The beginning
Compared with the film industry in other countries, the Estonian history of cinema is not exactly long. The first cinema was opened in Tallinn in 1908, and the first Estonian feature, Karujaht Pärnumaal (Bear Hunt in Pärnumaa), was completed in 1914. By that time Melies had already had time to fly to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la lune, 1902) and it was just a year until the premiere of D. W. Griffith's grand film, The Birth of a Nation. However, the man known as the author of the first Estonian feature, Johannes Pääsuke, began his career a bit earlier with documentary films. In 1912 the newspaper Postimees stated that "The owners of the Tartu cinematograph, Imperial, have started work. They reportedly wish to take pictures of the most important places, record the life and work of the people in this country, and then present these pictures together with explanatory texts in Tartu." This quotation and some of the works by Pääsuke allow us to assume that the initial Estonian filmmaking did not only pursue commercial success, but tried to capture the homeland in attractive pictures and introduce it to the people. One such film was Ajaloolised mälestused Eestimaa minevikust (Historical Memories of Estonian Past), screened in Tartu in May 1913. The film gives an overview of Estonia back then: ruins of old fortifications, locations related to legends, beautiful nature and urban views. The documentaries of Pääsuke can thus be called genuine promotional films.

Showcase Estonian Republic
In the early years of the Estonian Republic chronicles were mostly produced by various enterprising businessmen. In 1936, the studio Eesti Kultuurfilm was rearranged into a state institution that elected one of the chairmen of the State Propaganda Board as its head. According to the law, the state-funded studio made obligatory newsreels for cinemas propagating officially approved values, and benevolent introductory films about the diligence and success of the young nation and its country. In the course of ten years, numerous promotional and event films were made at the studio by the founders of Estonian film, Konstantin Märska, Armas Hirvonen, Voldemar Päts, etc. Their products demonstrate the achievements of the Republic until 1941 when Estonia was annexed by the Soviet Union.

Illusions: early Soviet era
The Estonian Newsreel Studio became a new propaganda machine. As times were tense, but propaganda required an outlet, peculiar curiosities were born there. Let us take a look at particularly strange hybrid of showcase documentaries. The weekly cultural paper Sirp ja Vasar (Hammer and Sickle) wrote in 1941 about the documentary Estonia, which had been approved by the Soviet Film Committee:
"The first part of the film - examining the history of the Estonian people - has remained basically the same. It mostly describes ancient legends, the farmers' strenuous struggle with lean land and stone-filled fields, battles with the invaders and enslavers.
The second part shows bourgeois Estonia. The weak bourgeois classes were unable to secure people's welfare. The factories stood empty, chimneys were demolished, and cranes broken to pieces.
Finally the working people, in a decisive rebellion, wipe these political puppets off the political arena and seize the power. We see powerful demonstrations and rallies of the workers and joyful meetings celebrating the victory of the working masses and the triumphant red flag hoisted on top of the Tall Hermann tower."
What then happened in that acclaimed film?
Estonia starts with a take showing the stormy waves smashing into the shore. The dialogue explains that Estonians have lived on that stony land for a very long time. We then see the hard-working fishermen, women in national costume working in the field, weighing a stone. And suddenly: a staged scene! Our Song God, Vanemuine, with his customary zither, sitting against the background of castle ruins, tells people about the suffering of the Estonian people throughout history. The episode concludes with the words: "The occupiers flooded the young Republic of Estonia with blood."
The next part tells about bourgeois Estonia: carefree privileged people spending leisurely time in Cafe Kultas, or feeding squirrels in the park. "It's nice to feed the little creatures especially if you have time to spare," says the voice-over, and immediately afterwards we see men sitting around in the harbour, probably unemployed stevedores. There are children of coastal villages who walk around in wooden footwear. Then ruins of a factory, a tower being blown up (the voiceover explaining that this was how the bourgeois government sabotaged the development of local industry). We see oil shale mines, barracks, idle looms, prisoners working in stone quarries, a policeman waving his baton in the street, and autumn manoeuvres at the Soviet Union border.
To balance the grim mood, the viewers see soviet people, their abundant orchards and pleasure trips on Velikaya River.
Then comes "the beginning of the war in Europe", people seem to secretly listen to the Moscow TASS news on the radio. Then the culmination: banners of the workers' trade unions are displayed; the soviet flag on the tower of Tall Hermann. There are shots of demonstrations; people in windows, and others dancing with the soldiers of the Red Army. Finally we see the session of the newly elected Parliament.
In a sense quite an ordinary propaganda film - but what makes it a curiosity is that, apart from Vanemuine with his zither, everything else seems authentic material. However...

How the story was put together
There is no manipulating with pictures, but, rather, with the story itself. The major part of the film consists of Estonian Culture Film materials. The Soviet material was recorded unaffectedly, whereas the Estonian material was tendentiously put together. Episodes and fragments were torn out of the context quite banally and deliberately. The historical lie must be big - and here it is unbelievably huge. All possible questions are instantly smothered by the voice-over text.
The hard-working fishermen were taken from Märska's film "Fishermen". The study film "Põlevkivi" ("Oil Shale", 1938) demonstrating the production of oils, petrol and other substances from oil shale, was the source for episodes about miners, barracks and underground work.
The film "In the Turmoil of Traffic" provided the shots of the traffic policeman, of which, through soviet interpretation, has become a symbol of the police state.
The 1936 film "Views of Osmussaare" introduced the life on the island, including the wooden shoes for children, which was not in fact a sign of poverty but simply traditional island footwear.
The blown-up Waldhof chimney in Pärnu belonged to a wood-pulp factory and was no longer useful to anybody, whereas the looms, ironically, came from the film titled "Halted Factories Back to Work" (1940).
The final part was largely taken from the soviet-era film "The Will of People". Luckily for the viewer, such films were no longer churned out after Stalin's death. In the late 1950s, documentaries were supposed to tackle real problems directly. This was essentially different from the numerous staged shots where the idea of the film required reality to be 'improved' or 'varnished'. Scripts with invented episodes did not nevertheless vanish completely; they were first officially approved by relevant cinema authorities and then filmed. This way both the officials and the film-makers could rest assured that the film contained no unpleasant surprises.

Thaw period of Khrushchev
The Khrushchev-era thaw introduced new ideas to the Estonian film world. For the 1967 Montreal EXPO Eesti Telefilm produced the promotional film "The Black Beard Wants to Know", which constituted an advertising production somewhere between a tourist clip and glossy picture: maidens in national costume dancing in the Old Town of Tallinn, hedonistically jolly views of night-life in local bars, and naked girls in the sauna. On top of all that, a quizzing question put to the viewers: "How many hours does it take to fly from Tallinn to Montreal?" Never mind the fact that no planes travelled westwards at that time, let alone to Canada.

Stagnation period: sluggish parade
1967 was the last year of the thaw era, as 1968 saw the start of the period known as 'stagnation'.
The time of sharp contrasts was over, and the showcase documentary acquired a more tedious form. There were films that presented pretty snapshots of the homeland, and there were the so-called documentaries where essentially unimportant issues were tackled. Such films were true products of their era, and although they perhaps contained no more than 10 % truth, they are the best accounts of the mentality of their time and thus have acquired a sort of weird authenticity. Collective memory plus a skill for breaking certain codes can provide an excellent lesson in film history. The story could be ended with a quotation from Milan Kundera's book, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being":
"The professor of Marxism explained to him and his fellow students the following thesis of socialist art: the soviet society has reached the point where the main conflict is no longer between the good and the evil, but between the good and the better.
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Indeed, the soviet films at that most cruel of times that flooded the cinemas of all communist countries, were animated by an incredible innocence. The major conflict that could happen between two Russians was a misunderstanding in love: the man thought the woman no longer loved her, and the woman thought the same about the man. At the end of the film they embraced each other and tears of happiness oozed from their eyes."

Kristiina Davidjants has graduated from the department of film and video at the Tallinn University. She has been scriptwriter, director and editor of several documentary films. In 2003, Kristiina Davidjants was selected the best film journalist in Estonia.