News archive

VEMU (Estonian Museum Canada), Estonian Music Week (a project of VEMU), and Eesti Elu (Estonian Life) newspaper have come together and taken a dive into the vast sea of podcasts, finding our own island – we call it EstoCast! Delve into the layered dimensions of Estonian culture with us as we explore what it’s like being an Estonian here in North America. The importance of Estonian art, music, books in our lives – and what this forward-thinking nation has to offer to us and the entire world. If you’ve ever wanted the latest in Estonian books, music, art, history, science, and other key news and cultural topics, but in a convenient on-the-go format, EstoCast is perfect. EstoCast is also ideal for those simply curious about any of the above topics and searching for something fresh, exciting, inspiring, and educational to listen to. EstoCast started as a simple idea in early 2022 to create a podcast where we could talk at length about this country that we call our home away from home—Estonia. According to the 2016 Canadian census, over 24 thousand people of Estonian origin live in Canada. Perhaps you’re one of them! Perhaps, you’ve visited Estonia once. Maybe you have a friend from there. Or maybe you’ve just heard about Estonia’s tech industry from the news and are wondering what the country is all about. No matter what your connection is, we’re glad to have you check us out and give us a listen. EstoCast alternates between English and Estonian every other episode so that there’s something for everyone; those wanting to learn or practice either language also have the perfect chance for that! EstoCast has eight episodes in both languages, spanning topics from literature to music and the latest cultural news and hottest happenings. Listeners from all over the world tune in to brush up on their Estonian and English, stay in touch with current goings on and culture in Estonia, delve deeper into their Estonian roots, or just learn more about the country itself! We’ve got the world catching our episodes from Australia and New Zealand to Canada and Greece. Various guests have already stopped by, including electro-folk band Etnosfäär, author and professor Dr. Tiina Kirss, and Ukrainian-Estonian band Svjata Vatra. In the future, we plan on extending our reach to topics like politics and stories of people in our diaspora Estonian communities in Canada and worldwide. Hosts Vincent Teetsov and Kati Kiilaspea, along with occasional guest hosts, will continue to take you through the exciting world of Estonian culture at large. We also have some tantalizing new guests coming up soon, so stay tuned; you won’t want to miss what’s in store in the future! You can find EstoCast here on major streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, as well as at our website: https://estocast.buzzsprout.com/ Happy listening!

On May 5, the presentation of the book “Laiko jungtys” [Links of Time] (Vilnius, 2021) by Dalia Kuizinienė took place at the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania.

On May 6th, a photography exhibit documenting the current war in Ukraine was opened at VEMU (Estonian Museum Canada), where it will be available for viewing until the end of July. The exhibit could also be seen at Toronto’s City Hall from May 7th-13th and from the end of May through June at the Cotton Factory in Hamilton. The exhibit made it to Toronto thanks to the collaborative efforts of curator Kateryna Radchenko in Ukraine and Temur Khvingia from the Okapi Gallery in Tallinn, where it was opened on March 9th. Present at the opening of the exhibit at VEMU and Toronto’s City Hall were several leaders from Canadian Eastern European organizations, politicians, diplomats, and media representatives. The exhibition at City Hall was visited by over 50,000 individuals and people have already expressed interest in it on the west coast of Canada and Alberta.

HAMLETS was first produced in Latvia in 1936 to rave reviews, then co-opted by the Nazis in the early 1940s, and subsequently shuttered by the communists during the fifty-plus years of occupation. On September 17 at 7 pm, this major mainstage work by the Canadian/Latvian composer Jānis Kalniņš was screened for the first time in Canada at the Latvian Canadian Cultural Centre. The music was avantgarde at the time, with hints of jazz and Prokofiev; it deserves to be heard beyond the borders of Latvia. In January 2022, the LNOB staged a contemporary take on the same music. Gunta Dreifelde

VEMU (Estonian Museum Canada), located in Toronto, has announced a literary award in the name of the Canadian-Estonian writer Arved Viirlaid in honour of his 100th birthday. It will be handed out biennially on Viirlaid’s birthdate, April 11th, to an outstanding fictional written work that contains themes relating to Estonia and captures as well as conveys the essence of the country and its culture.

The Lithuanian Central State Archives received a shipment of valuable films from Chicago. The Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture has handed over to the Archives for digitization of the Motuza brothers’ films. Famous Lithuanian-American filmmakers, the pioneers of Lithuanian colour documentary filmmaking brothers Kazimieras and Mečys Motuza, captured life in pre-war Lithuania on 16 mm Kodak colour film: villages and towns, their architecture, monuments, festivals and people. According to the Lithuanian Central State Archives, all films will be scanned and made available to the patrons.

On March 23, an exhibition “Romain Gary: The Return to Vilnius” (French: Romain Gary: un retour à Vilnius) was opened at the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania.

The interviews and articles published in the book Laiko jungtys (Versus, 2021) cover a period of more than thirty years. The signs of time are fragmentary, perhaps incomplete, but many of the interviews have retained their authenticity and have become a document of a dynamic period. The collection of the interviews concerns the cultural field of the Lithuanian diaspora and the circumstances of its vitality.

The winter edition of the Baltic Heritage Network quarterly newsletter is now available. In these pages you will find information about our past and future events, new publications, and what is happening across the globe within the diaspora research and archive communities.

Followers of VEMU may have already noticed through social media and via other channels that our public image has been recently refreshed. In collaboration with Estonian design firm Velvet, we underwent an exciting rebranding process throughout 2021; this was an important stepping stone towards realizing VEMU’s new home. We are preparing for a stronger and rejuvenated fundraising campaign for this purpose and in order to do that, an in depth look at who we are, what we would like to achieve and how we want to appear to the world was necessary.