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The President of the Republic at the celebration of the 700th anniversary of Rakvere on June 15, 200215.06.2002
Honourable Mayor, Chairman and Members of the Council of Rakvere,
Dear Townspeople,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
There have been many significant milestones in our history, one of them being the old story about bold men who are told, in 1187, to have captured the City of Sigtuna at the lake Mälari in Sweden. They are supposed to have razed the city to the ground and, on top of that, taken the city gates with them. This is a legend claimed by many European peoples to be theirs. But it is a historical fact that, four years prior to this event, the first bishop of Livonia, Meinhard, had built the Üksküla castle at the mouth of the river Daugava. The castle became a base for further conquests of Livonian and Estonian territories. Henricus de Lettis assures that in 1226, in another stronghold called Tarwanpe, Pope's legate William of Modena had mediated peace between Germans, Danes and Estonians. On the basis of this we can assume that the present Rakvere was the heart of Virumaa already in the times of our prehistoric independence. In the following whirlwinds of history the Estonians were deprived of the right to rule over their ancient homeland for dozens of generations.
Facts, memories and legends told for generations are mixed together in our historical consciousness. Just they help us to keep the history alive. They put on us the obligation to ask ourselves over and over again, where our roots are, where will we grow our treetop. The same applies to the history of Rakvere too.
Presumably the name of the stronghold Tarvanpää or Tarvanpea was derived from the Estonian name of primeval bison - ''tarvas'', living in our country those days. For our ancestors, this proud and strong animal was a paragon of strength and liberty. Soon, under the protection of conquerors, German-Danish merchants and craftsmen settled in the ancient settlement of Tarvanpää. In 1302, King Erik VI Menved of Denmark vested in the new settlers here just the same kind of privileges like those enjoyed by the citizens of Tallinn. In Rakvere, the Law of Lübeck came into effect governing the town up to the 19th century.
During its seven-hundred-year-old history, the town of Rakvere has been seized and ruled by several foreign powers. However, we should not forget that in this period of history Estonia became a part of Europe. True, our ancestors paid a high price for it, and Estonia became a border region between two big civilisations. And still, granting Rakvere seven hundred years ago the Law of Lübeck turned it into a European town, in which the residents worked and lived like in many other cities and towns on the southern coast of the Baltic and in the near vicinity.
But for the Estonians, Rakvere is first of all the centre and the heart of Virumaa. The place name Virumaa has also been used as synonym for whole Estonia. Our northern neighbours, the Finns, after the name of the Estonian county on the opposite shore of the Gulf of Finland, started calling the whole Estonia Viro. Virumaa became one of the centres of Estonia during the National Awakening as well. Every schoolchild knows the Viru-oath taken by Jacob Nocks, Friedrich Robert Faehlmann and Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald on the Vallimägi of Rakvere. Even today, this solemn oath is symbolizing unconditional loyalty to one's native country and commitment to one's people. Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald was inspired by folkloristic material collected here to compile our national epos ''Kalevipoeg'' that has had and still has lasting importance for shaping and preserving our national consciousness. And with this, Rakvere and Virumaa belong to the birthplaces of our nation.
Rakvere has for ages been a bulwark in gaining and defending our freedom and the ultimate limit of the Estonian national spirit. In the War of Independence, the Viru-front run through Rakvere and from here, on 7 January 1919, our Popular Army launched its offensive against the Landeswehr ending with the victorious Battle of Võnnu on June 23.
The Soviet Russianization Policy split the so far homogeneous Virumaa up into an eastern and a western part. As late as in the early 1990s Rakvere still was the last town of Estonia before the eastern border, in which the Estonians had a say in governing their town.
In a sense, the fate of whole Estonia has been reflected in the history of Rakvere. In the autumn of 1939, the people here were among the first to see alien combat vehicles and the outcome of the bases treaty. And already less than two years later, yesterday and today 61 years ago, trains with innocent people torn from their homes, as it was the case with many other Estonian cities and towns, set off in opposite direction.
The most important lesson of history is that the people of one town, despite all the difficulties, can retain their vitality if acting as one family. Only if 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, Europe and world.
Dear People of Rakvere,
History of every city and town is determined, first and foremost, by its residents. And you are just those giving one town its greatness, fame and dignity. The fact that here, in a town of 20 thousand inhabitants already over decades an own theatre is acting, that enterprise and folk culture honouring the traditions of Virumaa are prospering here, confirms that also a small can be great through its actions. Your town, to which even a novel has been dedicated by Jaan Kross, deserves its history and admiration of the Estonian people.
Both the town and the people of Rakvere I wish for many following centuries this kind of firmness, doggedness and belief in future, to which the popular Estonian saying ''Viru veri ei värise'' applies.
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