Opening Speech at the Closing Conference of the Estonian Year of the Book 2025/26

Martin Öövel, Director General of the National Library of Estonia

Honourable President of the Republic of Estonia and all members of the book community,

Welcome to the National Library of Estonia, the sanctuary of the Estonian book!

The title of today’s conference, “The Estonian Book — How Long Can It Last?”, is not merely rhetorical, but a subject to truly delve into.

A book is not just an object. It is a place where language lives. And language is the place where culture lives. For Estonians, this has always been the case, because language is the very foundation of our identity.

There is a symbolic connection between our state and the 500th anniversary of the Estonian book. In 1918, we had no army, no borders, and no government, yet we had roughly 500 words written in our own language — the Estonian Declaration of Independence, addressed to all the peoples of Estonia. Those words created a state whose purpose is to ensure the preservation of the Estonian nation, language, and culture through the ages. This timeless purpose also opens our current Constitution.

A recent reading study gives reason for optimism. The generation that in the 1990s began counting money instead of reading books, has been followed by new generations who have rediscovered reading — to the extent that books can successfully compete even with social media. HOWEVER — these new generations have drifted away from books in our native language on an unprecedented scale, as English-language works are more accessible.

Culture is carried by people, and we crossed an important milestone when the transition to Estonian-language education took a major step forward, expanding the reach of the Estonian language and the culture directly connected to it. HOWEVER — in higher education, only 7% of doctoral theses were defended in Estonian two years ago. Less than a decade ago, that figure was 23%. While we require summaries of academic work to be translated into our native language, and terminology development has even become a kind of intellectual national sport, terms introduced as an afterthought struggle to support original scholarly thinking in Estonian.

We can enjoy an exceptionally rich selection of reading material — the number of titles is greater than ever before… HOWEVER — alongside this abundance, there has been a sharp decline in the volume of native-language literature. Over the past fifteen years, the total print runs of publishers have decreased by nearly 60%. An increasing number of works in Estonian fail to cross the threshold of profitability. The seemingly attractive solution of turning to machines strikes a nerve in the language and undermines linguistic richness.

Education is the source of pride pride for our nation, and rightly so. Our people’s ability to comprehend texts is among the best in the world. HOWEVER — our small, native-language book market comes with an inevitability: English-language literature available to our well-educated people can be up to three times cheaper. Studies confirm that Estonian-language books are often locked behind a cost barrier that is too high, and the same problem extends to libraries, which should serve as havens of accessibility. We have a beautiful voice, but reaching our own notes is becoming increasingly difficult.

Thanks to the digital state foundations laid 30 years ago by the Tiger Leap initiative and to digitally literate citizens, our language is now more visible to artificial intelligence than many languages with far more speakers. HOWEVER — on this festive day, it is worth recalling Heinrich Stahl, the creator of the North Estonian literary language. He was a foreigner who gave our people a powerful new tool upon which we built Estonian written culture. Yet we should not forget that a standardised literary language also brought a significant loss to the linguistic richness expressed through our dialects.

Now, once again, we face a foreign outsider offering solutions, but this time the stakes are global, and alongside the already diminished role of dialects, our native language itself risks being reduced. In AI training data, our language accounts for only 0.1%. If placed in the context of the Gini coefficient, the inequality faced by our language far exceeds that of wealth distribution in the most unequal countries in the world. The result is an everyday assistant that does not understand our collective memory or worldview and gradually pulls us into the thought patterns of larger nations.

We have invested heavily in building and restoring world-class cultural institutions. HOWEVER — powerful buildings require even more powerful content, and ensuring this demands more than one-time efforts.The walls of these institutions are strong because they symbolise the intellectual infrastructure of the nation, supporting the diversity and substance of cultural offerings. A good steward understands the whole, with all its connections, and does not limit respect for this infrastructure to form alone, but also to content. Difficult times and decisions cannot ignore the truth that our culture, values and identity are the foundation of Estonia’s will to defend itself and its love for the state. For a small country, the most costly form of saving is when culture becomes an expense line that gives way to a wind turbine or a railway.

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At this ceremonial event, I would like to gratefully remember two extraordinary individuals with whom we began the Estonian Year of the Book in Tartu, but who left the continuation of the journey to our hands. Krista Aru, one of the key leaders behind our Year of the Book and the idea of the beautiful tapestry. Andris Vilks — the long-time head of the National Library of Latvia, who started the book anniversary in Latvia that is celebrated in both our countries. Both Krista Aru and Andris Vilks passed away during the same weekend, shortly after the opening of the Year of the Book. They were thinkers and decision-makers who, in contributing to today’s theme, undoubtedly stood on the right side of history.

I would like to believe that they, too, would agree with the thought recently expressed by writer Rein Raud in our newspaper Sirp: “It is largely we ourselves who, through our cultural and social mechanisms, decide what remains and what disappears.”

Do the word and the book in our own language still have the strength today to flourish and endure? I believe they do. But only if we are able to add wise actions to our noble words, and if we measure the success of future book anniversaries by nothing less than the preamble of our Constitution. 

Watch the welcome speech and conference broadcast

Presentations from the two days of the conference can be viewed on the RaRa Youtube channel.

Photos from the Conference

First day, March 13

Second day, March 14

Photo Wall