ESTONIAN SYMPHONIC MUSIC. THE FIRST CENTURY 1896-1996.
about five million books were destroyed.3
In Soviet Estonia the transformation of artistic life was directed by the Board of
Arts at the Ministry of Culture (headed by Johannes Semper) and guided by Communist
1
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed 23 Aug. 1939.
2
28 Sept. 1939.
3
Eesti kirjanduslugu (Estonian Literary History) (Tallinn: Koolibri, 2001) 345.
Party instructions. Socialist Realism was a compulsory orientation. The keystones of
this method are explained in the Small Soviet Encyclopaedia (1960):
…the main principle is the representation of reality truthfully and historically in its
revolutionary development. As a hero the working man comes to the fore. He regards his
connection with society as the inevitable struggle for communist order… The socialist ideology
of reality in the arts was scientifically propagated by Lenin.
annaabi.ee 
