Karja church, dating from the late 13th century, could be seen as the quintessential expression of the spiritual world of Estonia: behind the European-Christian facade lies something more mystical, more incomprehensible, that brings to mind visions of mid-summer bonfires, belt patterns and runic calendars.

The ceiling of the choir room of Karja church is covered in magic signs of archaic appearance and the church is adorned with figures wearing decorations of local origin. Perhaps ths was an attempt to make the church feel more familiar to the local people.

A rather general conclusion is that the undercurrent encountered while surveying Estonian culture with a careful eye, even today bears within it the distant knowledge of snake charms and a memory of how the earth was hatched from a duck's egg - a general conclusion but one not lacking in pertinence.

For estonians, a belt has always been much more than simply a means for fastening garments. Magic signs on the patterned belt helped to maintain the strength and health of the person wearing it, added to one's power while doing witchcraft or performing rites. Repetition of the pattern signified endurance and continuity, out in the wide world as well as in the life of the individual.

Once, in the beginning of time, the Bird of the World was flying around, seeking a place to nest. It looked here and it looked there, but saw nowhere suitable. All of a sudden, it caught sight of a golden bush. Well, that seemed as good a place for the nest as anywhere. So the Bird of the World sat on the nest to lay eggs. But having laid its eggs, the bird threw them around: some to the sky as the Sun and the stars, some as stones and soil. That is how the whole world came into being. The Milky Way was the path along which birds and the souls of men travelled.

This background is most clearly discernible in the music of the composer Veljo Tormis, based on the traditional Estonian runic songs. His musical language can be considered to the most national style of expression in Estonian music. The message contained in his music is nevertheless so universal in character as to make it comprehensible all over the world. "It is not that I use folk songs, but folk songs use me," Tormis has said. Runic songs accompanied the Estonians throughout their daily lives. The music related to these traditions and customs was passed on from generation to generation until the mid-19th century, when, triggered and supported by the movement of National Awakening, a start was made with the systematic collection of folk music; meanwhile society changed, and traditional music lost its place in daily life. The collection of Estonian folk music in the Estonian Literary Museum comprises approximately 100 000 sound recordings.

The tradition of song festivals, dating from 1869 during the period of the what can be termed National Awakening followinf an example set by the Germans, has survived until the present time. The festival, which in the Soviet period became a demonstration of national mentality, takes place every five years: choirs from all over Estonia gather together to sing folk songs as well as more contemporary choral pieces. Many of the songs have been in the song festival programme from the very beginning.

Choir music has won much fame for Estonia and numerous composers here have written work specially for choirs. One need only name Arvo Pärt (born in 1935) who has become one of the most frequently performed modern composers in the world. Pärt was one of the symbols of musical 'dissidence' in the 1970s in Estonia, and still remains a sort of dissident within the world of contemporary music. He started to compose music in his peculiar, so-called tintinnabuli-style while he was still living in Estonia, but he achieved his true sophistication and strength in his religious compositions. Pärt's music - uncomplicated, reduced to the irreducible - attracts modern neurotic man with cosmic power.

Music is the cultural arena where the distinction between the 'high' and 'low' has been most clearly established in Estonia. An unarticulated consensus regard the composers engaged in the production of 'serious' music as the carriers of the crucial constituent of national culture and therefore considers that they present Estonia in a better, more adequate way. Nevertheless, the majority of the Estonians have much more contact with popular music, or folk music which does not feature on this scale at all, throughout their lives.

It is believed that the runic songs came into being more than 2000 years ago. Versification is based on alliteration (repetition of the first consonant of a succession of words) and assonance (particularly the rhyming of the accented vowels). The runic song tradition faded away in the 19th century when it was replaced by rhymed folk song.

As with music, the mid-19th century is considered to be also the period when Estonian art, theatre etc. came into being. The building of the first Estonian theatre houses was financed by national fund-raising campaigns and the names of the choral and drama societies which developed into theatres are eloquent enough: either the country ('Estonia' in Tallinn) or the names of ancient gods ('Vanemuine' in Tartu).

During the Soviet period (1940/44-1991) the stage was the place where, with a word, an expressive gesture or a pause, it was possible to express the attitude towards the governing regime which people otherwise only dared to formulate in their minds. Until the late 1960s, Stanislavski and his 'Method-acting' was de rigeur in Estonia theatres, but then came a generation of young producers attracted by contemporary Western theatrical ideas, and Bertold Brecht, Peter Brook, Antonin Artaud etc., made their powerful entrace. The theatre world endured the upheaval of the period following the restoration of Estonian independence suffering relatively little damage, if compared, say to film production or publishing: not a single theatre was closed. Changes in the repertoire, the quick improvement in the living standard, and traditional popularity have meant that theatrical art has maintained its position. Theatre attendance (800 000 tickets sold in a population of 1,4 million) almost equals the number of cinema visits which is probably without comparison in the rest of the world.

Time has also brought about changes in attitudes towards theatre perfomances. The popularity of the dramatic art has been boosted by the summer productions of various theatres, with plays staged in a dramatic environment, often making use of the romantic white nights of the North.

The history of Estonian film production stretches back to the year 1908 when the first newsreels about State visits and other notable events were shot for Pathé Studio. In 1914, photographer Johannes Pääsuke made the first feature film, a political satire 'Karujaht Pärnumaal' ('A Bear Hunt in Pärnu County'). Despite the fact that the film was rather primitive, Pääsuke is considered to be the father of Estonian cinema.

Following the political cataclysms related to the Second World War, Estonian cinema did not regain its strength until the 1960s. This period included the film which was by far the most popular ever made in Estonia, the romantic adventure film 'Viimne reliikvia' ('The Last Relic') based on themes borrowed from the Estonia of the 16th century. Sold to more than 80 countries, some of the dialogue of the film became catchwords among the public. Since 1960s, an average of 3-4 feature films has been produced in Estonia each year. Obviously it was cinematographic art which faced the most dire need to re-orientate itself: film directors who, having formed part of the bandwagon of the Soviet propaganda system and were relatively well-financed, had now to find funding elsewhere. This readjustment took approximately ten years, and from 1999 the Estonian screen world has once more experienced a revival, with 'angry young men' whose ambition is to simultaneously reform features and documentaries.

While feature films have often been accused of the tendency to focus around Estonian themes, of having weak scripts and a slow pace, Estonian animated cartoons have made a successful entry into the artistic arena of the world.

The first attempts to make an animated film in Estonia took place in the early 1930s. A two-minute silent strip of film has survived from that time. In 1958, the first puppet films were made and few decades later the two-dimensional animated cartoon was taken up on the initiative of Rein Raamat. While Raamat loves to explore folklore, solidarity between man and nature, or his vision of the dangers threatening European civilization in his films, Priit Pärn, our internationally renowned prize-winning animator, represents an entirely different style. He began work drawing caricatures. Pärn's films teem with the most unexpected, strangely paradoxical metamorphoses. His films are humorous and witty, but this does not exclude other emotions nor the treatment of serious subjects. His work, abounding in the sense of the absurd, laid a foundation for the entire school of animated cartoons and significantly influenced both Estonian caricature and puppet film.

The close relationship between feature films and literary fiction in the Nordic region has often been noted. Since the era of National Awakening, literature in Estonia has (whether with any justification or not) had a special position, reflecting the honour, intellect and conscience of society. One of the reasons behind such a difficult role is certainly the fact that the Estonian language, and thus also the writer as an individual manipulating the language, the master of the language, has always been the bearer of Estonian identity. The active period of collection of folk poetry one hundred years ago (only the collection in Ireland is larger) is now - in modern Estonia - mirrored by a new campaign to collect personal biographies. Citizens have been asked to record their own or their relatives' or acquaintances' reminiscences of the Soviet period; this has turned hundreds of Estonians into writers. The Estonian reader, accustomed to perceive the truth 'between the lines' in the Soviet period is to this day aware that a major share of his identity is confined to literature. Though many may not have read the saga of farm life "Tõde ja õigus' ('Truth and Justice') by A. H. Tammsaare, the novelist of the first independence period (1918-1940), mapping the Estonian national character, there is virtually unanimous agreement that he is the most outstanding Estonian writer of all times. The archetypes created by Tammsaare, the obstinacy and trial of strength of the heroes of the novel and love for their land - these have all become the collective image of the essence of what it is to be an Estonians, which nobody dares to challenge. However, the work of Juhan Liiv, the 19th century poet, with his unique combination of profound ideas and emotionality, is perhaps more accessible and able to capture the soul of the modern reader than the works of Tammsaare who has been immortalised on the Estonian banknotes. The nature descriptions crafted by Liiv in a few words are lucidly frail, and so authentic that the reader can almost smell the scene depicted. The fragmented wording of his verse and the trail of thought touching ever so slightly on the peaks with its hidden logic, place his poems on this side of the boundary separating the contemporary times from the ditties of the patriotic troubadours of the 19th century.

Estonian literature today is keenly engaged in disposing of the 'national' traditions and the issues thst only Estonians themselves can understand. The written word still holds a special place in the consciousness of the people; while talking about the Estonian culture, the publication of the first book in Estonian in 1535 and achieving practically 100 per cent literacy in the 19th century are presented as the most important facts. Literacy was considered to be the prerequisite and university education as the guarantee for a success in the society. This attitude is still prevails today: generally, a person with an academic education automatically aquires higher status, while that of a craftsman or a blue-collar worker is practically negligible.

The tradition of masters, however, was once strong in the cultural scheme developed in Estonia. The historical heart of the Estonian towns, once members of the Hanseatic League - Tallinn, Tartu, Pärnu, Viljandi - still manifest traces of the organisation of city life which was originally based on guilds. And it was primarily through medieval urban culture that Estonia established close links with what one might call the European mentality. One glance at the old town of Tallinn is enough to detect the gothic and baroque, art nouveau and historicism, albeit expressed with a certain boreal reserve.

Since functionalism coincided with the period of national independence lasting from 1920 to 1940, this style plays a notional role in the modern history of Estonia - this is something which is the embodiment of the Estonians' o w n state. Functionalist architecture reached Estonia in late 20s of the 20th century, spreading in the 1930s by way of institutional buildings (especially schoolhouses) as well as villas and residential houses of the wealthier and more active middle class. Functionalism gained a special position in Pärnu, the developing seaside resort.

Societal changes in 1991 brought about changes in the field of architecture as well. Following the restoration of independence, there came about a real boom in construction and reconstruction in Estonia. Naturally, the 1990s meant convulsions in all fields of art indeed; in architecture which is directly dependent on the prevailing economic system and the wealth of the country, the problems were especially felt. The crucial question during the last decade has been: 'Architecture - art or business?'. Today's architecture is reflected by dozens of new office buildings in steel and glass, modern car sale showrooms, neon-lit supermarkets and ambitious private villas.

Like in many other areas, the first period of independence left deep traces in Estonian art. While in the 19th century the first Estonian artists obtained their education mostly in St. Petersburg, in the early 20th century, artists moved towards the well-known European cultural centres like Berlin and Paris. Eduard Wiiralt, buried at the cemetery of Père Lachaise, had a unique and easily recognisable style.

Wiiralt has become a symbol of bohemian artists. The message conveyed by the artists of those times was so full of power that even today, strangely enough, a conviction that oil painting of the Pallas school is the 'right' and 'characteristic of Estonia' still pervades the cultural scene of Estonia.

Pallas, an association of artists (painters) was active from 1918 to 1940 in Tartu. In 1919, the art school of the association was founded and this came to play an important role in the development of the body of artists in Estonia. Modern Estonian art, especially its multimedia dimension, is successful in international fora, such as the Venice Biennial, winning recognition and new opportunities to manifest itself.

However, it is the conscious search for own identity, or rather an attempt to establish it in some manner or other, that describes the culture that has been developed in Estonia during the last decade. The perceptions of national culture shaped in the 19th century, sometimes aquired ridiculously rigid forms in the early 20th century. During the period of Soviet occupation, Estonian culture derived strength for preserving its identity from those very decades and it is only during the last few years that we have afresh been forced to answer the question of who we actually are, and what is our destination?