How I am becoming an Estonian (Part 1)

It’s tough for me to write about becoming an Estonian; about wanting to be Estonian. To say I am becoming Estonian suggests I am moving away from being Australian. I am. It has the connotation of making me a traitor to everyone I know and love, but that is untrue. I am two halves making a whole. I love, I love both countries equally but I will never be 100% of one or the other. At the moment I feel like the Australian tide has run out, and the Estonian tide is set to come in.

Estonians reading this now are probably rolling their eyes in the back of their heads thinking “Here we go! Another wannabe Estonian” and they might be right. It’s difficult to explain a split of personal identity to people who have only ever known having their own identities as a race challenged for as long as they have existed. It’s also difficult to explain it to Australians who have never had to challenge their identity as they are comfortable with who and what they have become. This makes me the meat in my own sandwich, particularly when I try to explain my situation to both family and friends, Australians and Estonians alike. All I can tell you about is where this change has come from, where it is now, and where it is going.

So let me begin with where it all began...

When I was a child, Estonia was almost a fictional place I had heard about from my grandparents. I didn't have a cultural up-bringing in terms of learning the Estonian language or how to dance a Polka. My isa (father) was born in Germany just after the 2nd World War had ended due to my grandparents fleeing Estonia before they could be trapped by the on-coming Russian Red Army. Consequently, as my isa had never set foot in Estonia, the chances of me gaining a sense of culture from him were minimal. That and the fact he and my ema (mother) separated when I was young killed off any hope. What little culture I received came from my grandparents environment, but as they lived an hour away from Wollongong where I grew up, that connection was minute.

Up until I began school and started to learn what "geography" was, all I knew about Estonia was that it was a small country a long, long way away above a country called “Europe”. It was controlled by something called “Communism” and I knew that I probably shouldn't go there because it was horrible and boring. So as you can see, as a youngster, I didn't have a clue about the place.

As I progressed through school and discovered there was a world out there, my awareness of being Estonian still didn't figure. Of all people, my ema was the one who would mentally poke me about the fact my heritage came from somewhere other than Australia. I can recall playing hangman with her once where she was the hangman, and used the word 'Estonia' to try to hang me. I struggled to beat her to the noose as I had no clue what the word could be. Even getting the vowels out didn't help. It was no use. I hung.

My grandparents were active in both the Australian and Estonian community in Australia. They were both members of the local RSL (Retired Services League) and Rotary Clubs. Although my grandparents integrated well into Australian life, they still retained the sense of who they were as Estonians. My vanaisa (Grandfather) ran Eesti Kula (Estonian Village) in Thirlmere for a few years. When I went to visit them there, I was surrounded by old Estonian people speaking Estonian to me. There were no other kids in the village to play with other than the 70 to 90 year old female ones. Although it could be lonely for a kid, I made my own fun around the place and ruled the village roads on my red dragster push bike. Good times.

After my vanaisa retired from managing Eesti Kula, they built a house and moved into it, not far from the village. When I would visit, I used to love putting on my vanaisa Estonian fraternity hat and take out the honorary sword and swish it around. Luckily I never harmed anyone, or myself. Their house was different to everyone else’s I knew. It had different things in it, it smelt different, the cooking was different, the habits were different, but I knew them all. Although it was different, I didn't think of it as different as I had grown up with it and didn't know any different. It was part of me. I was part of it. It was my second home.

Occasionally when I was in Thirlmere, I would muck about with a pair of Estonian brothers who were a year or two younger than I was. Dean and his brother were both in the same boat as I was when it came to identifying with what Estonia was to them. They had Estonian grandparents on their father’s side as well, and came from a divorced home just like I did. Although we all lived in Wollongong every other day of the year, we never saw each other except for when we went to visit our grandparents in Thirlmere. This had gone on since we could stand. Aside from Dean and his brother, I had no real interaction with anyone my age that was Estonian. At the time, it didn’t matter. Knowing these two brothers would turn out to be all I needed as Dean would be a conduit for all things Estonian in the future.

My experience with the Estonian-Australians was less social however. When I was young, I found the old Estonians who were always around my grandparents a little up-tight. Well, the men anyway. As I was a young child from a single-parent home, I was a little wild and ill-disciplined. For some vanamees (old men), that just wouldn’t do. I never had any serious brushes with Estonian authority, but that's not to say I didn't come close.

Until my other-father met my mother and was able to drive me to Thirlmere where my grandparents lived, my grandparents would have to come and pick me up in their little white Subaru. For all the trouble it was, it was as far away as Estonia for me to get to. This would be the status-quo of my early years, but leave me with the subconscious building blocks of what it was to be Estonian.

In 1984 when my ema, other-father and I moved to Thailand for my other-fathers work, my occasional trips to Thirlmere would stop for almost two years until I returned. Whilst I was living in Bangkok, they would write me when they could. More often than not it was my vanaema as my vanaisa suffered from hideously debilitating arthritis in his hands. The writing kept us going.