35 Years Ago, on August 20, 1991

On August 20, 1991, Estonia formally declared the restoration of its independence, which it had lost in 1940 during the Soviet takeover. It’s been 35 years since that day, and it presents an opportunity to revisit that moment.

It didn’t happen out of the blue. There were many forces at play, and the build-up to that instant deserves more than a short article. One immediate factor was the coup d’état attempt happening in Moscow at the same time. When the threat was over, Soviet hardliners were gone, and freedom filled the void.

While Lithuania and Latvia had declared the restoration of their independence a year earlier under other circumstances, Estonia’s efforts seemed more meticulous. Lithuania declared its return to statehood on March 11, 1990, and Latvia followed suit on May 4, 1990.

As for me, I was in Finland during that time. I had just finished my third year as a student at the University of Helsinki, having gone there in 1988 to pursue graduate studies. Those had been momentous times indeed, certainly for personal reasons. I got married in Tallinn, and my daughter was born in Helsinki in 1990. She had just celebrated her first birthday during the summer of 1991. With relatives in Estonia and Sweden, we found ourselves traveling often either to one place or the other. The political scene was fascinating, but there was so much else happening, and there wasn’t enough time to do half the things I wished I could.