Elo-Hanna Seljamaa Guest Lecture “A Pulsating Landscape in Identity Narratives: Tallinn Defence Forces Cemetery”

On October 17 at 15:00, on the Zoom platform, Elo-Hanna Seljamaa, Associate Professor of Estonian and Comparative Folklore at the University of Tartu, will give a guest lecture “A Landscape Pulsating with Identity Narratives: Tallinn Defence Forces Cemetery” (Identitāšu naratīvos pulsējoša ainava: Tallinas Aizsardzības spēku kapsēta).

The Tallinn Defence Forces Cemetery has been in use as a burial site since the late 19th century and is the final resting place for approximately 4,500 soldiers of various ranks, ethnicities, and military affiliations. Among the graves are monuments dedicated to the Estonian War of Independence and both World Wars. In 2007, after it became a flashpoint for ethnic tensions fueled by antagonistic narratives about the country’s past, the so-called Bronze Soldier monument was also relocated there.

The presentation is based on long-term fieldwork and Gillian Carr’s concept of the memorialscape, developed to analyze sites that have experienced multiple occupations and the (de)construction of places of remembrance. It will examine how the Defence Forces Cemetery continues to stand at the intersection of competing narratives about Estonia’s past, present, and future, as well as in the midst of mutually exclusive and equally unattainable identity claims.

Elo-Hanna Seljamaa is Associate Professor of Estonian and Comparative Folklore at the University of Tartu, with a longstanding research interest in diversity, politics, and memory and commemoration practices.

Photo © Elo-Hanna Seljamaa

The guest lecture is part of the seminar series “Landscapes of Identities” within the project “Landscapes of Identities: History, Culture and Environment” (No. VPP-LETONIKA-2021/1-0008).