Lecture | Promised Paradise, Found Hell: How Estonians Came to Believe Soviet Propaganda 100 Years Ago

Narva Muuseum invites everyone interested to another free lecture in the MeediaRadar project. After the lecture, you can continue discussing what you have heard over coffee and light refreshments.

The spread of disinformation and the lack of reliable information are by no means problems unique to today. Estonia and the rest of Europe faced them a hundred years ago, in the 1920s and 1930s. Through newspapers and radio, the Soviet Union sought to convince Europeans and Americans alike of the superiority of its social system. People who believed in the “Soviet paradise” travelled to the USSR, hoping to find work on major construction projects, earn good wages and take part in a fairer society. For many, however, reality turned out quite differently: they lost all their possessions and fell victim to repression.

Newspapers and magazines in both Estonian and Russian tried to warn people who had believed stories about record harvests on collective farms, a just Stalin and enormous wages. The accounts published in newspapers and magazines of the time make up a true-life thriller whose events are every bit as gripping as those of a crime novel. Its characters include peasants seeking a better life, Finnish workers, Estonian politicians and journalists, as well as people who secretly crossed the border, defectors and intelligence agents.

What was propaganda, and what was reality? Who was right, and how did the truth come to light? The speaker is Jevgeni Zavadski, a doctoral student in the Department of Slavonic Studies at the University of Tartu and an editor of ETV+ programmes.

Everyone is welcome to join the discussion. The lecture lasts 90 minutes. The event will be held in Russian. Admission is free, but registration is required. Places are limited.

This is a public event and will be recorded for publication.

The event is supported by the MeediaRadar project (2024–2028) of the Swiss–Estonian Cooperation Programme, which is carried out in cooperation with the National Library and the Ministry of Culture. The project is co-financed by the Swiss Confederation to reduce economic and social disparities within the European Union.