At the end of the 1980s the Soviet republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were home to one of the most profound revolutions of the twentieth century, a non-violent anti-colonial uprising that overturned a regime that had seemed immovable - and which laid the foundations for other emancipatory movements throughout Eastern Europe.

It was Estonian artist Heinz Valk who coined the term “Singing Revolution”, inspired by the fact that the anti-Soviet upheaval latched itself on to traditional song festivals in order to win mass support and keep momentum going.

Signs of mass dissent emerged in August 1987, when demonstrators met in a Tallinn park to denounce the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, the agreement that had paved the way for the USSR’s illegal occupation of Estonia.

The spirit of protest was taken up by pop festivals in Tartu and Tallinn in 1988 - by the summer of that year thousands of Estonians were heading to the Tallinn Song Grounds (site of the country’s major folk festivals) to listen to speeches and sing patriotic songs.