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EESTI ELU reedel, 29. aprillil 2022 — Friday, April 29, 2022
Sir John Pitka 1872–1944 A large life Most of us know Sir John Pitka as the commanding officer of the Estonian Navy during Estonia’s War of Independence 1918-1920 from the Soviet Union, and for his knighthood from King George V in 1920. We may not know that shortly after Pitka was promoted to Rear Admiral, his mental health from the stress of war was so compromised that on Dec. 14, 1919 he was given a six month vacation leave. Pitka went to England. He had lived in Liverpool in the years 19031912 operating a shipping brokerage firm, Pitka & Jummutz. Shortly after his departure from Estonia, a peace treaty was signed on February 2, 1920. Pitka’s life drastically changed on May 16th, 1923 when his eldest son, John Imant, age 27, was killed in a car accident in Reval. Five months later Johan Pitka, alone, arrived in Canada calling on the Department of Immigration and Colonization to discuss the migration of 100 independent farmers with their families. On the 16th of October he left Ottawa to explore western Canada for six weeks. The next year Sir John Pitka and family left Liverpool on March 21, 1924 travelling in third class on the s.s. Mont calm, they arrived in St. John,
Ukrainian war… (Continued from page 9)
obviously erroneous belief is precisely what prevents a person from developing and succeeding. Among other things, the product of such belief is the assignment of personal failure to nationality even if that claim is lie and lack of success can be attributed to the usual reasons of ineptitude or lack of qualifications, which can be overcome by educating and retraining oneself. 2. As Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking people come from Ukraine, many Estonian people who do not speak Estonian (or lack fluency) make this argument: “The new arrivals speak the same language that we do but have lived here only
New Brunswick, Pitka had $2,700.00 in his wallet. On his entry immigration form he listed his occupation (rather humbly) “Farmer and Man of Business.” Vanderhoof is only 80 kilo metres from Fort St. James but it took them 3 days to arrive as their railcar was disengaged from the train, and 3 wagons, each pulled by 2 horses through snow 15 km. over rough steep roads, getting stuck and eventually switching to sleighs. Homesteading began, Pitka tried dairy and sheep farming, a sawmill and raised various crops, but after a 5 year stint, the Pitkas returned to Estonia. Back in the homeland, the 1930s proved prosperous years for Pitka, he immersed himself in various organizations. It is thought that because he escaped to Finland in 1940, the Soviets retaliated by arresting and executing his 3 sons in 1942. Pitka returned to Estonia from Finland, and some think he died in battle in 1944. We do know his wife and two daughters fled to Sweden in 1944, and in 1948 they re-immigrated to Vancou ver, Canada. My grandfather, Captain Johannes Suksdorf (1881-1925) a former harbourmaster of Kronstadt, Kotlin during the Tsarist years 1914-1917, was appointed as a direct advisor to Admiral Pitka on September 18. 1919 regarding Uppunud Varanduse Päästmise (Sunken Equipment Rescue). During
for a few weeks and are already surrounded by care and attention from the majority of Estonian society. Why are they not required to speak the national language?!” One might ask, how can that belief be held? How can a common-sense person compare his problems as a long-term resident of Estonia with the suffering of a mother fleeing a bomb blast with two children in her arms? In such a situation, how can a war refugee be expected to immediately master the Estonian language? 3. The survey cited above says that 39 percent of non-Estonian speakers trust Estonian channels in covering the topic of the Russian war on Ukraine, while 27 percent trust Russian channels. Putting it another way, almost one third of this group is
Young Erik Kreem, composer and pianist, performing on April 23 with Morel, Brahms, Rahmaninov at Heliconian Place. Photo: Peeter Põldre
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Upcoming virtual artist talk by Britta Benno
Pitka’s time at Käsmu Marine School c.1891, he worked on the tall ship ‘Liina’ owned and operated by my great-grand father Capt. Magnus Mikenberg (1865-1928). I highly recommend My Formative Years, the book so beautifully translated into Eng lish by Hillar Kalmar, details Pitka’s memoirs of his adventures as a sea captain 18961900 of the barque ‘Lilly.’ Exciting chapters: A Sailor Declares War on Mexicans; We Borrow Some Food; The Cook Gets Angry; Liquor Flows to the Mate’s Bunk. Other books translated by Kalmar include ‘Captain on the Yangtze,’ (Capt. Peeter Mender’s 30 years in the Far East and China) and Evald Past’s By Land and By Sea. The books are available from Amazon and Earnshaw Books. EVA VABASALU
firmly in the grip of Russian state media. For this group there was no sweeping bombing of Mariupol, only a “special operation” going on in Ukraine. Ukraine has been “killing children in Donbass for eight years” and there are neo-Nazis who must be suppressed by force. This third, largely comprised of people aged 50+, has connections with groups that think much more soberly and humanely, like their children and grandchildren. There is also a percentage of people in the survey who question both western and Russian media. If the alternative reality offered by Moscow is believed, it raises a question: what are the refugees doing here? Are these war refugees, or are they economic migrants and friends of the those Ukrainian neo-Nazis? And we do not trust these Ukrainians very much either, because there are good Ukrainians who welcome Rus sia’s “special operation” and bad Ukrainians who do not welcome it. The tragedy of people thinking in this way is that they do not understand that, in addition to almost all non-Russianheritage Ukrainians, millions of Russian-heritage Ukrainians hate the current Russia wholeheartedly. Their tragedy is also that they cannot believe that Russia can have murderous, criminal motives, or that Putin’s decisions have negatively changed the status of the
Estonian printmaker Britta Benno visited Canada in 2021 and spent a month in Hamil ton working at the Cotton Factory on several art pieces for her art exhibition that was held in Tartu in January of this year. EKKT (The Society of Estonian Artists in Toronto) and VEMU (Esto nian Museum Canada) are co-hosting a virtual talk and pictorial presentation by Britta Benno of her art exhibition at Tartu Art House. The talk will be on Sunday May 15th, 1 pm through ZOOM. Britta Benno’s solo exhibition “Of Becoming a Land(Scape)” was open in the large gallery of the Tartu Art House in JanuaryFebruary 2022. Her explanation is as follows: “Tectonic layers are alive, moving and breathing, forming mountains and flooding continents. The layers arise from above while shaking and cracking holes and fissures to the earth’s crust. In order to imagine the future, one has to look at the past to form a better understanding about the present.” “Through imagining the Earth’s layers, I am also work-
Russian nation in the world. If the three beliefs discussed here fill the mind of a person, then human compassion for children and women fleeing war is delayed or absent. It can be argued that Moscow’s propaganda about the situation in Ukraine has created a local anesthetic to the humanity of certain people, aided by complexes cultivated for the past 30 years. It should be taken into account that a psychological state that has developed over a long period of time does not quickly subside. The psyche begins to defend itself – the abandonment of the ideological fluid that fills the personality with political content leads to an existential lack of fluid, which can manifest itself as both mental and physical collapse. Since the collapse of the present Russia is only a matter of time, the worldviews of these people will also collapse as will the long-
ing with layered approaches to art. In a way, working in layers can be also called a method of piling up. Materials, traces and images cover each other just like the layers of Earth form a huge globe. Poetically flowing mountains can be discovered in the heap of blankets on my bed, on a topographic map or in an atlas of imaginary beings.” Britta Benno (b 1984) is an artist working with drawing and printmaking. She has studied printmaking at the Estonian Academy of Arts where she is currently also finalising her doctoral project “Thinking in Layers, Imagining in Layers: Posthumanist Landscapes in the Extended Field of Drawing and Printmaking.” She is an instructor in the printmaking workshop at the Academy, has taught various courses in the school, and has participated in artistic residencies in Canada, Austria and Iceland. No registration is required to attend the virtual talk. VEMU has provided the following link to join in on the artist talk: Topic: Britta Benno Time: May 15, 2022 01:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting: https:// us06web.zoom.us/j/85724490399
held hope that one day they will be “respected” again. Three main things will help (there are, of course, many other solutions): the creation of a social and legal environment where the justification or support of the war of aggression or public Putin-love are not tolerated. Those behaviors should be seen as in conflict with the true soul of Estonian society. We should persistently reveal the truth of the war in Ukraine and the criminality of the Putin regime from the windows, doors, ventilations and water taps. We should stubbornly direct misguided people to information that will cause them to question their beliefs. We should rescue young people from a linguistically segregated and stuffy school system, which means we need to reform Estonian school education and finally abolish a separate Russian school system.
