Did You Know?
The day holding hands changed the world
To show the world a desire to escape from communism a 600 km human chain by 2mn people from Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania was formed in 1989
At 7 pm on August 23, 1989, around two million people from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania formed a human chain from Tallinn through Riga to Vilnius – a distance of 675 km. The longest unbroken human chain in history finds a mention in The Guinness Book of Records. The chain – called the Baltic Way or Baltic Chain and sometimes referred to as the ‘Chain of Freedom’ – was a peaceful protest against the illegal Soviet occupation.
The idea of the protest was to draw the world’s attention to the existence of Molotov-the Ribbentrop Pact – a treaty signed 50 years back – August 23, 1939 – between the Foreign Ministers of the former Soviet Union and Germany – Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop.
Preparation for the human chain
According to the news agency Reuters, the campaign gathered 700,000 people in Estonia, 500,000 in Latvia, and 1,000,000 in Lithuania. The participants gathered in the cities and villages where the campaign was to take place or drove to the less inhabited Baltic territories where the chain was to go through. One in four people in the three Baltic States took part – young and old, in some cases several generations of the same families.
It is said that the idea of this chain was proposed during a trilateral meeting in Pärnu on July 15, 1989. An official agreement between the Baltic activists was signed in Cēsis on August 12. At the same time several different petitions, denouncing Soviet occupation, were gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures.
The organisers mapped out the chain – specific locations to specific cities and towns to make sure that the chain would be uninterrupted. Free rides were provided for those who did not have other transportation. Preparations spread across the country; some employers did not give leave to workers, while others sponsored the rides. On the day of the event, special radio broadcasts helped to coordinate the effort.
One history 2 million stories
The human chain proved that faith in democratic ideas unifies people, and creates a sense of brotherhood, and unity. And when you have two million people, there are bound to be just as many stories. While it’s common knowledge how the event was organised, there is a gap when it comes to talking about the events that surround it – the meaning behind it and what it meant for people in their everyday lives.
A couple of such stories that were reported in the media talked about how a family drove around looking for the chain to join but couldn’t find it. Or why a girl joined the chain because she wanted to hold hands with a boy she liked. Or how a nine-year-old went with her parents to be part of the event because she thought it was about bananas!
The aftermath
The biggest achievement of the campaign was getting the former USSR to give in to the joint protest of the inhabitants of the Baltic States and admit to all the past crimes. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was declared invalid. It was one of the most important steps towards the renewal of independence in the Baltics. It gave impetus to democratic movements elsewhere in the world, was a positive example to other countries striving to renew their independence, and stimulated the German reunification process.
