Anniversary of the Declaration of the Republic of Estonia

"Actually, I am Estonian."

It still feels weird saying that. I've spent my entire life being aware of Estonia, but not really knowing that much about it. Suddenly, it turns out that I actually am Estonian.

It feels like I should say I've become Estonian recently, although I've technically "been" Estonian (at least, that's how I justified getting the Estonian passport).

If I had taken out Estonian citizenship, or something, there would have been some sort of ceremony. I would have been able to say a few words (that I would probably have mispronounced), shake a dignitary's hand and have some sort of official declaration that "now, you are an Estonian."

Instead, because I took advantage of the fact that my grandmother left Estonia because of the War (and the Estonians are desperate for numbers), it was more a case of "oh, by the way, you're Estonian."

All of my life I've been Australian with one grandparent who was born in Estonia (a grandparent who helped raise me, mind). Now, all of a sudden, I'm an Estonian-Australian (or is it an Australian-Estonian), and I always have been.

It's bizarre on a few levels, but it's also fun. Lot's of exploring to do.

Since my grandmother came over here when she was a child, married a British immigrant when she was still quite young and promptly moved far away from any Estonian community, she did what many immigrants did and "forgot" most of the culture from her country of birth. She lost the language and almost everything else (except the cooking - we still managed to eat a lot of Estonian food in our family).

From the time I was a child I was always trying to pump more information out of her. While I always took pride in what culture I could lay claim to as a White Australian (bush dancing, folk songs, damper, that sort of thing), there was something in me that just wanted to be a part of something older. Seeing as most of my grandparents came from the UK originally, with a lot of Scottish heritage in the mix, part of me always looked to Scotland for that "something older", but I also wanted to learn more about this place my grandmother came from - and from which I inherited my fondness for pickled food...

However, asking my grandmother was about as useful as a cheese burger to a drowning elephant. She didn't remember most of it and didn't really care about the rest. Trying to find out more mainly resulted in a "why?" "what could you possibly need to know that for?" "does it matter?"

Now that I amEstonian, this is my culture with which I'm getting acquainted. I have a legitimate reason to care about Estonian history and customs. And I have a whole new range of holidays and anniversaries I have some claim to.

Take the Anniversary of the Declaration of the Republic of Estonia (aka Estonian Independence Day). That fell last Sunday (24th February). I completely forgot about it during Sunday, but since Monday morning was still Sunday evening in Estonia I feel I managed to do a little bit of observing. I read the speech by the President, for example.

I suppose I can also pretend I actually did do something on the Sunday that could be construed as reasonably celebratory - I took my Estonian grandmother to the Strand and we ate hot chips while looking out across the sea to the island. Sure, that's far more Australian than Estonian, but there were bays and islands and potatoes involved. That's a little bit Estonian.

Just like me, really.