May 8, 1946
Fourteen-year-old Estonian school girls Aili Jõgi and Ageeda Paavel blew up a Soviet memorial in Tallinn. Since the Soviets occupied Estonia the year before they had blown up monuments to Estonian soldiers and their revolution to replace them with their own; the gravestones of the Tallinn Military Cemetery were destroyed by the Soviet authorities and the Estonian graveyard was reused by Red Army. The girls were tried, convicted, and spent the next eight years in a Soviet gulag. In May, 2007 the Soviet-era statue that replaced the wooden monument the girls blew up, The Bronze Soldier, again became the center of controversy in Tallinn, coming to symbolize the rift between the Estonian ethnic majority and the Russian minority. The statue (pictured below) was moved on May 7, 2007 to a location outside the city center. The disputes surrounding the relocation sparked with two nights of riots in Tallinn (known as the Bronze Night), besieging of the Estonian embassy in Moscow for a week, and cyberattacks on Estonian organizations. (pictured above: Aili Jõgi) (Exactly two months ago we featured a story about the IRA blowing up the Lord Nelson pillar in Dublin. We repeat our caveat that blowing up statues is not a nonviolent action. Do not try this at home.)
