Conference Agenda

The Estonian nation has maintained a unique relationship with music over the course of the twentieth century, from protest music to a developing interest in the documentation of folk tunes. All these strains broadly ask what it means to be an Estonian, and to sing Estonian songs. These attitudes bleed into the twenty-first century with. Plixid, an all-girl pop punk band from a small rural village who asks what it means to be not just Estonian, but Estonian women. In the first track “Blond,” lyrics depict the band’s ironic perception of the Western “dumb blond” stereotype through the singer’s self-perceived lack of intelligence, then derogatory comments the singer receives from others. The final verse calls for a release of the expectations to be any which way, loudly and proudly proclaiming: “Plixid aru ei saa!” (Plixid doesn’t understand!)

Taking “Blond” and other Plixid titles as case studies, this project explores how the image of the “ideal Estonian Woman,” has developed as a response to the Soviet regime and neoliberal turnover. This image began as conservative, portrayed as the maternal figure that protected Estonian culture from Soviet influences. As post-Soviet capitalism took root, another option arose: the blond sex symbol, sold to the West as an image of Estonia’s validity as a capitalist world power. So, the “ideal Estonian Woman” is inherently contradictory, inherently impossible to achieve as it is both morally conservative and objectifying.

I trace this image as it is subverted and maintained in early and revivalist Estonian punk spaces. Using interview materials gathered by Brigitta Davidjants, I determine that while punk spheres did upset the ideal feminine image, this upset made punk women “unviable” as Estonian woman, by the wider society and by punks themselves. This attitude colors the scene that Plixid arrives on and their attitudes towards the songs’ subject matters. Through an analysis of their lyricism, I develop a picture of gender as a performance of the intersections of individuality and national image. This image is inextricably tied to the collective memory of its people, and subverted (or perpetuated) by expressions musical subcultures.