VILNIUS - Folk music has kept the culture of the Baltic states intact and guided their people through centuries of crises, wars and long foreign occupations.
In the Middle Ages, song and dance helped Baltic serfs get through a long day in the fields tending their lords' crops and animals.
Later, in the 19th Century, these same songs helped foment nationalism in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania against Imperial Russia after their languages were repressed and former landmarks destroyed. The first Baltic song festival was held 140 years ago in Estonia (see story Page 2). Latvia soon followed suit, while Lithuania held its first in 1924.
The festivals continued during the Soviet times, although some of the traditional songs were replaced with odes to Stalin and communism. Yet even the watchdogs of totalitarianism couldn't stamp out the national spirit inherent in the tunes. The forbidden folk songs continued to be sung in private, and eventually found their way out of hiding during the pro-independence rallies two decades ago.
This past week, those same medieval folk songs and their modern variations were reincarnated yet again in Estonia and Lithuania in a show of nationalistic solidarity that organizers say will help the Baltic people through their latest challenge 's the economic crisis.
The Baltic states have still not been fully tested yet by the downturn 's the ills it has heaped upon these three small nations will continue to fall. The people seem powerless to stop the disappearance of jobs and educational opportunities, the decline of wages, pensions and value of land.
While the old songs and dances cannot physically turn around economic decline, they can provide festival participants an escape, even a solace. The ritual of the song festival affirms faith in Baltic nationalism 's and thus the stability of the existing political order in a rocky economic situation.
When people have grown cynical about their elected representatives and found they cannot trust employers for steady work, their willingness to gather by the thousands to wave their national flag, shout "Lietuva" or "Eesti," sing the same songs as their forefathers and dress in traditional costumes demonstrates a credence in their national destiny.
"There was really such a feeling that you're together with your friends, relatives and neighbors," Tonu Karjatse, a press coordinator for the Estonian Song and Dance Celebration, told The Baltic Times.
"Times have changed and everything is so hard again for some on an economic and political level, but despite the differences and difficulties you are there and you feel strong," he said.
Participants both past and present tell of a powerful feeling of oneness that transcends age and circumstance 's and it is this feeling that brings young and old Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians back to the festivals every few years to sing and dance with their fellow countrymen.
Kristina Guobuziate of Vilnius, 25, danced in the 1994 Lithuanian Song and Dance Celebration and has watched every subsequent festival.
"It was really nice to dance in front of so many people," Guobuzaite told TBT. "I was only 11, I didn't feel deep, deep feelings but now I would feel euphoria. When I watch them now it touches me deeply inside."
Although she listens to many kinds of music, Guobuzaite holds a special affection for traditional Lithuanian folk songs.
"It's nice that we have such old traditions and we should appreciate that," she said. "The first was in 1924 and we should be proud of that, that we saved it, when life is getting more modern and when people want to learn modern dance, Latin dances or hip-hop. It's nice that young people still have a desire to save it and give it to other generations."
Guobuzaite's little sister, Agne, participated in the 2007 festival. Although that was only two years ago, Lithuania held another Song and Dance Celebration this year to mark Vilnius' status as European Capital of Culture and the first mention of Lithuania in chronicles 1,000 years ago.
The festival culminated July 6 with the "Song of Thousand Dawns for Lithuania" event in Vilnius' Vingis Park at an amphitheater built specially for the festival. Dovile Alebaite, 18, sang onstage in a traditional costume that featured a tree branch wreath as a hat.
Alebaite said singing with thousands of other Lithuanians brought on tears of joy.
"We are very happy to be onstage, sometimes you want to cry," she said.
Alebaite's friend Greta Sliauzyte, also 18, sang in a traditional dress as well and echoed similar sentiments about the experience.
"I think it's very exciting. The feeling is hard to describe, it's so big," Sliauzyte said. "The feeling is amazing."
Participants like Guobuzaite, Alebaite and Sliauzyte spend at least a week practicing the dance moves and singing songs that blend old tradition with modern variations. While these three women live in Vilnius, Lithuanians from other parts of the country are bused in and sleep in school gymnasiums and classrooms during the festival.
None of the participants are paid 's they do it for love of the event, as hundreds of choirs compete for a coveted spot onstage at the festival.
"It's important for the culture of our country," Sliauzyte said. "I think it's important for people to forget about the crisis and money and just be here together."
Like the historical centers of their respective capital cities, the song and dance festivals of each of the Baltic states were recognized by UNESCO in 2003 as "a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity."
"The keeping of nationality during Soviet times, it was very important for all three nations," Dalia Dargyte, a spokesperson for the Lithuanian Folk Culture Center, told TBT. "Because of that, UNESCO proclaimed them as a masterpiece."
