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Trivimi Velliste

Birth : 1947-05-04,

History

Trivimi Velliste (born 4 May 1947, in Tartu, Estonia) is an Estonian politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1992 to 1994 and as the Estonian Ambassador to the United Nations from 1994 to 1998. He currently is a Member of Parliament in the Riigikogu representing the Pärnumaa Electoral District. Velliste is considered one of the leading forces behind the liberation of the Baltic States. His fight for Estonian identity as a foundation for the struggle to gain independence was an affront to the Russians and was conducted at great personal risk. Velliste deliberately encouraged the drive for national and political freedom. In accordance with his beliefs, he founded a society for the protection of Estonian historical monuments. Velliste considered knowledge of the past to be a necessity in the fight for elementary human rights on the road to self-government and self-confidence. In 1988, Mr Velliste was awarded the second Rafto Prize.

Profile

Trivimi Velliste

Movies

The Singing Revolution

The Singing Revolution

Self

Most people don't think about singing when they think about revolutions. But song was the weapon of choice when, between 1986 and 1991, Estonians sought to free themselves from decades of Soviet occupation. During those years, hundreds of thousands gathered in public to sing forbidden patriotic songs and to rally for independence. "The young people, without any political party, and without any politicians, just came together ... not only tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands ... to gather and to sing and to give this nation a new spirit," remarks Mart Laar, a Singing Revolution leader featured in the film and the first post-Soviet Prime Minister of Estonia. "This was the idea of the Singing Revolution." James Tusty and Maureen Castle Tusty's "The Singing Revolution" tells the moving story of how the Estonian people peacefully regained their freedom--and helped topple an empire along the way.

Writer

Valmar Adams (1899-1993), writer and literary historian with artistic nature, has played an important part as a mediator of Russian literature and culture while working in the faculty of Russian language and literature at the University of Tartu during 1931-1974. First poems in Russian and German were published already in 1915. However, his hot-bloodedness often caused trouble. Trivimi Velliste, Rein Veidemann and Linnar Priimägi talk to the 87-year-old Adams.