The sovietization of Estonian community houses (Rahvamaja): Soviet guidelines

Abstract

Estonian Community houses were built in towns and the countryside by local people, who joined cultural and other societies since the second half of the 19th century. These cultural centers supported the process of Estonian state building. During the years of the first Estonian independent state (1918–1940), the network of community houses was set up by the state. After the invasion of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union in 1940, extensive restructuring or sovietization of the Estonian public administration, economy and culture, began. The article examines the sovietization process of Estonian community houses, i.e., how they were turned into the ideological tools of Soviet totalitarian propaganda.