Chain

In the very last episode of Stories of The Eastern West as you knew it, we’re taking you to Estonia, 1989. A group of people there made 2 million others hold hands and create a human chain of unprecedented size and significance. The Baltic countries had a truly turbulent 20th century. They went from regaining their independence to losing it to the USSR and becoming subject to a ruthless policy of Russification. Unsurprisingly, they needed something big to jump on the bandwagon of the 1989 peaceful revolutions that liberated several countries from the USSR’s influence. What they came up with was a human chain linking Tallinn with Riga and Vilnius. This huge event is something hard to wrap one’s head around nowadays when we think about the scanty means of communication the organisers had. Our producer Wojciech went to Estonia and got a chance to talk to several people who co-organised or participated in the event. How was it at all possible? Why wasn’t it thwarted by the communist regime? How do people remember such a defining moment in their lives over 30 years later? Further listening KAIE / our episode from our mini-series The Final Curtain about ‘The Singing Revolution’ that Adam mentions in the show Further reading The Longest Unbroken Human Chain In History / an article on estonianworld.com All the human chains in one place / an article on wikipedia.org Further watching The Inimitable Baltic Way / a Lithuanian documentary Thanks Ivi Gubinska, Reet Villig, Eve Sildnik, Andres Tarand and Lukas Hioo for taking the time to discuss this incredible event with us. Keiu Telve and Maia-Liisa Anton for connecting us with Baltic Way participants and their thoughtful discussions about the meaning of the event. Credits Written & produced by Wojciech Oleksiak Edited by Adam Zulawski & Nitzan Reisner Hosted by Nitzan Reisner & Adam Zulawski Scoring & sound design by Wojciech Oleksiak

You can listen to Chain online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Chain is an episode from Stories From The Eastern West by Culture.pl.

This episode is 00:25:43 long.

This episode was published on Sep 1, 2022.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Stories From The Eastern West when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.