A crowd of fifty people took part in the XV BaltHerNet young diaspora researchers’ seminar on September 30th at the Museum of Occupations in Tallinn.
The first presenter was Bart Pushaw, a Fulbright Scholar at Tallinn University. He analyzed contemporaneity as cultural heritage among three generations of Estonian artists in the first half of the twentieth century both in Estonia and abroad.
He yielded the floor to Kadri Viires, director of the Museum of Occupations and Liisi Eglit, assistant curator at Stanford University Libraries. Both gave an overview of their institutions activities and the Kistler-Risto Foundation which is funding the activities of the museum led by Kadri in Tallinn and the library work curated by Liisi in California. For a deeper appreciation of the subject matter there was a screening of the documentary „The Woman Who Gave Estonia a Gift of a Museum: Olga Kistler-Ritso“ after which it was time to move on the book presentation.
Ilvi Jõe-Cannon took the floor and gave an overview of the history behind the book „When the Noise Had Ended: Geislingen’s DP Children Remember“ (edited by Mai Madisson and Priit Vesilind). She also elaborated on the process of making the book which was first published several years ago, but was only recently translated into Estonian. It was then time for Martin Andreller to conduct a tour of the exhibition about Forest Brethren – Estonian partisans who waged a guerrilla war against the occupiers during and after the World War II. With that the informative and wide-ranging seminar came to a close.
Maarja Merivoo-Parro
Interview with Maarja Merivoo-Parro in radio KUKU
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