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.

Parallel events were taking place in neighbouring Latvia and Lithuania. On august 23 1989 (50th anniversary of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), 200,000 citizens of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia joined hands to form a human chain linking all three Baltic capitals.

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev used tanks in an attempt to crush the independence movements in Latvia and Lithuania (Estonia for some reason was spared), but to no avail.

In March 1991 Estonia held a referendum on independence, 65% voting in favour. With the Moscow Coup of August 1991 fatally weakening Gorbachev’s prestige, the power of the USSR simply ebbed away. Estonia declared the restoration of independence on August 20 1991; international recognition soon followed.