We publish Karin Paulus’s review of the debate on the Tehumardi Monument, published in the weekly journal Sirp on 24 May 2024.
The Tehumardi monumental ensemble (Allan Murdmaa, Riho Kuld, Matti Varik, the pillar was completed in 1966, the second phase of the cemetery was completed in 1975) is protected as an artistically complete memorial of the second half of the 20th century in Estonia. The future of the monument is currently under discussion. CC BY-SA 3.0 EN / Wikimedia Commons
The solutions presented in the debate “New frames for the monument – Tehumardi” were born from a research project of the Department of Heritage and Conservation and the Department of Installation and Sculpture. The controversial heritage was thus put under the microscope, but it is recommended that it be preserved.
The Tehumardi monumental ensemble (Allan Murdmaa, Riho Kuld, Matti Varik, the pillar was completed in 1966, the second phase of the cemetery was completed in 1975) is considered one of the most outstanding in Estonia. The complex, erected in an out-of-the-way place in terms of settlement – a crossroads, it is true – is abstract, but nevertheless graceful and powerful. In front of the Modernist obelisk, known as the sword as well as the dwarf, a kind of tapestry is formed by small sloping forms adorned with pentagons and names. The solution is brilliantly put together in the style of its architect, Allan Murdmaa (1934-2009). Behind the complex is the sea, with junipers surrounding the clearing. The site is naturally very much a place for reflection on more serious subjects and for enjoying the surroundings in solitude. The cutting-edge art is certainly an invitation to discover the beauty here. It is no wonder that since 2007 the area has also been a Tehumardi heath reserve.
Hijacking creativity
The war in Ukraine has led to a situation where we have started to demolish and move monuments erected during the Soviet period as part of our condemnation of Russia. The latter were rather passive sculptural elements in our environment and increasingly neglected places of memory. With very few of those who fought in the Second World War still alive, their children already quite old and more than thirty years of statehood, the voices of the mourners of the dead and the war trauma victims are no longer heard in public. Thus, in Estonia, too, the Russian propagandistic notion that today’s Russia has the right to hijack our Soviet-era creations, to consider them the heritage of its country, has been unpleasantly accepted. This has been exacerbated by impressive 9 May rituals (e.g. a concert across the Narva River in Jaanilinn). With cultural education, better teaching of history and languages and, above all, working together, having been in short supply for decades for political reasons, help has been sought in recent years in the form of fencing, rerouting bus traffic, bundling carnations and moving monuments. We can continue to rejoice that the legacy of the tsarist empire has not yet come under attack. It would be a great pity if Alexander Vladovsky’s Jewish hospital in Narva’s Kreenholm, dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, were to fall victim to a clean-up operation.
To combat the red monuments, an anonymous working group with questionable expertise was set up at the State Chancellery in 2022 to “collect information on the grave markers and memorials bearing the symbols of the occupying power in Estonia and to develop a solution for their removal and the replacement of grave markers with neutral markers”. The basis for the removal is taken from the legally questionable law on law and order, which gives the Police and Border Guard Board the right to remove from a public place objects that could lead to disorder. Thus, it is assumed that a mourning mother in an overgrown square or the Stone of St. George (Endel Taniloo, Ülo Sirp, 1966, removed in 2022) may lead to pro-Russian riots and provocations.
However, locals have been even more willing to tear up the heritage of Tehumardi than the Commission. In particular, the Task Force found that the design of the battlefield marker is of great artistic value: “The Tehumardi Memorial is an important modernist monument that should be preserved and restored in the context of the surrounding landscape. The design of the memorial and the communal cemetery forms a coherent architectural and artistic whole. We recommend that the owner consider replacing the plaque with the memorial text,” the Commission’s decision concludes.
This year, however, Saaremaa decided to go the more expensive and art-damaging route and organise excavations and reburial of the remains. The aim is to cover some areas of the pillar and move small stones and gravestones that are important for the composition. “Today, these pentagons are on top. It’s not nice,” said the mayor of the municipality, Mikk Tuisk. The process has once again involved the War Museum, a sub-agency of the Ministry of Defence, whose War Graves Commission has organised reburials in recent years. However, the heritage office has said that 90 grave markers should still be left in place after the burials, even if only with smooth slabs without pentagons, because the memorial is a protected monument as an artistic and architectural whole.
What to do with the Tehumardi?
In a fast-changing and heritage-threatening situation, the Academy of Arts has stepped in with a solution. At the event, the project was presented by Kirke Kangro, Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Hilkka Hiiop, Dean of the Faculty of Art and Culture, Riin Alatalu, Vice President of ICOMOS, and Anu Soojärv, Junior Research Fellow. Also involved was Riho Kuld, the only living author of the monument, who was partly involved in modelling the design of the memorial.
Looking at the artists’ sketches, the scepticism of the presenter disappeared, as many of the solutions were respectful and creative.
Anna-Mari Liivrand’s “The Deserts” was the most elaborate and sensitive. The sculptor suggests that the stones could be covered with dolomite slabs, which could have a metallic pattern reminiscent of the surrounding reddish deserts. As the metal oxidises and the reddish-brown water begins to trickle down, the scene would resemble tears. The author has also suggested that the rhinoceroses swaying in the winds could also be a nice association with the helplessness of people thrown into the power of foreign powers. In this way, a coherent ensemble would be preserved and a poetic melancholy would be added to the powerful aesthetic of brutalism. Johannes Säre’s project is also a success. He proposed that the surfaces of the moulds should be allowed to accelerate (a separate technology). However, Säre thought that a viewing platform could be added to the obelisk.
Since there is a strange door in the wall of the monument and there were questions about it, Riho Kuld informed that there is a seven-storey staircase inside the monument and from there you can also look out. So it was thought that perhaps the idea of a viewing platform could be taken further.
Dean Kirke Kangro’s design for a neutral grave marker, commissioned by the State Chancellery, was weaker, with a graphic novel-style narrative of a battle once fought to the present day covering the slabs. It seemed somehow incongruous that the dampened solemnity should be taken over by a lightweight formal language. Such a solution would, in my view, tend to cancel out the present-day vividness. Taavi Piibemann’s ‘Almost eternal fire / How to feed the memory’ also felt like a ‘desecration of the sacred’, with solar panels placed on the gravestones to illuminate the memorial. His second plan is to create new forms in front of the slabs, which would form a kind of thicket, thus muting the messages of the Soviet era. Kristina Norman, on the other hand, would dedicate the covers of the stones to the rare Estonian pine cones associated with Saaremaa.
There was a varied audience, voices saying that they are now going along with the politicians’ narrative as they are reinterpreting the monuments. They also stressed the high quality and authenticity of the larger monuments, and the fact that they were created by our own top artists. Historian Kristo Nurmis said we should have the right to look at the historical heritage of the period, while doctoral student and poet Hasso Krull stressed that art is also history, not just war events, and cultural historian Maria Hansar, who has some links with Saaremaa, said that the talk of red carnations being carried to Tehumardi is nonsense.
The participants in the research project plan to present the results in Saaremaa in the near future and organise an exhibition and discussion based on the work.