Protest
Singing Revolution, 1988-89
A wave of mass public singing gatherings from June 1988, and the 23 August 1989 Baltic Way human chain of over two million people across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, became the defining nonviolent movement for restoring Baltic independence.
What happened
The Singing Revolution began with a night-time public singing gathering on 10 June 1988; a song festival in Tallinn that September drew roughly 300,000 people, nearly a quarter of the Estonian population, with the first open public calls for restoring independence. On 23 August 1989, the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, over two million people across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania formed a continuous human chain, the "Baltic Way," stretching from Tallinn to Vilnius.[1]
Sources for this page
Each number marks a specific claim. Notes give the source, its locator and how it relates to the claim.
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1.
Claim: The Singing Revolution began with a night-time public singing gathering on 10 June 1988; a September 1988 song festival in Tallinn drew roughly 300,000 people, nearly a quarter of the Estonian population, with the first open public calls for restoring independence. On 23 August 1989, the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, over two million people across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania formed a continuous human chain, the "Baltic Way," from Tallinn to Vilnius.
- Singing Revolution (Wikipedia) link, Origins and Baltic Way sections. Source record