A Timeless Tune

– Aadu, listen!

– What is it?

– I feel like crying.

– Cry, my boy! Crying is the best thing in the world. Every real man must shed his share of tears at least once. Now cry, cry it out, my boy!

This conversation between Aadu and Mart is just one of the many quotes that a large number of Estonians know by heart. Over the decades, the film Here We Are! – deemed suitable only for the uneducated or those with psychological disorders at the time of its release – has firmly secured its place in the local cultural memory. This film, along with many other Soviet-era films, songs, and texts, has become part of Estonia’s cultural gene pool, a reservoir of memes that spans art from its earliest days to the present. The song A House By the Sea by Ülo Vinter, native of the Käsmu seaside village, featured in the film, has become an essential piece for both professional and amateur orchestras and ensembles. At this exhibition, we hear this iconic melody performed by the Tallinn Firefighter Association’s brass ensemble, Pritsu Brass.

Uru Valter is one-third Saaremaa native and one-third West Estonian (during summers), so he knows well that the shore mentioned in the song is the same juniper-covered landscape that August Mälk described in his 1930s sea and coastal novels – the same rugged terrain where he himself once skipped barefoot as a child on sharp limestone pebbles, heading toward the sea. Listening to the melody, it is worth considering the emotional shade it evokes in us. Is it a longing for a better time? A so-called nostalgia, perhaps even a yearning for the Eastern Bloc era? Or is it simply a cluster of feelings and sensations that accompany a timeless state of being? I close my eyes and sense the warmth of the fire, the taste of the sea, the prickly junipers, my grandmother’s pancakes, the white nights, and the endless summer holiday.

See also: “Are you a ghost or a man?!”; “What’s strange? – My name. A strange name!”; the sea is as warm as soup; sleeping in the hayloft; village feast; seaweed battle.