Humanitarian Aid and the Taste of Freedom: Exploring Political History through Olfactory Heritage

Finland and Estonia have similar histories, but for much of the 20th century these culturally and linguistically close neighbors were separated by the Iron Curtain. As the Soviet economy crumbled in the late 1980s, Finns improvised a person-to-person humanitarian effort to alleviate the woes of late-socialism in Soviet-occupied Estonia. Shipments of food, medicine, technology and toys started to flow across the Gulf as the frenzy of grass-root international relations forged vast networks based on friendship and good will. This not only provided relief but also fostered a renewed sense of agency among Estonians on their peaceful path towards independence. The talk draws on archival material and oral histories to explore how “a taste of freedom” emerged through cross-border aid and how spontaneous connections paved the path towards a stable democracy as well as reshaped the global Estonian diaspora in unexpected ways.