This year 70 years have passed since the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, since the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany initiated the Second World War, since the Finnish Winter War. 60 years have passed since the wave of mass deportations in the Baltic states and 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
With these anniversaries in mind Sofi Oksanen (also of Estonian heritage) and I decided to publish a collection of articles called “Fear was behind everything”. In addition, in co-operation with Finnish film archives we produced a film dealing with Soviet totalitarianism and the occupation of the Baltic states.
The book was launched in March in Helsinki. Unfortunately, we had Finnish police accompany us on the launch date, because Johan Bäckman, who teaches sociology of justice in Russia and Estonia at Helsinki University, had brought members of the Russian youth movement Naši and Russian extremists of the Night Guard from Estonia to the occasion. Bäckman himself appeared on Russian TV channels accusing the publication of being anti-Russian. He also informed the Wiesenthal center in Israel that the book underrates the significance of the Holocaust. (One of my articles had analyzed the fate of Estonian Jews in the Holocaust and the Gulag.) The head of the Islamic church in Finland, Abdulah Tammi, a self-confessed former KGB agent, was urged to protest against us.
Bäckman thus attempted to sensationalize our book and film as anti-Russian and Holocaust denying.
Fortunately I had been working together with the Jewish community in Estonia for a number of years. My article on Jews had been pre-read by Mark Rõbak, the founder of the Estonian Jewish museum. Also joining us in our defense was Jevgeni Krištafovitš, the leader of “Open Republic”, a Russian democratic youth movement.
Bäckman denies that Estonia is a state. Through Estonian, Finnish and Russian television he forecast Estonia’s demise and claimed our book to be pornographic. This led us to send an open letter, which was co-signed by some European Parliament members, Finnish public figures, representatives of the Estonian Jewish community and the Russian democratic movement, to Helsinki University, calling attention to Bäckman’s activities. The letter’s author, Ivi Masso, was forced to discontinue her research studies at the university. The university suggested that the protest letter would “stifle freedom of speech.” Erkki Tuomioja, a former Finnish foreign minister, also took up Bäckman’s cause.
“Fear was behind everything”, containing articles from not only Estonian and Finnish, but also USA, British and Russian authors, became a best seller in Finland and opened a public debate on “finlandization” and the injustice and totalitarianism suffered by Estonia. The book underwent three print runs in the first two weeks.
Support for us in Finland was encouraging. We appeared often on Finnish TV and radio. Parents of Helsinki university students wrote a letter to the university protesting Bäckman’s activities in propagating a totalitarian ideology. The debate is a victory for democracy. But totalitarianism has left its imprint and we must deal with this constantly so that rule of law, justice and human values are not eroded by the pragmatism of superpowers.
Translated by LAAS LEIVAT