Estonian Photos
Here are eight more men from the collection of Estonian photos.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, we don't know much about these photos. All we know is that they are from the collection of a museum of anthropology in Estonia. The museum's website contains the photos, but it gives no information about them.
Could these be university posture photos, similar to the Yale posture photos that I have posted? It seems unlikely. The fact that many of the young men have hands and faces that are either dirty, like coal miners, or deeply tanned, like farm workers, suggests that these are not students.
By the way, there are no coal mines in Estonia, but there is mining of oil shale, which began in 1918.
Is oil shale mining as dirty as coal mining? Above is a photo of Estonian oil shale miners in 1938. Look at the nose of the guy on the left and judge for yourself. Perhaps he had been wearing goggles that protected his upper face.
If these aren't students, my guess is they are military recruits who were photographed shortly after entering military service.
That would make these similar to nude photos taken of U.S. Army and Navy recruits in the 1940s.
Those U.S. Army and Navy photos were not taken to find posture problems, but to evaluate the results of physical training on the recruits' physiques.
So, these may not be posture photos at all.
When were these photos taken? We don't know, but my assumption is that they were taken between World War I and World War II, i.e. between 1918 and 1945. During that interval, Estonia was an independent nation and would have had an independent military.
Before World War I, Estonia was part of the Imperial Russian empire, and after World War II it was part of the Soviet Union. Estonia finally became independent again in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Any official Russian military photos taken before 1918 or after 1945 would probably have been stored in Russia, not Estonia, so they would not have ended up in an Estonian museum. That's why I'm guessing these photos date from between 1918 and 1945.
But in the absence of any solid information, all we can do is enjoy these views of young Estonian men.
9 comments:
Strange. Were these Army photos?
Forlorn, dreary photos. Men almost look as if they are prisoners of war. Interesting that they are photographed in pairs. What could be the reason for that?
I enjoyed their rear views very much, thanks.
@Big Dude - Were these Army photos? Maybe. Please reread my captions below the photos. WE DON'T KNOW. All I know is that the photos were posted online by a museum of anthropology in Estonia with no information about them.
@Anon - Why were the men were photographed in pairs? Your guess is as good as mine. My guess is that it was to save on the cost of film.
I've had to read up on this. Estonia was part of Germany regained independance in 1917, then at war against Russi till 1920. It had its own military frm 1917.
With WW-II, an agreement was made between Russia and Hitler to give Estonia to Russia/Soviet Union. Estonia agreed to have Soviet troups posted in Estonia to defend it. Their presence then made it easy for Soviet Union to annex it and disolved the Estonian Army in 1940.
It was reconstituted when Estonia regains independance in 1991.
So from what I read, Estonian military existed from 1917-1940 and would have had its own management/policies. 1940-1991 was Soviet Army with Soviet management/policies. (so those pictures, if taken for military puporses would have existed throughout Soviet Union). (but might have stayed in each local management unit, prior to computers, you couldn't manage that much info centrally).
Note that some countries that were part of Soviet Union retained some independance and their own military, who operated jointly with Russian forces. (think Canadian Army doing joint Exercises with USA army). However from what I read, Estonia truly no longer had its own army.
@Anon - What you write is correct, except that Estonia was never "part of Germany." In the Middle Ages, Estonia was at least partly German-speaking and ruled by Germans, but the country of Germany did not exist. Later, in the 1600s, Sweden conquered Estonia and some other Baltic lands. In the early 1700s, Russia conquered Estonia and surrounding areas from Sweden under Czar Peter the Great, and Estonia remained part of Russia until the 1917-1920 actions that you described. So, for our purposes in dating the photographs, we can ignore the German era and say that Estonia was part of Russia until World War I, then independent, then part of the Soviet Union after World War II.
I agree that it's possible that the photos are from the Soviet era and they were stored locally in Estonia. However, I've never seen any similar photos from any other current or former part of the Soviet Union. So, my best guess is still that they are from the era when Estonia was independent.
very interesting!
A picture is worth a thousand words.
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