‹ 280 ›
The 1920s and 1930s are regarded as the time that the
Tallinn Central Library was built up. In hindsight it could
be said that Aleksander Sibul tried to build the ideal
library, the intention of which was to educate citizens who
value spiritual values. Right from the start he set about
increasing the library’s stocks. He strove to gain experience
for developing the library from various other European
libraries. As he had lived in Finland in1916–1918 and
cultural contacts between Estonia and Finland had become
deeper during independence, he was fired by what he saw at
Finnish libraries. Sibul had acquired his library education
in Leningrad at the Shanjavski librarian courses, as well
as from what he had learnt on his own, organizing the
Viljandi readers’ circle alongside his work as a journalist and
as a telegraph official in Finland at The Helsinki Estonian
Educational Society.
Sibul made his first working trip in 1923 to Finland. In 1925
he went on a longer trip to libraries in Lithuania Latvia,
Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Finland. In Finland he met
the library specialist Helle Cannelin (Kannila) who shared
her professional experience with Aleksander Sibul until
the end of Estonian independence. A. Sibul helped Finnish
library workers by sharing his experiences gained in putting
the The Estonian Public Library Act (1925) into effect when
the Finnish Public Libraries Act was being prepared in
1927. Among Sibul’s friends was the translator of Estonian
literature, library worker and Estophile Aino Kaasinen, who
in the 1970s sent her colleagues to Estonia to meet Sibul –
the Finns continued to be interested in his knowledge about
libraries. The 1930s were very productive for the library. The
Children’s Library and the Archive were established and the
branch libraries worked very successfully.
The 1940s and the Post-War Period
The 1940s were very complicated for the Tallinn Central
Library. Already at the beginning of the 1940s the literature
banned by Soviet authorities had to be carried down into
the cellar. The German occupation brought with it new
bans. During the German occupation in 1941–1944 the
library worked in a compressed form. Together with five
branches the Central Library had 34 employees.
During the war years few books were acquired. Very little
appeared in Estonia, Very little German could be ordered,
and there was little money. The occupation forces banned
nearly all Soviet books, English and French books published
after 1933, everything written by hundreds of authors.
In the bombing in March 1944, when Soviet planes
destroyed a large part of Tallinn, one wing of the Central
Library also suffered. It was not restored until the autumn
of 1946. The wartime events connected to the library are
related in this collection by Sibul’s older daughter Astraea.
After the fall of Tallinn
in September 1944 The
Central Library opened
its doors on 23 November
1944. After the war the
Central Library was to be
made into an institution
for the propagation of “correct ideology”. What had been
the central Estonian library now became a normal Soviet
people’s library. The archives were destroyed, and a large
part of the book collection went to the former State Library,
which now became the governing library. The internal
organization of the library became the system current in the
Soviet Union, and the work of the library was scrutinized
constantly. The new leaders (mostly Russian Estonians) of
the new departments were members of the Communist
Party and the banned and destroyed books were replaced
with new ones from Russia.
In the years1944–1949 the new order enforced its rules.
The banning and destruction of books began and in 1949
the Archive of the Central Library was liquidated.
With regard to the destruction of the Tallinn Central
Library’s archives in 1949, Piret Lotman writes:
First of all Tallinn Central Library was forced to surrender
its foreign language books to the State Library. In 1946
2324 mainly foreign language books “outdated in content
and unsuitable for use” were handed over. Over half of
those – 1579 – were in German, 262 were in Finnish and
244 were in French. In 1947 and 1948 books “unsuitable
for use” were removed by the hundreds from the Central
Library and its branches at intervals of a few months. In
1949 the amount of literature “attested to be of no value”