and abandoned, but the poetic voice calls for a “young and strong man” to come set it to work again, with a young maiden invited to share this home and this life with him. The call of this poem exemplifies the paradoxes of restoring the independent Estonian republic: the hope and desire was to restore the country and, with it, a way of life that had once existed. As the essay observes, however, such countryside ideals had already perished, even before WWII. Thus the longing to restore an “authentic” countryside life with its farmsteads and traditional small-scale agriculture was destined to bring disappointment. The restoration of national independence had no power, at this late stage of modernity, to bring to life these images of a premodern, idyllic world.

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