ISSN: 2560-1601 Vol. 20, No. 3 (EE) July 2019 Estonia social briefing: ‘My Fatherland is My Love’: dancing, singing, and being together. Regardless E-MAP Foundation MTÜ 1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11. +36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft.
[email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01 ‘My Fatherland is My Love’: dancing, singing, and being together. Regardless From a pure societal perspective, it was a long-awaited July (even though it could have been any other month to remind the Republic of Estonia’s population that they are and can be a cohesive nation). Nevertheless, July it was, because the first two weeks of the month were literally all about XXVII Song and XX Dance Festival ‘My Fatherland is My Love’. These two events are of monumental historic as well as nation-building significance for the country – especially, when it comes to the Song Festival (in Estonian – the Laulupidu). The tradition has been kept for 150 years (!), since June 1869, when the inaugural song celebration was organised by Johann Voldemar Jannsen, acting together with the Vanemuine society – one and a half century ago, 51 male choirs and brass bands with 845 singers and musicians gathered in Tartu to perform for the public1. On the practical side, from 1928, the modern Song Festival is held in Tallinn, at the designated area that is now called Song Festival Grounds or Lauluväljak, which can comfortably host up to 100,000 people2. Considering the country’s population of about 1.3 million, the Lauluväljak can become a ‘home’ for about 8% of Estonia’s inhabitants.