Humanitarian Aid and the Taste of Freedom: Exploring Political History through Olfactory Heritage

Dr. Maarja Merivoo-Parro is dedicated to exploring the history of mentality at the crossroads of culture and politics. She divides her time between research, teaching, and work in the media. Maarja is a Fulbright scholar and currently holds the position of Marie Curie fellow at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. She recently received national recognition for her work on bridging academia and society through her television and radio programs. A long time board member of Baltic Heritage Network, Maarja has worked with Baltic archives globally and received the AABS Emerging Scholar Grant in 2021.

Finland and Estonia have similar histories, but for much of the 20th century these culturally and linguistically close neighbors were separated by the Iron Curtain. As the Soviet economy crumbled in the late 1980s, Finns improvised a person-to-person humanitarian effort to alleviate the woes of late-socialism in Soviet-occupied Estonia. Shipments of food, medicine, technology and toys started to flow across the Gulf as the frenzy of grass-root international relations forged vast networks based on friendship and good will. This not only provided relief but also fostered a renewed sense of agency among Estonians on their peaceful path towards independence. The talk draws on archival material and oral histories to explore how “a taste of freedom” emerged through cross-border aid and how spontaneous connections paved the path towards a stable democracy as well as reshaped the global Estonian diaspora in unexpected ways.