Remembering President Lennart Meri
Ain Dave Kiil
When Estonian President Lennart Meri visited Alberta in July 2000, following the Esto 2000 cultural festival in Toronto, he immediately demonstrated his interest in and understanding of the history of Alberta’s Estonian community
Lennart Meri was welcomed at the Calgary airport by a couple of dozen local Estonians. In the spirit of the Calgary Stampede, some wore Western gear. Later, the Calgary hosts accompanied wife Helle and daughter Tuule Meri to the Calgary Stampede grounds for the Rodeo events and a visit to the Indian Village.
Photo: Helgi Leesment
The President, accompanied by his wife and teen-age daughter, endeared himself to all during a visit to Stettler. A tour of the Stettler Museum, with many Estonian displays and artifacts, a roadside stop at the sign dedicated to Alberta’s Estonian pioneers, and a visit to the cemetery near Linda Hall, resulted in discussions about the Estonian settlers who came to Alberta directly from Estonia, Russia, northern States, or via the Crimea .
Lennart Meri was not restricted to competence in things cultural and historical; he was also interested in business and natural resources. One of his interests involved the further development of north-eastern Estonia’s oil shale industry which bears some resemblance to Alberta’s massive oil sands development.
With the generous assistance of Alta Flights, owned by Alberta Estonian Heritage Society members the Robertsons, the president flew to Ft. McMurray to get a first-hand look at the oil sands operations there.
The presidential entourage concluded its western visit by rail from Calgary to Vancouver. Helgi Leesment reports that Lennart Meri later made it clear that he appreciated the friendly informality, yet attention to detail, on his entire Alberta visit.
As the son of a prominent Estonian diplomat, Lennart Meri attended numerous schools in Europe and he became proficient in six languages.
In 1941, Meri’s family was deported to Siberia and the young boy spent his early teen-age years far from his birthplace. His first jobs were as a lumberman and a potato-peeler at the age of twelve.
Back in Estonia, Lennart graduated from Tartu University in 1958 with a degree in Languages and History. The government in Moscow didn’t allow him to pursue his interest in history so the president-to-be became an actor and playwright.
He was eventually permitted to undertake trips to Siberia and the Far East, a passion he followed for a quarter-century. During the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Mr. Meri pursued his keen interest in small Finno-Ugric populations by extensive travel and study in eastern Russia, including Siberia. By observing first-hand the lives of the Russian people and especially the challenges facing the smaller Finno-Ugric ethnic groups, he gained an appreciation of the aspirations of these isolated groups as well as a profound understanding of Russian culture. He observed first-hand the festering conflicts between the locals and the central regime in Moscow.
As a writer perhaps his best –known work is Hõbevalge (Silver White), a book based on his vast knowledge, scientific study and a fertile imagination about the history of ancient Estonia and the Baltic Sea Region, including the mythical Thule region. One of the major themes of the book involves the impact of a meteorite in central Saaremaa some 3,500 years ago and speculation about the long-term effects of this not only on the island’s but also the region’s population.
By the 1970’s, the Soviets allowed Meri to travel outside the Iron Curtain. In the late 1980’s, he worked in Finland and in 1990, a year before Estonia’s second Declaration of Independence, he became the country’s unofficial Minister of Foreign Affairs and quickly established communication links with the Western World. Days after the failed Soviet coup d’etat in 1991, the President-to-be drove around Helsinki with an Estonian flag in his car’s windshield and delivered notices about Estonia’s independence to foreign embassies.
When he returned to Estonia from Helsinki, he ordered the authorities to take down the Soviet flag at the Tallinn harbor and declared that “I won’t walk onto Estonian soil under a Soviet flag”. (City Paper).
Meri was President of Estonia from 1992 to 2002. He leaves behind him a reputation as an amiable and cultivated man. As a lifelong student, Meri brought to the position a depth of knowledge and life experience that served him well during his tenure. The correct measure of a public figure sometimes doesn’t surface for many years; in Meri’s case, his legacy as a father-figure of Estonia’s second period of independence and as a widely-recognized figure in world history is not in doubt. As noted in the Economist, he put Estonia back on the map of Europe.
During a visit to Estonia in the fall of 1992, a forestry colleague took me to a Russian military installation on the country’s north coast. It was still manned by the Russians who refused to leave.
Two years later, Meri met Boris Yeltsin in Moscow in an effort to resolve the issue. Some reports suggest that shattered glass littered the floor under the negotiating table. The long session led to the withdrawal of Russian soldiers from Estonian soil.
Meri is quoted widely in the international press and his utterings are sometimes referred to as “Meriisms”. A couple of examples:
Concerning membership in NATO: “Security is like virginity: you’re either a virgin or you’re not. You either have security or you don’t” (City Paper)
About Soviet-style behavior in government and society: “Our most dangerous enemy sits between our ears”.
Paul Goble, a friend of Lennart Meri, put it well in his article in Estonian Life when he said that “Lennart Meri had an amazing ability to make friends, to reach out to people, be they presidents or the poorest of his countrymen, literary scholars and filmmakers or those who had never read a book in their lives, and those who began with a basic affection for Estonia and those who had a different set of feelings”
Michael Tarm of Associated Press recently referred to Meri as Estonia’s Mr. Fix-it. This label was partly attributable to the Soviet way to fix a burnt-out light bulb. The Soviets would plan to fix all light switches and then decide to form a committee to organize the work. President Meri carried a screw driver with him as he moved through the Presidential Palace and immediately fixed anything that caught his eye.
During his brief but much-appreciated visit to Alberta, President Meri impressed all of us who had an opportunity to talk with and listen to him. He was well-versed about the Estonian immigrants who settled here more than a century ago. His thirst for knowledge was obvious, as was his message about the importance of being aware of one’s roots and the need to preserve Estonian culture. He reached out and made friends, we felt better, and remain thankful that he was in our midst.
The Alberta Estonian Heritage Society has mailed a message of condolence to Mr. Meri’s wife and daughter.
We remember Estonian President Lennart Meri (1929-2006).
