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She assured critics that the experience of occupation – and related notions of resistance, restoration and freedom – would all remain “at the heart of the museum.” The then-director of the museum, Merilin Piipuu, tried to dispel these concerns by referencing former president Lennart Meri, who in 2003 stated that the experience of occupation gave meaning to our freedom today. Some conservatives, moreover, connected the museum’s name change to the ongoing Estonian-Russian memory battles, arguing that removing ‘occupation’ from the museum’s name was an act of self-censorship that played into the hands of the current Russian government, which openly questions the fact of the occupation. MEMENTO felt that the victims’ suffering was being exploited to earn money former dissidents worried that the new museum would neglect its original aim – to commemorate the suffering of Estonians under the (Soviet) terror regime(s). The Estonian Association of Illegally Repressed Persons MEMENTO claimed that the younger generation, who had no direct experience of the Soviet occupation, did not have the right to decide how it should be memorialised. They also complained that they had not been involved in the decision-making process. Critique came in particular from representatives of victim organisations who saw the re-naming as a disavowal of their memories. An opinion poll in the summer of 2016 showed that over half of the respondents were against the name change.
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Long before the re-conceptualization of the permanent exhibition began, the Museum’s plan to re-name itself ‘Museum of Freedom’ ( Vabaduse Muuseum), abbreviated ‘Vabamu’, stirred much controversy. ‘Museum of Freedom’ – a Controversial Name Change On 12 July 2018, the permanent exhibition “Freedom without Borders” opened after only six months of restructuring. It only seemed logical that the revamped museum would also re-open during the centenary year of 2018.
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The new management’s aim was to re-name the museum, to modernise it and to revamp its outdated permanent exhibition in order to attract more Estonians – and especially more young people. The old generation of dissidents who had previously steered the museum’s course was replaced by a new post-Soviet generation. In 2015, the Museum’s management changed. For fifteen years, the museum was a place where mostly foreign visitors went to learn about the social traumas that Estonians endured during three successive occupations, first by the Soviet Union, then the Nazis, and then again by the USSR after the Second World War. Founded on the private initiative of émigré Estonian Olga Kistler-Ritso and her family foundation, the museum’s management had always maintained a close relationship with the Estonian political establishment. Since 2003, the Museum of Occupations in Tallinn has dedicated itself to preserving the memory of this other half-century of foreign rule. It stood as a reminder of the reality that Estonia had, in fact, been independent for only about half of that century. Among the latter was the unveiling of a Memorial to the Victims of Communism, a monumental structure located at the outskirts of Tallinn, in late summer 2018.
#Museum of memories series#
In 2018, Estonia celebrated the centenary of its statehood with a series of events, including new films, public parades, a youth song and dance festival and numerous speeches and official acts of commemoration.