Estonia - May 1990

The following was first posted here on July 22, 2010. I am re-posting it after reading an article in today’s Wall Street Journal about The Singing Revolution – a documentary that is scheduled to air on PBS Saturday at 3:00 pm EDT and Sunday at 11:00 pm EDT. This month marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union. To gain a better perspective of what that meant to those under Soviet rule, this is from the narration of that documentary:

But Estonia’s darkest and bloodiest chapter began in 1939 when the Soviets crossed the border. Within months thousands were executed, others disappeared. In one night 10,000 men, women and children were taken from their homes, loaded into cattle cars, and shipped to slave labor camps in Siberia. More than half never returned… But Estonians fought, and sang, and survived.

Culture is what united the Estonian people. Culture is the vehicle that carried them to freedom. It is our great Southern Culture that unites us as a people. It is that same Southern Culture that will determine the fate of future generations of Southerners.

•  •  •

My grandmother was born and raised in one of the Baltic states (Latvia), so I find myself drawn to cultural news from that area. A video has been making its way around the web recently that shows tens of thousands of Estonians gathered together to sing songs that unite them as a people. In June 1988, spontaneous night singing demonstrations took place in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania calling for independence from the Soviet Union. It was the singing of folk songs that reminded them that they are a single and unique people united together as a nation. Estonia is a Nordic country, and as you watch the video, it is obvious that they are, indeed, one people united by blood and culture.

What does this have to do with Southern culture and the goals of the Confederate Colonel project? This is about preserving a culture – A culture. This is not a “multicultural” event. Diluting a culture by mixing in other cultures does not strengthen it – mixing cultures weakens all those involved. The social diseases of “political correctness” and “multiculturalism” have as a chief goal the destruction of Southern culture and the Western European heritage that it is based on. Note that cultures can be, and often are, adopted by others who may not be native-born, but wish to assimilate into that culture. In other words, we are talking about a culture and not blood inheritance. The key point is that those born “outside” actively assimilate into the culture without the culture adapting to them. That is the only way to preserve a culture while still accepting others into the native land of that culture.

(Note: The sound drops out in the last few seconds of the video.)

This is a trailer of a film about The Singing Revolution:

The Lyrics

Keep in mind that these lyrics were done as a literal translation, and words and cultural memory don’t always make a smooth transition from one language to another.

Isamaa Ilu Hoieldes
(Cherishing the Beauty of the Land of my Fathers)

Keeping the beauty of fatherland.
Fighting against the enemy:
Pay attention, pay attention,
Pay attention, pay attention!

If you believe in yourself,
In opinions of the wise,
In shoulders of the strong,
In mightiness of the elders,
In nimbleness of young men,
In sisters, brothers,
Above all in yourself,
Then you get better life.

If you believe the talk of the wolf,
Fear the yelps of the dogs,
Hear the curses of the masters,
Complains of the underlings,
Bitings of the greedy,
Admonishments of the low ones,
Scolds of the blind,
Then you get nothing.

If you sink into lies,
Stooping into dreams,
On all fours under the order,
Bowing under the rouble,
Then you get fleas in groin,
Itches in your heart,
Halters on your head, bones in your stomach,
Then you go to hell.

If you believe in yourself,
Then you believe in the folk,
In the farms, in the wiseness,
In the teaching, in the rights,
In the birch grove of home place,
In the swallow by the clouds,
Then you get mighty spirit,
Then you get better life.

Also, here is an interesting blog article about this event.

Sometimes, we need to step back in time and read the words of those who were there rather than the opinions of politically correct self-proclaimed “historians”. These are such words.

OFFICIAL RECORDS: Series 2, vol 5, Part 1 (Prisoners of War) p. 389-390
GOLDSBOROUGH, N. C., March 24, 1863.
Major General J. G. FOSTER, Federal Army.

SIR:

Two communications have been referred to me as the successor of General French. The prisoners from Swindell’s company and the Seventh North Carolina are true prisoners of war and if not paroled I will retaliate five-fold.

In regard to your first communication touching the burning of Plymouth you seem to have forgotten two things. You forget, sir, that you are a Yankee and that Plymouth is a Southern town. It is no business of yours if we choose to burn one of our own towns. A meddling Yankee troubles himself about everybody’s matters except his own and repents of everybody’s sins except his own. We are a different people. Should the Yankees burn a Union village in Connecticut or a cod-fish town in Massachusetts we would not meddle with them but rather bid them God-speed in their work of purifying the atmosphere.

Your second act of forgetfulness consists in your not remembering that you are the most atrocious house-burner as yet unhung in the wide universe. Let me remind you of the fact that you have made two raids when you were weary of debauching in your negro harem and when you knew that your forces outnumbered the Confederates five to one.

Your whole line of march has been marked by burning churches, school-houses, private residences, barns, stables, gin-houses, negro cabins, fences in the row, etc. Your men have plundered the country of all that it contained and wantonly destroyed what they could not carry off. Before you started on your freebooting expedition toward Tarborough you addressed your soldiers in the town of Washington and told them that you were going to take them to a rich country full of plunder.

With such a hint to your thieves it is not wonderful that your raid was characterized by rapine, pillage, arson and murder. Learning last December that there was but a single weak brigade on this line you tore yourself from the arms of sable beauty and moved out with 15,000 men on a grand marauding foray.

You partially burned Kinston and entirely destroyed the village of White Hall. The elegant mansion of the planter and the hut of the poor farmer and fisherman were alike consumed by your brigands. How matchless is the impudence which in view of this wholesale arson can complain of the burning of Plymouth in the heat of action!

But there is another species of effrontery which New England itself cannot excel. When you return to your harem from one of these Union-restoring excursions you write to your Government the deliberate lie that you have discovered a large and increasing Union sentiment in this State. No one knows better than yourself that there is not a respectable man in North Carolina in any condition of life who is not utterly and irrevocably opposed to union with your hated and hateful people.

A few wealthy men have meanly and falsely professed Union sentiments to save their property and a few ignorant fishermen have joined your ranks but to betray you when the opportunity offers. No one knows better than yourself that our people are true as steel and that our poorer classes have excelled the wealthy in their devotion to our cause.

You knowingly and willfully lie when you speak of a Union sentiment in this brave, noble and patriotic State. Wherever the trained and disciplined soldiers of North Carolina have met the Federal forces you have been scattered as leaves before the hurricane.

In conclusion let me inform you that I will receive no more white flags from you except the one which covers your surrender of the scene of your lust, your debauchery and your crimes. No one dislikes New England more cordially than I do, but there are thousands of honorable men even there who abhor your career fully as much as I do.

Sincerely and truly, your enemy,
D. H. HILL,

Major-General, C. S. Army

We have had a glorious time in this State. Unrestricted license to burn and plunder was the order of the day. The chivalry have been stripped of most of their valuables. Gold watches, silver pitchers, cups, spoons, forks, etc., are as common in camp as blackberries.

The terms of plunder are as follows: Each company is required to exhibit the results of its operations at any given place. One-fifth and first choice falls to the share of the commander-in-chief [General Sherman] and staff; one-fifth to the corps commanders and staff; one-fifth to field officers of regiments, and two-fifths to the company.

While the authenticity of the letter has been verified, it is almost too convincing, so I’ll stay out of any discussion of that. What is clearly a fact though, is that exactly this sort of thing was routine in the Union’s scorched earth policy against The South.

That was done by the winning side.

That was done by the side that wrote the history books.

That was done by the side that now mocks our culture and erases our heritage.