The 1998 Smithsonian Folklife Festival

Festival '98
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The 1998 Smithsonian Folklife Festival

THE BALTIC NATIONS: ESTONIA, LATVIA, LITHUANIA

	Sights & Sounds of:
		Estonia
		Latvia
		Lithuania
	Foodways
	Singing Revolution Special Program
	St. John's Day Celbration

1993 Song Festival in Riga, Latvia.
Photo by Leons Balodis

The Baltic Nations, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, emerged on the world news scene in 1989 as if from nowhere. For 50 years they had literally disappeared from the map, subsumed into the monochromatic zone of the USSR. On August 23, 1989 people in the Baltics formed a human chain stretching 430 miles through all three Baltic nations. This massive demonstration, called the Baltic Chain, told the world that they existed as nations yearning to be masters of their own destiny. Independence was finally obtained in 199, and although the years of Soviet oppression changed much of the traditional life of these Baltic peoples, their strength of conviction and consciousness of themselves bound them together, tied them to their lands, and retained their traditions. National song festivals, the first occuring before the turn of the 20th century, built ethnic awareness and national pride in all three countries, through periods of independence as well as occupation. By the 1980's folk ensembles and the grassroots folklife movement became an integral part of the massive "Singing Revolution", a form of nonviolent resistance against the occupying regime, consisting of peaceful meetings and national song festivals with attendence numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

Though these nations are small in both territory and population, each have shown an incredible ability to hold on to their unique languages, music, and cultures for several thousand years. Today the Baltics are undergoing many social changes brought about by the restoration of independence in a modern world. The transition to a market economy affects daily life and the influence of Western popular culture is grows daily. Thus, the Baltic people face new challenges in maintaining their cultural identity and uniqueness. Still, they have lived through centuries of swift and significant change making them better able than most to enter into the 21st century with folklife and culture intact.

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