Jaak Rakfeldt, Ph.D.
Enel ran down the stairs to the basement, where Kristi and I were sleeping on mattresses on the floor. She was out of breath, panting, but finally was able to stammer out that there was a coup d’état happening in Moscow.
She turned on the television and clicked on CNN. We all watched the unfolding events in Moscow and the Soviet Union. A friend in Estonia had telephoned Enel and told her that the Russians had blockaded all the harbors. They had also shut down all air and rail traffic and attacked the Estonian Television Tower with troops and tanks.
Kristi and I had just spent a week in Muskoka, Ontario, Canada, at the Estonian Summer Seminar, where I delivered a lecture. I felt good about the positive reception of my talk. We also attended meaningful lectures, seminars, discussion groups, and a fantastic wine tasting group each afternoon led by Eik Järvi, an official wine taster for the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO). At night, we sang well-known Estonian songs around the campfire. The Estonian historian Lauri Vahtre taught us to sing a metsavendade laul (“Forest Brother’s song”). We sang it repeatedly with much glee and gusto. The seminar ended with a festive party on Friday night, August 16, 1991.
The following day we drove to the Canadian capital, Ottawa, to visit our old friends Tõnu and Enel Onu and their sons Kristjan and Andres. We took the scenic route through Algonquin Provincial Park. In Ottawa, the Onus led us on a tour of the city and the Parliament buildings. Tõnu worked as a staffer in the Canadian Senate.
On Sunday evening, we went to bed happy and contented after a beautiful week in Muskoka and a wonderful weekend in Ottawa. We woke to the sound of Enel’s shouting with the shocking news of the coup in Moscow. Groggily, we watched as the events unfolded on television. Gorbachev was under arrest. Troops and tanks filled the streets of Moscow while Boris Yeltsin tried to rally the Russian people to stand up against and stop the insurrectionists. Before this coup, the events that were unfolding in Estonia had filled us with hope. The years of relentless effort struggling for a return to freedom were bearing fruit. Now, on Monday morning, August 19, 1991, that was gone. Our dreams and aspirations had vanished. Our hopes for independence were dashed.
I called my parents in Newfane, New York. As expected, they, too, were distraught. Kristi and I discussed what we should do. We decided that we should leave immediately for Newfane. Given the gravity of this crisis, we needed to be with our daughters, Kaili and Kiia-Mai, and especially with my parents and sisters, Helle and Tiia. Tõnu pressed us to stay as long as had been planned initially. But we needed to go, given all the uncertainty and peril. It was a long drive past Toronto around the western end of Lake Ontario into the Niagara area. We arrived at my parent’s place in Newfane at about 4:30 p.m.
We struggled to make sense of what was happening, but one thing seemed clear: the hard-line communists who had seized power would undoubtedly end any hope of Estonian freedom. The next day Kristi and I needed to go to the store. While we drove up Route 78 toward Lockport, we listened to National Public Radio. We were approaching Tollgate Hill, which leads to the top of the Niagara escarpment that cuts across Niagara County and over which Niagara Falls tumbles a mere eighteen miles away. From the radio came the news that the Estonian Supreme Soviet had just voted overwhelmingly (sixty-nine out of seventy delegates) to declare Estonian independence from the Soviet Union. It was about 4:15 in the afternoon in western New York, and the decision in Estonia had been made at 11:03 p.m. There is a seven-hour time difference between Estonia and the eastern United States. We heard the fantastic news minutes after it happened.
The speaker of the Estonian Supreme Soviet who presided over this historic session is our relative, Ülo Nügis, my aunt’s brother-in-law’s son. The session was broadcast live on Estonian Television. So the whole country watched as Ülo struck the gavel down and declared that from this day, August 20, forward, Estonia was once again a free and independent nation.
On August 23, the Estonian community in Rochester, New York, asked me to deliver a speech at their observance of Black Ribbon Day along with with Latvians and Lithuanians. I represented the Estonian American National Council and the Estonian World Council. Black Ribbon Day marked the anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet pact in 1939, which led to the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states. This event, however, was an exciting and joyous gathering. The large turnout in downtown Rochester’s Liberty Pole Plaza included my sisters, my nieces, and my nephews. Among the other speakers on this beautiful day was U.S. Representative Louise Slaughter, the local member of Congress. After my speech, she came over to me and hugged and kissed me on the cheek.
On Saturday, August 24, my parents hosted a pig roast. Wade and Nelly arrived early that morning with their pig roasting trailer and equipment and started the process, resulting in a fabulous roasted pig at 3 p.m. My parents had invited many people. My good friends from freshman year in college, John and Pat, were there along with family members and Estonian friends. The high point came before sitting down to dinner. We toasted with glasses of champagne to a free Estonia and sang the Estonian national anthem, “Mu Isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm.” Tears of joy and tears from bittersweet memories streamed down the faces of many who sang.
My parents had fled Estonia on September 22, 1944, which was the last day of its independence as Soviet forces overran the country. Almost fifty years later, they were once again able to sing our anthem, celebrating a free and independent Estonia, Mu Isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm” (“My homeland, my blessing, my joy”).
June 23, 2021
