The Decade of Great Myths: Developments in the Estonian Art Scene of the 1990s

The 1990s witnessed the total collapse of the political system in Eastern Europe, which directly influenced contemporary cultural structures: from the institutions and financing of the arts to the question of values that art should represent in the new circumstances. The decade in question is one of contradiction, destruction, and construction, and to regard it as a consistent entity is practically impossible. Therefore, social and cultural scientists have also preferred to approach it by stages, observing the democratisation processes step by step. In the second half of the 1980s, the time of perestroika and singing revolution1, mass movements and protest waves started developing in Estonia, led by Estonian intellectuals and cultural elite, and based on ideas of nationalism and political freedom. The events of the singing revolution climaxed on 20 August 1991, as the Supreme Council of the Estonian SSR accepted the declaration of Estonia’s national