Apie fotografijų reikšmę kultūrinės atminties ir prisiminimų kontekste
Authors: Kalmre Eda 
Published: December 2024

In this chapter I discuss the role of historical photos of Tartu both during the Soviet
period and today, with a focus on relating and distorting memories, truth and reality,
and mediating the discourse of power and identity. The idea of a research linking historical photographs and reminiscences came to me when I conducted interviews with
the citizens of Tartu and explored historical photographs while writing a monograph
on rumours in post-war Tartu. This led me to the insight that there are many converging aspects between people’s post-war memories and the discourse of historical
photographs.
The interpretation, but even more so the production of photographs, is influenced
by power relations in the society. Photographs also function as narratives that maintain and guide memories. Historical photos are watermarked with the intent of their
author. At the same time, they also help us to understand the past from a more general perspective. This means that similarly to oral narration, visual representations
including photos have a most important role in retaining and guiding memories. Accordingly, they also play a role in creating shared community identity.
Talking about the wartime or post-war photographers who documented their surroundings, we have to keep in mind that they must be seen both as individuals and
also as members of their communities, sharing the life and destiny of their people, acting in their time. What surrounds the photos at the time they are taken is important,
as are the meanings attributed to them by their contemporaries and the meanings
they acquire in the future.
Verbal communication in the Soviet period was not only divided into private and public,
but was based on mutual trust and the guarantees provided by social networks. The
same applied to photographs – people lived in a two-faced pictorial world. The Soviet
public menu of images lacked post-war photos, especially photographs of destroyed
towns (as Tartu was after the war). The menu of images in Soviet times also lacked prewar photographs, as in Estonia the ideology of the Soviet regime was entirely built upon
the denial of the independent first Republic of Estonia (1918–1939). Under the Soviet
regime, not only photographs but also film and video chronicles of towns destroyed by
the war were strictly controlled and used for propaganda purposes. In Estonia, there
was no publicly endorsed way to access photos of Tartu in ruins, although they proliferated in private circles. These photos became an important part of a private tradition
and practice. They were present in the homes and photo albums of very many local
residents. They told the story of the past that had shaped the identity of Estonians.
The lively and detailed description of the town provided by my informants relied in
part on their personal photo collections. After a few decades of Soviet rule, photographs of pre- and post-war Tartu, particularly those taken by photographer Eduard
Selleke (1895–1976) and others became a special point of interest among many local
residents who were interested in collecting such material. The views of Tartu, documented by Eduard Selleke after the WWII, with fields of ruins in the earlier pictures
and the cleared-up desolate panoramas seem ideologically neutral, taken just for recollection, but on the other hand they express the photographer’s connectedness with
his nation – a nation characterised by the impotence of the conquered.
Over time these photographs documenting Tartu’s sad reality acquired an additional
significance, because they metaphorically expressed one community’s – Estonians’ –
view of history. Over time, the connotations of power and protest emerged alongside
their initially documentary value. Thus every photograph of Tartu in ruins that has become widely known has had the semantic function of preserving memories and supporting opinions concerning historical events. Thus, the photos carried more than the
period-documenting dimension for the viewers – they acquired an evaluative dimension when looked at from a certain point in history. It was a judgement on the war that
Estonia had been wrested into, evaluation of the conquerors and the invaders (the Others). But the photo narratives presented in private circles (family albums, etc.) also expressed a nostalgic yearning for secure life and success of an independent nation state.
In the contemporary increasingly photographed and image-centred culture there
is ever more reason to conduct research that lies at the crossroads of memory and
remembering, and the visual and perceptive worlds. One reason for this is that the
technical possibilities of the Internet allow a marked proportion of the population to
participate in the processes.