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President of the Republic At the festive concert dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the restoration of the independence of Estonia, the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds, 20 August 2011

President of the Republic At the festive concert dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the restoration of the independence of Estonia, the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds, 20 August 2011 © Ilmar Saabas (Delfi)

20.08.2011

Dear fellow countrymen here at the Song Festival Grounds and at home,

Twice over the last century the people of Estonia have looked their fate in the eye and said: “Yes, we know what we want.”

We want to live our life the way we think is right. We want our country, our Estonia. We want freedom.

Such a clear will changes the world. We got our Estonia. Twenty years ago today we took our Estonia back.

In these twenty years we have walked a way that many other states and people have spent a lifetime on.

Let us be quite content today – only a few generations have been given the chance to completely rebuild their state.

Let us even be proud, because the number of those who have done it better than us is even smaller. Let us be proud!

We have come a long way. We have also gone unbelievably far and away from the situation where, instead of the natural state, freedom meant either something that was there a long time ago or an unreachable future.

Today, most of us know and remember what this feeling means. Thus, most of us also know what we do not want back.

While a day in freedom seems like a second, a day in prison feels like a lifetime. In prison each moment of happiness and each glimpse of freedom becomes so important and is remembered.

The people of Estonia remember it. They remember the sweet drunkenness of the Night Song Festival, the dawn of freedom here, on these very grounds, in the home of the heart of our people.

The people of Estonia remember the anxious moments when the foreign power made the last attempt to take the arrival of freedom from us.

And the people remember the joy when freedom finally took the shape of our free state.

Let us keep this feeling, my dear fellow countrymen, because this way our Estonia will always last and be free.

Let us, for a moment, think in gratitude of those who contributed to the return of our independence.
Let us think in gratitude of those who supported our strivings. And of those who are not yet free today.
Let us think of them and say to ourselves or quite loudly: Long live Estonia! Long live freedom!