'It has been said that a wife does not care whether her husband is a photographer or an alcoholic: in both cases, the family budget is very tight.' (1)

This opening sets the stage for discussing the challenges and realities of pursuing humanist photography in Soviet Estonia, using ironic humor to underscore the undervaluation of photography during that era. In the Western world, and also in Estonia before the Second World War, photography was viewed as a respectable art form; the war and the subsequent Soviet occupation, together with the Stalinist regime, created a gap of almost 20 years in the development of Estonian photography (ca. 1940–1960). During this period, photography was primarily used as a propaganda tool by photographers representing the socialist press. Private individuals owning a photo camera were treated with reluctance and suspicion in public space, considering it a danger to the regime. In addition, the vacuum was aggravated by the forced departure of former photographers to the West or East.

The resulting time gap and the accompanying break in continuity did nothing to restore photography’s position as an art form, even after the light meltdown of the regime that followed Stalin’s death. Photography was not considered a separate art form nor taught at any university. Although in the 1970s, due to pressure from the artists, it was possible to teach photography as a subject in the graphics department of the State Art Institute, the situation remained the same in terms of the big picture. Photography was seen as vocational training at best, and so in 1969, it began to be taught at the Tallinn II Technical School. (2)

So, it is not surprising that the most significant driving force behind the development of photography in Estonia was the creation of numerous photo clubs that emerged in the 1960s; at one point, there were more than ten in Estonia. Despite repeated calls in the press to create a professional creative union for photographers similar to the Artists’ Union, this was not put into practice until the end of the Soviet era. Therefore, photographers had to develop their own institutional basis in the form of photo clubs. (3) By nature, these photo clubs were democratic and included amateurs, professionals working in the press, and artists. One might think this environment, untouched by elitism, also created a favorable ground for humanistic photography, which naturally emphasizes simplicity, humanity, and emotional depth in its attempt to convey the stories and experiences of ordinary people. Unfortunately, and of course, due to the censorship of the ruling regime, the audience very rarely saw an authentic and sincere study of the human. On rare occasions, if it succeeded, this was mainly due to the shrewdness of the photographers in obscuring these aspects from the censors using a veil of artistic self-expression or by concealing the more ambiguous messages between layers of silver gelatin prints.

Over time, photography groups began to appear alongside, and in opposition to, the photo clubs. They gathered a narrow circle of photographers that shared a similar worldview and artistically united ambitions. Two of the most well-known and influential photography groups were STODOM and BEG. Of the artists showcased in the selection of the Human Baltic Estonian exhibition, Peeter Tooming and Kalju Suur belonged to STODOM, and Ene Kärema to BEG. STODOM was created as early as in 1964 by a gathering of photographers at Kalju Suur’s home. It was the first independent creative association in the entire Soviet union, which aimed to focus on the art of photography.

One of the leading ideologues of STODOM was Peeter Tooming (1939–1997), who, in addition to thousands of photographs, published numerous articles and appeals to various national bodies in the hope of fighting for photography’s deserved place in the art field. For this exhibition, we have selected works of his that explore the relationship between a woman’s body and the environment, where the author has placed the model both in a man-made environment (a mining quarry) and also in a natural space (the seashore and a meadow next to a forest). The photo-artistically masterful works can be classified as nudes, but here one can find daring, humorous, surprising, and melancholy aspects typical of Tooming’s work.

Kalju Suur (1928–2013) was a versatile author moving perpetually and smoothly between different genres. For this exhibition, we have selected his works that capture the daily lives of ordinary people, focusing on depictions of the elderly in the main series. These works are simple and charming, but each tells a story the viewer can interpret according to their own imagination. The second photo collection in the exhibition shows people participating in the Baltic Way demonstrations in the small series produced during the author’s time as a photojournalist.

The photo group BEG, created in 1975, also tried to bring novelty into the general picture of the Estonian photography scene. One of its founders and most prominent female representatives was Ene Kärema (b. 1948), from whose entire oeuvre for this exhibition we have selected works from her two most valued series, both related to children.

Being known as one of the principal portrayers of people and their living conditions in rural Estonia, Kärema’s works include a series titled “Where Grandma Was Born,” which depicts the children of the author’s close relatives posing on an old farm on a sunny summer. Innocent children act as a ray of hope on a farm dilapidated by time, or as proof that it is possible to continue life in the countryside. Looking at this prosaic series in the context of the Soviet environment, and knowing that many farms were left empty and fell into oblivion after the mass deportations of civilians to Siberia, the innocent story of this picture becomes much more profound. It might be an excellent example of how it was still possible to introduce sensitive topics using delicate artistic means under strict censorship.

Arno Saar (1953–2022), one of whose mentors Kalju Suur was also, belonged to the largest photo club in Estonia, the Tallinn Photo Club. However, Saar was kicked out of it in 1982 because he had exhibited photographs of the legendary Estonian musician and actor Peeter Volkonski, soloist of an ensemble banned in the Soviet Union during that period. The Human Baltic exhibition also features six portraits of his representing the banned punk movement in Soviet Estonia. Saar was one of the few photographers who, defying the immediate threat of repression, dared to record punks in such a systematic way and thereby also show the braver side of society from the late period of Soviet occupation.

Peeter Langovits (b. 1948) also belonged to the Tallinn Photo Club and was one of its active members, participating in several exhibitions. Langovits was not fascinated by the prevailing interest in nature, the female body, or the experiments with special techniques in the photography club in the 1970s. Even then, he was curious about the urban space surrounding a person, its change over time, and the place of a person within it. In this exhibition, we included excerpts from one of his best-known series “Morning at the New Neighborhood” (1982–1984). This series was photographed in a unique and newly built circular residential area called Õismäe, where the photographer himself has lived. Quoting Langovits, “A beautiful morning at the new place I was living in gave me a lucky chance to capture the neighborhood just waking up, shrouded in fog, characteristic of that era, which helped me compile the photography exhibition.” (4)

Tiit Veermäe (b. 1950) did not belong to photo clubs but was a founding member of the Association of Photo Artists established in Estonia in 1987. Like almost all Estonian photographers of the Soviet era, he also lacked a formal education in photography. However, he acquired his interest in photography from a photo course taught at school. Veermäe has worked as a press and advertising photographer for most of his professional career, but he was particularly interested in architectural and industrial photography. In this exhibition, we can see his unique series of the Baltic Way at night, where he recorded the events on the border of Estonia and Latvia, as the two nations freeing themselves from the Soviet occupation had joined hands across the border.

In our attempt to answer the hypothetical question posed in the title – how possible was it to practice humanist photography in Soviet Estonia, focusing on the study of human beings, engaging with people’s living conditions in an empathic and analytic way, thus creating a connection between the photographer, the subject, and the viewer – unfortunately, we must state that the possibilities for it in public life were minimal. Peeter Linnap, one of the most accomplished researchers of Estonian photography history, points out that the Estonian photo clubs, as Soviet institutions, had one task that was difficult to avoid – the function of ideological control – and they did it through art councils and the development of an evaluation system (jury and pre-jury). In Linnap’s opinion, a significant branch of documentary photography, the so-called social critical photo-documentary, which is not the same as humanistic photography but still closely related to it, was almost completely suppressed. It remains for the viewer to decide whether some of the works presented in this exhibition had the potential to break through the canons and censorship imposed by the Soviet regime and tell stories about people and humanity behind the Iron Curtain.

1. A. Rünk, K. Lukats, Art belongs to the people - but what about photographic art? Sirp ja Vasar 16. V 1980

2. P. Linnap, Estonian History of Photography 1839–2015, lk 185.

3.  J. Treima, Kunstilisest fotograafiast Eesti 1960.–1970. aastate fotograafiaretseptsioonis, Eesti Kunstiakadeemia, 2010

4. T. Verk, P. Langovits, Peeter Langovits ½ sajandit, lk 63, Tallinna Linnamuuseum, 2021

5. P. Linnap, Klubilisest fotograafiast, TMK 1993, nr 8, lk 31-40