If someone had predicted right after the Baltic states regained independence that they would soon experience rapid growth and a notable rise in living standards, the guy would surely have been strapped into a white coat and carted straight off to the nearest funny farm. But, alas, that’s what h...

At the turn of the 13th century, after trying and failing to conquer the Holy Land, crusading Christians looked around for easier pickings. They looked towards the last unconquered piece of pagan real estate in Europe—the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The ancient Chronicles of Henry of Li...

In one of his last acts as president, Lennart Meri marked the 60th year since he and thousands of other people across the Baltic states were deported by Soviet forces. By Michael Tarm Two twelve-year-old friends sat on separate prison trains 60 years ago peering out barbed-wire windows and ...

By Michael Tarm So you say there’s nothing even vaguely subversive about the Eurovision Song Contest, that it’s a wonderfully meaningless gala of glitz? Karl Pihelgas begs to differ. During Soviet communist rule, when Eurovision was a symbol of the carefree capitalist West, he and 12 ...

An abridged account of Estonia’s influential 19th century epic, the Kalevipoeg. The following tale is taken from Estonia's celebrated national epic the Kalevipoeg—or Kalev's Son. The novel-length epic, compiled from ancient Estonian folk tales by F. R. Kreutzwald in the mid-19th century, r...