Peep PILLAK
(Estonian Heritage Society, Tallinn, Estonia)
Keywords: victims of Soviet regime, forensic anthropology, exhumation
Abstract:
The Republic of Estonia had 11 heads of state before Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union. One of them escaped, died in Sweden, and after Estonia had regained its independence, was reburied in Estonia. Another committed suicide after a commission to go to the NKVD; his grave is also in Estonia. The remaining 9 were arrested and their further destiny was long unknown. During the Gorbatchev perestroika, the demand to get information about the fate of Estonian public figures was urgent. The KGB archives revealed that all the 9 were either killed or died in imprisonment with their graves unknown. President Konstantin Päts died on 18.01.1956 in Kaliningrad region, Russia. He had been kept in the mental asylum in Burashevo where his doctor could show us the place of his grave. The Estonian Heritage Society, the anti-Soviet mass organization established in 1987 on the initiative of civil society, made in 1989 an expedition to Burashevo aiming to find the remains. With years, the landscape had changed much, and the grave indicated to us turned out to be wrong. As there were neither tombstones nor the cemetery plan, we continued digging relying on logic considerations. After we had opened 10 skeletons, the local authorities stopped us and we returned home. Next year we got a permission to continue. We opened tens of skeletons without results. On the last day before our leave, we decided to make a final attempt, and the 46th skeleton turned out to be the one we had been looking for. The thorough expertise in Estonia that followed the initial one, confirmed that these were the remains of President Päts that were reburied with full honors to his native soil in 1990. He is still the only exception of the nine. 1991 Estonia regained its sovereignty again.