Our recent history has understandably been extremely complicated, filled with abrupt turns and blood-curdling experiences, but also beautiful moments. Some of these we wish to remember as grand.

For instance, the first twenty years of independence. During this time, Estonian-language education was ensured at all levels and in the fields that existed at the time. It was also during this period that Estonian science grew from being led by a few brilliant pioneers into a system recognized globally – so much so that it became an "urgent national task" to establish an academy of sciences.

Or take the past thirty years, during which the Estonian language has achieved its best and safest position in history as one of the official languages of the European Union. Even if we haven't quite learned how to make full use of this position.

Many prefer not to speak at all about the intervening years, about the Great War and German occupation or more so about life in the Soviet Union. It was a difficult period, at times extremely hard – a time of general repression. Strangely enough, however, in hindsight, it was quite a good time for the Estonian language and Estonian-language education, though a paradoxical one. Especially once the harshest repressions had passed, deportees started to return home and at least within the privacy of their homes, people could breathe more freely.

This was a time when certain words took on contrasting meanings. Take, for example, obedience and morality. Back then, obedience meant doing everything you were told to do and following what others did, regardless of whether it was right. Morality, on the other hand, was frowned upon – or replaced with how the concept was interpreted by the builders of communism. Because morality is doing what is right, regardless of what is commanded or what everyone else is doing.

Hard times have their advantages. They are summed up in a worn-out saying that describes the four stages of societal evolution: strong people bring good times, good times create weak people, weak people bring hard times and hard times produce strong people again. People like Ferdinand Eisen, who, willingly or unwillingly, laid the foundation for many of our current strengths or pushed us toward them.

It would certainly be interesting to discuss how far or to which stage of societal development we have come since overcoming those four hard Soviet decades. It might also clarify which stage of the cycle is next.

A wise person once said that every empire tells itself and the world that it is different from all other empires – that its mission is not to plunder and control, but to educate and liberate. The Soviet empire did the same. Many people, including myself, received a decent education during that time, which still supports our efforts today.

The true art was in turning this rhetoric to benefit the people. How such things were accomplished, as Ferdinand Eisen did, is well known. Harry Truman, who was only three decades older than Eisen, put it succinctly and elegantly: "I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with all the energy, enthusiasm and initiative they could muster." As an educated man, Eisen probably also kept in mind Winston Churchill's comment: "You will never reach your destination if you stop to throw stones at every dog that barks."

Achievements like those of Eisen cannot be accomplished alone. Of course, by now both those who genuinely supported Eisen and those who were too foolish to grasp the significance of his changes to the system have faded into obscurity. What we've heard most is from those who, at every opportunity, underline that their life's work was to undermine the Soviet system so that it would collapse as quickly as possible.

I dare to think that Ferdinand Eisen didn't spend much time or energy pondering that. If we allow ourselves to dream, as Estonians often do, about what he might have thought, Albert Einstein's words come to mind: "I am very grateful to those who did not help me. It is thanks to them that I did it all myself."

Human history is largely the history of discovering, interpreting and applying the laws governing nature and humanity itself. It has been a difficult process, sometimes life-threatening, even in recent history – but also inspiring and undoubtedly useful.

As Lennart Meri once said: "A person succeeds only in an environment whose causal connections they understand or believe they understand." English philosopher and physician John Locke expressed this even more clearly over 300 years ago: "The only defense against the world is a thorough knowledge of it."

The value of this thought has grown significantly over time. It is especially relevant for those who wish to know what the future holds. The structure of the universe is peculiar in this regard: some aspects of the future we can know, while others we cannot.

One might think that it's easy to see a little into the future, for example, by learning from recent history, but predicting further ahead is difficult. The universe, however, seems to play a joke on us and flips this idea on its head. For instance, it's nearly impossible to forecast the weather more than two weeks in advance, but we can predict climate change quite accurately for decades ahead. This is because weather and climate follow different laws.

It is true that the future depends greatly on the past, particularly the recent past. In this sense, knowledge of the world is a prerequisite for sensibly positioning oneself within it.

As Nikolai Baturin wrote: "If you want to know where to go next, you must know where you are." Irish writer and scholar C.S. Lewis refined this thought: "We cannot go back and change the beginning, but we can start where we are and change the ending." The combination of providing reliable information and well-targeted education is a tool that allows us to look confidently to the future and make good choices.

Tarmo Soomere's speech at the conference dedicated to the 110th anniversary of Ferdinand Eisen, delivered on November 17, 2024. The text was first published in Sirp magazine.

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