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The President of the Republic attended the anniversary celebrations of Rakvere15.06.2002
President Arnold Rüütel this afternoon attended the celebrations to mark the 700th anniversary of Rakvere where he addressed the townspeople and guests with a short congratulatory speech.
The President noted that facts, memories and legends told for generations, which made up our sense of history, helped us to keep the history alive. Yet first of all, attaching importance to the most essential milestones of our history helped us to build a better Estonia.
"For ages Rakvere has been a bulwark in winning and defending our freedom, and the ultimate limit of the Estonian national spirit," the President said. He recalled that it had been at this very place - Vallimägi (castle ruins) of Rakvere that Johann Jakob Nocks, Friedrich Robert Faehlmann and Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald had sworn their Viru-oath. In the War of Independence, the Viru-front run through Rakvere and from here, on 7 January 1919, the offensive ending with the victorious Battle of Võnnu against the Landeswehr was launched.
"In a sense, the fate of whole Estonia is reflected in the history of Rakvere," the Head of State hinted at the autumn of 1939 when the bases treaty opened the way for alien combat vehicles to this town as well. "And after less than two years, today 61 years ago, trains with innocent people torn from their homes, as it was the case in many other Estonian cities and towns, set off in opposite direction," President Rüütel recollected. "Only if and when we remember our history, pay tribute to the heroic deeds of our ancestors and try to redeem their sufferings, can we build a new, better Estonia, a new, better Europe and world," the Head of State emphasized.
Press Service of the Office of the President
Kadriorg, June 15, 2002
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