The Patarei Sea Fort: Perspectives on Heritage, Memory, and Identity Politics in post-Soviet Estonia

Abstract

The Patarei sea fort is a heritage site that is at the moment either being remembered or ignored. National and international voices, like the Estonian Heritage Society, Europa Nostra and the EIB plead for the restauration of the fort. While the Estonian government, and the municipality take distance from the case by appointing the State Real Estate company RKAS to sell it to a private investor. However, when sold the private investor is still supposed to handle the heritage site properly because it is on the list of national heritages of Estonia. In order to uncover the either explicit or implicit perspectives on the how the past of Patarei should be remembered according to the discussed stakeholders, I position the case in the ‘critical heritage debate’ that emerged around the 1970s and post-Socialism in Estonia. In the theoretical framework/academic discussion, where I discuss the critical heritage debate, I take note of the connection heritage has with memory and identity. I also discuss the developments in the debate: what started as a linguistic post-modern inquiry focused on in what way heritage serves the national identity, it changed into something that can even represent a global and European community. Also, the idea that heritage studies are about material objects and that there are several stakeholders governing the fate of heritage sites emerged around the 2000s and 2010s. With post-Socialism I primarily focus on the ‘third memory boom’ and place it in the context of the developments of Estonia after regaining their independence in 1991.