The Patarei Sea Fort: Perspectives on Heritage, Memory and Identity Politics in Post-Soviet Estonia

Abstract

This paper studies the struggle over the rehabilitation of the Patarei Sea Fort in Tallinn (Estonia), a former prison where during the Soviet period political prisoners were held and corralled before deportation to Siberia. We explore how three groups of stakeholders assemble and define the future of the site: The Estonian State; ngo Eesti Muinsuskaiste Selts (the Estonian Heritage Society); and Europa Nostra. Each of these groups have a competing future for the site in mind. The struggle over the Patarei Sea fort is connected to discussions over heritage politics in those countries that entered the European Union around the early 2000s. In comparison to other memory practices in the region, the Patarei Sea Fort is not instrumentalized by the state to support a national historical narrative othering the Russian Federation. Rather the state’s engagement with the site is restricted and textured by ambitions to gentrify the district it is situated in. Not the state, but an ngo, assisted by a European heritage association, promotes a heritage discourse geared at strengthening the Estonian national narrative.