At the launch of my book Eyewitness: Estonia 1909–1949 about one year ago, an old Estonian gentleman approached me. With a perplexed look on his face he showed me a picture of a building in the book, saying that it was actually a picture of the girls’ school, whereas the caption described it as the 'Tallinn City Boys Commercial College’1. Earlier on, while I’d been writing the book, my cousin in Estonia had sent me a photograph of the school which she’d taken off a website. I couldn’t use that photo due to copyright so, in response to my request, she had taken a new photo of the same building on Pärnu Maantee which she then sent to me.
Shortly after the book launch I was on my way to Estonia, thoroughly exhausted by the last three years of hard work. So unremitting had been the work that I still think of it as the toughest time of my entire life. The last three months had been exceptionally hard, as it is once you set yourself a deadline. As a result of that experience, I realise that the main benefit of a deadline is that it forces writers to finalise their work. Without a deadline, they will often procrastinate and continue to edit, sometimes never publishing the work in their entire lifetime. So on the flight I looked forward to a period of respite in Estonia.
One of my hobbies is looking through online catalogues, searching for items of interest in second-hand bookshops. Nowadays in Estonia most bookstores have online catalogues. My interest in buying any item is with a view to in some way adding to the historical authenticity of my book. Shortly after my arrival in Estonia, because of that old man's comment, my attention was caught by a particular booklet in one of those online catalogues.
In Australia I had already become aware of the existence of this booklet, titled 25 Years – The History of the Tallinn City Boys Commercial College. So I telephoned Raamatukoi and ordered it. Raamatukoi is a second-hand bookshop in Tallinn that specialises in second-hand books, pamphlets, magazines and other assorted printed matter. Much of their material is bought from families and deceased estates who are disposing of their private book collections and personal items. Although the title was listed, the man I spoke to said that he would have to check first to confirm that it was still available. A couple of days later, there was a telephone call advising me to collect it.
Raamatukoi is almost at the end of the first short section in Harju Street, in the 'old town' of Tallinn. I caught a tram there, and from the tram stop at Vabaduse Väljak (Freedom Square), I walked across the road. I then had to go past some road works alongside the excavations of the site for the now famous War of Independence monument. During the excavations Tallinn City Council had even discovered some ruins from the 13th century so as I walked to the bookshop, I was quite excited at the prospect of peering through the cyclone wire fence to view the recent archaeological discoveries. But, turning from the square into Harju Street, I was saddened to see this ‘beautification’ of the previously unkempt patch of ruins which had so tellingly represented the horror of the bombing of Tallinn on March 1944. They had been a stark reminder of the bombing of our beloved city.
I recall that as I entered the bookstore there was a queue of people waiting to pay for their purchases. There is always a varied clientele in the store intent on finding some item of value. Writers and artists are easily distinguishable by their general poverty-stricken appearance, so needless to say, I felt that I fitted in well with the crowd of buyers in the shop. No one seemed unhappy about the price they paid for the second-hand materials, which struck me as being in sharp contrast to the attitude of customers in Australia, where people act as if they are doing the proprietor of a second-hand shop a favour, often quibbling over the amount of the discount they might get on some used item.
Because the booklet was old, it was handed to me in a clear plastic bag. I took it out from the bag and examined it carefully, checking to see that all the pages were in sequential order. From a quick glance over the booklet, I saw there were photographs of the Tallinn City Boys Commercial College building as well as a list of graduates at the end of the book. When I arrived home, I put it on a pile of similar items so that I could examine it at a more convenient time.
My main item of business that day was to catch Mart Laar, the famous Estonian historian and leader of the nationalist Isamaaliit - Res Publica political party, who like a proverbial gadfly, was flitting here and there, involved in a plethora of activities ranging from supporting Georgia at European forums to giving the keynote address at the funeral of Jaan Kross, the esteemed Estonian writer. Luckily I was able to arrange, at short notice, for a copy of my book to accompany him on a flight to Georgia, hoping that my father's words would give him resolve in the Russian invasion of Georgia crisis and hoping to meet him later at a more convenient time.
At the time I used to breakfast at the Reval Cafe, which is located on the corner of Pärnu Maantee and Sakala Street. After that, I would walk a short distance up Sakala Street to a copy shop that printed my business cards, invoices and other assorted paraphernalia to enable me to market my book. For over a month I kept to the same routine.
I think that it was one day in October, as I was standing on the street after a late breakfast enjoying the sunshine and the sense of the moment in Sakala Street, that my gaze rested on an old building across the road and for some strange reason, perhaps because of a nagging memory, my curiosity got the better of me. So I crossed the road, and peering through the wrought-iron fence at the old wall plaques, I read the signs on the side of the building. You can imagine my surprise at finding the Tallinn Boys Commercial College building still standing and intact.
My astonishment was immense, largely because of the hours that I had spent poring over old maps of Tallinn, trying to trace out the route of the highway to find my father's secondary school. This was made difficult by the changes to Tallinn during the Russian occupation, the ongoing reconstruction of Tallinn and the destruction of heritage-listed buildings in Sakala Street, the subject of corruption scandals that were reported daily in the newspapers.
I decided to walk back across the road to look at the building from a little further away. I stepped past the parked cars, and having dodged in and out of the traffic, was standing on the roadway in a passing traffic lane. This almost resulted in my being run over by a BMW driven by a member of the new elite.
I recall that the driver, who had his driver’s side window open, stopped the car and looked at me in amazement. I said to him, “That is my father's school. The school he went to in 1924!” The driver laughed and said to me in Estonian, “Wonderful, I can see you are a double lucky person, lucky that I saw you in time as I was blinded by the sun and lucky to discover this school.” He congratulated me again on finding my father's school and wished me well as he sped off.
When I returned home, a short way from that building at number 19 Sakala Street, the first thing I did was to open the small book to confirm my discovery. The caption under the photo of the school stated that the school was at 19a Sakala Street. When I spoke to my relatives about the events of that afternoon in the sunshine, they told me that since 1924 there had been many changes to the roads in Tallinn. Even they did not know that Sakala Street had previously been named Vana Pärnu Maantee.
Over the next few sunny autumn days which followed this discovery, I took many pictures of that stark old building, one of which is included in the second edition of my book, thereby making it historically accurate. So a mystery was revealed, and perhaps my confirmation of the change of the road from Vana Pärnu Maantee to Sakala Street adds a little more to the history of Tallinn, the ancient capital of Estonia. It is a wonderful experience to unravel a mystery and to establish a precise history of the events, as well as to enhance the authenticity of my father's story.
But this wasn’t all. As I mentioned earlier I even discovered, near the end of the book, a list of graduates from the years 1909 to 1933. Otto Johann Kiesel, the school Direktor, had listed the names of all the graduates and teachers, precisely spelt. I felt happy at the sight of my father's name, 'Voldemar Rattur' and also that of my uncle, 'Viktor Rattur'. Making corrections to the second edition, I felt that the benefit to readers, genealogists and scholars is that a precise, accurate spelling of a name tied to a specific date may help to unravel a vast amount of history. Readers will thank Otto Johann Kiesel for being an exemplary educator and teacher to whom we owe a profound debt.
The second edition is a better book for its historical authenticity. If some readers are aggrieved about the quality of the first edition, all I can say is that if the first edition had not appeared, the old Estonian gentleman would not have been able to make his comment to me and this writer would have been unaware of the aforementioned details. In as much as I can offer a 'mea culpa', I will state unequivocally that for the rest of my life, if I become aware of any new revelations, another edition will appear.
Although a year has passed since the publication of the book, I feel the most significant feature of the book is that it is the only book written in English of an eyewitness account of that period of Estonian history. Thus, in 2010, we are able to read the tale of a very ordinary man from a very tiny country, and the children and grandchildren of Estonians whose first language is English, can understand a little more about the people of Estonia and of their extraordinary exploits and history.
A fitting end to this story for me would be to see the look of surprise on the face of the old Estonian gentleman when he reads this article in his newspaper and understands that I am sincerely grateful for his comment, “This is not a picture of the boys’ school”.
Rex Urmas Rattur
Sydney, January 2010
1. Tallinna Linna Poeglaste Kaubanduskool
