Propaganda, Immigration, and Monuments: Perspectives on Methods Used to Entrench Soviet Power in Estonia in the 1950s–1980s ed. by Meelis Saueauk and Meelis Maripuu (review)

Abstract

several contributions are closely dealing with the matters pertaining to historical memory. The volume and the whole initiative of making the discussions among Estonian historians of the Soviet Union accessible to nonspecialists on Estonian history is very welcome. Unfortunately, the introduction does not reference any literature and therefore does not contextualize the six empirical studies in the historiographies of Estonia, the Soviet Union, state socialism, and dictatorial regimes globally that are featured in the edited volume. The studies themselves would undoubtedly be of interest to specialists in all these fields and would contribute to the respective debates. The volume opens with Hiljar Tammela’s chapter, “The Communist Party’s System for Processing Political Information in the Estonian SSR in 1944–1950,” which focuses on information acquisition by the party authorities in Estonia. As shown by Tammela in a historiographic overview, although information notes composed and compiled at different levels of party organization have been extensively used as sources by historians, little research was done on information notes themselves as the medium. Based on the materials of the district committees of the Estonian Communist Party (ECP), he then reconstructs the work of the whole Ivan SABLIN