Sisters Across the Gulf of Finland: Looking at each other's pain

Publisher: LIKE 2011, FinlanD

Hea Lugu 2012, Estonia

[Sisters Across the Gulf of Finland]

Sisters Across the Gulf of Finland describes the choices of European women and their feelings of sisterhood before the war, as well as the verbal and psychological conflicts that the propaganda emerging from the prejudices of the Soviet Union left as a legacy for all of Europe. When the war broke out between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, the occupied areas were subjected
to terror which destroyed the women of the Baltic countries and Poland. After the Second World War, Estonian members
of Naiskodukaitse (Women’s Voluntary Defense Organization) were transported to the Gulag, and the Finnish Lotta Svärd organization was declared fascist and banned on orders from the Soviet Union. And thus, an important part of the history of
European women fell into oblivion.

Author and film director Imbi Paju in her own words about her work
Sisters Across the Gulf of Finland:
“My psychohistorical novel Sisters Across the Gulf of Finland is a story about how Estonian, Finnish and other European women around the Baltic Sea networked together to prevent, with their own actions, the onset of crisis and war.
My work describes the choices of European women and sisterhood before the war, as well as the verbal and psychological conflict that the propaganda emerging from the prejudices of the Soviet Union has left for Europe as a legacy. When the war broke out between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, the occupied areas succumbed to terror which destroyed the women of other Baltic countries and Poland. After the Second World War, the Estonian members of Naiskodukaitse (Women’s Voluntary Defense Organization) were transported to Gulag and the Finnish Lotta Svärd organization was declared fascist and banned on orders from the Soviet Union. And an important part of the history of European women fell into oblivion.
In my book I want to show the pain left to us as an inheritance by the past. I examine the way in which we look at each other, ourselves and our history. The stories of women in my work refresh our memories and reveal to us the pages of our story hidden in the silence of history.


However, my book is not solely a story about the past, but it is also a story about the necessity of dealing with the past, and with the geopolitics of emotion. History is a collection of lost moments which intertwine in the subconscious, when the events of different eras are being viewed and reminisced from a different time, the present. With the help of the film and stories, one can examine lived moments and find parallels with the present day. One can finally feel the joy, but also the sadness, fear and loneliness.
This type of courtship with the past is not always pleasant. It demands sensitive and critical self-analysis. But the perspective is the same and present every place in the world where people have been subjected to the dark side of the human mind: threats, humiliation and torture.
I have intentionally written this work to also be therapeutic, so that it can help restore people’s moral memory. This is essential, so that political and economic crises never again destroy our world, our country or ourselves as people.”

A quote by Imbi Paju