For the past few months, we have been packing up the VEMU collections for storage, in preparation for the upcoming archival renovations. The space was last renovated circa 2010, transforming one of the parking levels at Tartu College into a space to house our historical material. This has thus far served its purpose. VEMU has been able to collect and store artifacts that tell the stories of the Estonian diaspora. It has become clear, however, that in order to properly preserve and process our collections alongside the constant (and welcome) influx of historical material, the space needs to be renovated to meet museum-grade standards.
Packing up the current repository has given us the opportunity to come across items that have not yet been processed. I have stumbled upon a few treasures, including a small box labelled “A. Raudsepp 30 diapositiivi 30 slides”, which I found in a larger box carrying an old projector. My first assumption was that these were photos taken by known community member Andres Raudsepp (1937-2023), so I digitized the slides.
I quickly realized the photos were most likely not taken by him, unless he was an avid photographer before the age of eight. Firstly, I noticed that the name “Raudsepp” was written over another name, using different ink than the original label. Examining the slides more closely, I was able to place the time period of these photos as before the end of the Second World War. One slide labelled “Eesti Rahvamuuseum” (Estonian National Museum) appears to show the outside of Raadi Manor, which is where the Museum was located from 1922 until the building was destroyed by bombing in 1944.
Similarly, another slide labelled “Vanemuine-Tartu” appears to show the exterior of the Vanemuine Theatre building, which was also destroyed in 1944.
Amongst the images of landmark buildings and nature, there were also photos of people. One photo shows a man in a snowy setting with a sleigh full of firewood, labelled “Regi”.
Another photo labelled “Pärnu rand” (Pärnu Beach) features swimmers and sunbathers.
A photo of “Lõuna-Eesti maastik” (The Landscape of Southern Estonia) shows two people enjoying a scenic view.
The labels of these photos were a bit too vague for me to find out more information about the people featured in them, although I admit I did start by looking into “Regi”. One photo simply labelled “gümn. lõpetajad” (secondary school graduates) shows six girls leaning over an outdoor railing holding what appears to be their diplomas as well as flowers. I initially thought it might be too difficult to track down any information about this photo, however I was struck by what seemed to be their school uniform.
Given the graduates featured in the photo, I began looking into all-girls schools in Estonia from that time period. I came across many which appeared to have similar uniforms, and was finally able to narrow down the school to Tartu Tütarlaste Gümnaasium. The publication “Tartu Tütarlaste Gümnaasium 1919-1929” includes a photo of the school’s inner courtyard, which appears to be the same location where the graduates are posing in the scanned slide.
In the VEMU photo collection “Reunions of Former Schools of the Republic of Estonia,” there are many instances of former students from TTG getting together, including this photo taken in 1969 in Toronto by Taivo Säägi.
A few of the ladies featured in this reunion photo also contributed their memories to “Mälestusi Tartu Tütarlaste Gümnaasiumist : album”. The final pages of this publication from 1988 include old photographs of graduation classes over the years. Each photograph was carefully labelled. On page 196, there was a photo of the XIX graduating class of 1938, taken in the spring of 1937. Page 197 included a photo of the XXIII graduating class in 1942. The one photograph where I believe I was able to place some familiar faces from the slide was of course a photo on page 199 with the least amount of information, simply labelled “XXIII graduating class?”. It was difficult to compare these students to the students from the photo on page 197 due to the lighting.
I am going to continue researching and hope to find out more about these slides as well as their subjects. A big part of research is also simply asking the community, so if anyone has any information on what I have shared, please reach out to me at keila@vemu.ca
Fotogalerii
Additional slide images (captioned with original label text)
