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The first Soviet mass deportation of 1941 in the occupied Estonia concerned most heavily the intellectuals. The new arrival of the Soviet army in Estonia in summer 1944, near the end of World War II, forced many Estonian researchers, in fear of new repressions, to flee their homeland together with thousands of their compatriots. The major destinations of their flight were first Germany and Sweden. Once abroad, these were primarily the intellectuals who acknowledged their national mission to keep the morale of Estonians high and educate the world about the fate of Estonia and its people. It was an active fight in the name of Estonia’s liberty that was hoped to be gained soon while the duration of the exile had to be treated as indefinite. The indeterminacy, however, could not stop one from educating and bringing up next generations or from earning the daily bread and the researchers were looking for possibilities to continue with their academic studies.

The continuation depended for a researcher a lot on what he had managed to take with him from homeland, and the documents and papers in general became decisive in shaping the life in exile. “… immediately after the war the refugees needed badly to defend themselves and explain the reasons of their stay in Germany with notes and also letters of protest … Unfortunately, it was often difficult to find the evidence and documents verifying their statements. The data and literature was collected from the people who had succeeded in taking along the material while leaving their homeland. The hope was to assemble a database accessible for the public use,” writes the historian Evald Rink about the origins of the archives in the biggest camp of the Estonian refugees in Geislingen, Germany (Rink 2004). The major part of the archival records collected in Germany was taken over the ocean in 1948–49 where it became the foundation for the Estonian Archives in the United States. The records of Baltic University, however, established in Germany, have reached by today the Tartu University Library.

In Sweden the collection of archival records on Estonia and Estonians began primarily not for practical but for reasons of cultural policy to guarantee the continuation of Estonian culture and the creative impulse that would maintain and deepen the interest in the Estonian culture in the exile community at large. “Works in Estonian and by Estonian authors, any publications and archival records treating Estonian land, people and culture” were collected, preserved and made accessible for research by the Estonian Central Library and Archives (Eesti Keskraamatukogu ja Arhiiv, EKRA), established in 1955 at the Estonian Academic Society in Sweden (Eesti Teaduslik Selts Rootsis; Taremäe 1978: 11). However, as an archives of greater importance was still the Baltic Archives, also in Stockholm, the numerous collections of which have been deposited today in the Swedish State Archives (Lepik 1999: 107–111). The existential difficulties of the EKRA caused by their lack of depositories led in 1995 to the transport of their collections to Estonia, mostly to the Tartu University Library.

The records, having reached Tartu, were placed into their natural environment, for the home university got now documents of many researchers who had either studied at Tartu or begun here with their academic career, and these were supplemented by the records already in Tartu. Namely, in 1945 the home libraries of researchers who had fled Tartu had been collected and taken to the university library. The literature and manuscripts banned by the Soviet authorities had been closed as the most “dangerous” in the department of special archives (erifondid) observing strict regulations. First of these open to the public in 1966 was the correspondence left behind by the linguist Julius Mägiste (1900–1978 Lund), arranged in the personal archives of J. Mägiste (F 52). In 1990 it was supplemented by the children of Professor Mägiste from Sweden, his cousin Asta Veski from Tartu, and his colleagues-linguists from Hungary and Germany. Moreover, records were found in the library of Julius Mägiste, too, presented to the Tartu University Library by his family in 1989. Likewise, the small collection of notes by the composer Eduard Tubin (1905-1982 Stockholm) was made public (F 54). As time passed, the bans became looser, and other closed records of the intellectuals treated as traitors of their homeland by the Soviet authorities could be sorted out. For example, there were the manuscripts of the first president of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, the microbiologist Karl Schlossmann (1885–1969 Stockholm; F 162), and those of Ernst Julius Saareste (1892-1944 Halle; F 163), the founder of surgery in otorhinolaryngology in Estonia, and the documents of the Professor of Law, Academician and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia Jüri Uluots (1890–1945 Stockholm), under a special taboo hitherto. The library left behind as professor Uluots escaped his homeland was taken to the library of his home university in 17 boxes. It included his biographical and legal manuscripts. In 1990 these were supplemented by the draft copies of his academic studies found hidden into a bin in the granary of his home farm in Läänemaa. All these form now the small personal archives of Jüri Uluots in the Tartu University Library (F 164), while a considerably larger collection of his records is in the Estonian State Archives in Tallinn. We failed in establishing contacts with the son of Jüri Uluots in Sweden and have no data what Jüri Uluots, seriously ill at the time of his escape, could take with him and what has been preserved.

The Tartu University Library possessed also the archival records of another professor of law, those of Nikolai Maim (1884–1976 New York). Beginning his work for Tartu University as an acting professor in 1919, Nikolai Maim held the professorship until his escape in 1944. His personal archives (F 88, list 1) arranged of his documents left behind was supplemented in 1994 and 1995 by records from the US, thanks to contacts with his daughter Maare Ware established by the juridical historian Peeter Järvelaid. M. Ware sent to Tartu biographical documents, numerous draft papers, early lectures held at Tartu University but also those at Marburg University after the war. The supplement became a separate part of the personal archives of Professor Maim and is described in a separate list (F 88, list 2).

The archive of Nikolai Maim is the only exile archives in the Tartu University Library we have received from outside Europe. All the others have come from Sweden after Estonia had regained its independence and could have tighter contacts with the exile community that developed trust in the memory institutions of Estonia.

The archives of the founder of the Faculty of Economy of Tartu University and its first dean Eduard Rudolf Poom (1902–1986 Stockholm) came from Sweden to Tartu thanks to the help of the professor of Tartu University, economist Valner Krinal. In 1995 it was handed over to the university library by the step-son of E. Poom Henry Radewall. Eduard Poom managed to continue with his professional work in exile so that he can be called an Estonian-Swedish economist. Working first as a researcher at the Stockholm Commerce University, and continuing as a lecturer at Stockholm University, E. Poom was one of the most productive researchers and the best connoisseur of the economy of the occupied Estonia and the whole of the Soviet Union. His studies were published mostly in Germany and Sweden. The personal archives of E. Poom (F 133) contain three bulky units of manuscripts of his articles. Besides professional papers and correspondence there are reports on the situation in Estonia in 1980s the exile intellectuals steadily compiled for the public and governments of Northern Europe.

Harald Perlitz (1889–1972 Stockholm), working and researching at Tartu University since 1921, from the year 1935 as a Professor of Physics, escaped Estonia with his wife on the last possible moment after the loss of the state of Estonia in summer 1940 on the pretext of a business trip. The hope kindled at the time of the German occupation to return homeland and the university came true neither then nor later. The pupils of the internationally known researcher who had established the X-ray structure studies at Tartu continued his work either at Tartu or, like their teacher, abroad. The professional papers and correspondence left behind by Perlitz were arranged in the library and became a part of the archives of the department of physics (F 55, list 7).

Harald Perlitz was one of the first Estonian emigrants in Sweden. He was the intermediate between the Swedish state and the exile community in the Baltic Committee, a political body established in 1943, as well as the founder, the leader and an active member of various other organizations. As an academic person and a political fighter he was one of those who could unite Estonians being, as he himself has said, the cement between the bricks. H. Perlitz did not manage to continue as a lecturer in Sweden, but he did research and was until 1957 the head of the spectrograph and X-ray department in the Lumalampa Company. After his retirement he worked for a dozen of years as a professor of Physics at Ankara University in Turkey.

In 1996, on the wish of the widow of the professor, Anna Perlitz, the Estonian Academic Union in Sweden and the Baltic Archives decided to give the archival records of Harald Perlitz to Tartu University (F 138). The majority of it is the correspondence and speeches held in Sweden. Together with the pre-war part arranged already before, it gives researchers the possibility to read the decades-long voluminous and substantial correspondence between many former Tartu intellectuals (Endel Aruja, Adolf Parts, Hans E. Ronimois et al). Alongside with personal and professional matters it often discusses topical political issues in Estonia and exile communities all over the world. The numerous speeches of H. Perlitz were held at the anniversaries of the Republic of Estonia, Tartu University, an exile organization or his compatriots-friends. The three portfolios of research materials on metals and their amalgams are probably also from the Swedish period.

In winter 1994 a representative of the Tartu University Library presented his papers at the meetings of the Estonian Academic Union in Stockholm and Lund, talking about the personal archives of scientists preserved in the Library. It could have had its impact on the decision to trust us and bring the archives of the Union itself and the Estonian Central Library and Archives to Tartu. The documents were being sorted at the time and their fate had to be decided because their former depository in Sweden had been given a notice. In 1995 the Tartu University Library received a number of archival boxes that accompanied the books of the Estonian Central Library and Archives. Their arrangement has added to our department of manuscripts 5 personal and 4 institutional/ organizational archives.

The Estonian Academic Union in Sweden (Eesti Teaduslik Selts Rootsis, ETSR) sent to Tartu its management records of earlier years beginning with its foundation (F 176). Among the 46 founder members of the Union were numerous professors from Tartu who, like other intellectuals, needed a body to keep in contact and a forum to present their research. Bearing in mind these aims the Union continued the tradition of Tartu University to announce on the university anniversary the annual prize winners and 5–8 new topics. This encouraged the former students now in exile, or the new ones who had begun with their studies to research into the history and culture of Estonia (literature, language, architecture, ethnography, economy, etc). It was important to maintain Estonian as a language of research. The prize tradition was continued until 1994. Within 45 years there were presented 78 studies, and the archives of the union has 36 of them.

This was the older part of the archives that reached Tartu. It contains the minutes of the Union’s general and presentation meetings up to 1982, and those of the board meetings up to 1988, and annual reports up to 1985. Besides the correspondence of the Union (in Tartu up to 1982), it has the correspondence related to the publishing of the anthology “Apophoreta Tartuensia”, and of the yearbooks. Together with documents of the Estonian Central Library and Archives attached to the Union and the student research papers mentioned above the archives of the Estonian Academic Union in Sweden contains numerous manuscripts preserved there. There have been discussions with the former chairman of the Union Ivar Paljak to preserve the rest of the archives of the Union also permanently in the Library of Tartu University.

The archives of the ETSR included the material of three organizations/institutions arranged as separated collections. One of them was the archives of the Estonian Academic Institute (Eesti Teaduslik Instituut, ETI, F 178). The Estonian Academic Institute was established at the Estonian Academic Union in Sweden in 1951 to promote the work of Estonian exile researchers, especially in the field of arts investigating the land, the people and the culture of Estonia. Two years later it separated as an independent institution of research and education. The initiator of the institute and its first director was the archeologist Richard Indreko. After his death in 1961 the institute, up to 1984, was led by the ethnographer Gustav Ränk (1902–1998). In late 1990s the Institute terminated its work for there were no people to do it. It had given work for Professors Andrus Saareste, Armin Tuulse, Evald Blumfeldt and others, but also to numerous younger researchers of the exile community. The programs in the faculties of philology and law observed those of Tartu University. To facilitate studies, the Institute under R. Indreko issued a series of text-books and lecture notes, later it continued with bibliographies and published a series of these. The archives that reached Tartu had been compiled primarily during the period of R. Indreko – the statute, budgets, annual reports, including financial ones, correspondence, student programs, syllabuses, lists of students, etc. The material deposited by the Baltic Archives in the Swedish State Archives includes also the documents of the Academic Institute and contains probably those from the post-Indreko period.

The archival material of interest is that of the Estonian Relief. The Collection of Invalids (Eesti Abi. Invaliidfond, F 173). The Estonian Relief organization was established in Sweden in 1945 already to help the compatriots who had fled Estonia all over the world. Those in the greatest need of help were war invalids, especially in Germany and Austria. Later the relief funds were sent also to Denmark and Norway and in 1950s even to Estonians in the Soviet prison camps. Estonian refugees in Sweden volunteered in tracing the fellow countrymen in need of help, and in collecting the relief funds. The archival records speak about the tragic results of the war, but also about the touching humanity of people in the harsh reality of their exile. We knew very little about it here, behind the Iron Curtain.

On the 50^th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia a group of Estonian refugees in Stockholm established the Estonian Liberty Capital (Eesti Vabaduskapital) to give financial support to the course aiming at the restoration of democratic rights and self-determination of the people of Estonia. For various reasons, however, the organization was not efficient in its operations. A few years later, on May 28, 1974, it finished its activities and returned the stakes received to the donators. The small archives of the Estonian Liberty Capital (F 175) documents the unfortunate history of the organization.

A fragment of the archives of the ETSR was developed in Tartu into a peculiar personal archive. Leo Paim (1922–1990) who had begun with his studies of agronomy at Tartu University in 1943, evaded the German mobilization and fled on December 13, 1943 to Finland. There he enlisted as a volunteer and served in the Estonian regiment JR 200 that came on August 19, 1944 to Estonia to stop the invasion of the Red Army. How the records of Leo Paim (a diary, a few documents, photos, and letters) happened to become a part of the archives of the ETSR is not clear. It can be that in the seemingly hopeless situation a comrade of Leo Paim, or a Finnish girl took them to the Union. While arranging the records, we succeeded in finding his daughter in Estonia and learned about the later twisted fate of the young freedom fighter: after the war he worked first as a teacher in Tartu, was even a director of studies in a school, but as his past was revealed, he was arrested and sent to a labor camp. This stopped his educational possibilities for ever, and later, back in Estonia, he sustained his family as a transport worker and a postman. Leo Paim kept the diary since his flight from Estonia until May 14, 1944, and the diary was brought to Estonia together with a few of his other records. His daughter gave for her father’s personal archives (F 174) the diaries he had kept later, the letters sent from the labor camp in Siberia and other documents that have to be preserved.

The sizable archives of the ETSR that reached the Tartu University Library in 1995 included 45 boxes of the records of six Estonian researchers/scientists. One of the biggest of them is the personal archives of the legal expert and the journalist Aleksander Kaelas (1911–1964 Stockholm; F 151). A. Kaelas fled Estonia together with his wife in 1943. The dangerous fugitive way through Finland to Sweden lasted for three years and has been recorded in the diary entries almost daily. Aleksander Kaelas had graduated from the Faculty of Law of Tartu University, studying for a time also in the Faculty of Economy, and in Estonia he worked for the Labor Inspectorate, lecturing, parallel to that, at university on labor law. In Sweden A. Kaelas became the leading figure of the Estonian foreign mission as his archives now in Tartu clearly show. He was the founder and a member of many pressure and research organizations uniting Estonians. The data bases on the occupation in the Baltic States – circumstances, social policy, human rights in the Soviet Estonia and in exile, deportations, resistance movement, public figures of the Soviet Estonia, etc – collected as a result of his systematic work served as the foundation for his high-standard writings published in at least 8 European languages (Estonian, English, German, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Dutch and Norwegian). Kaelas wished to eliminate propaganda and let the facts speak for themselves. He got them from the printed press and the radio, but he also interviewed Estonian refugees and tourists. There are 18,000 type-written pages of summaries for the Soviet Estonian radio and printed news from the period 1950–1962. It is not clear yet if all the work is done by A. Kaelas. As a special recognition of his honest research were the repeated demarches by the Russian embassy during the first decade of the exile to stop him. As refugees were forbidden to pursue a policy of their own, Kaelas was many a time under interrogation but as his reports contained only facts and no propaganda, he could not be stopped in his action.

As his archives were arranged, the contacts established with Lili Kaelas, the wife of A. Kaelas, supplemented the records we got with the ETSR archives. We got the personal documents of Lili Kaelas, a well-known archeologist and ethnographer in Sweden, and learned that most of her documents are in the women’s archives of Gothenburg University. On their flight from Estonia, the Kaelases had sent their collection of paintings, books, and documents to a farm in South Estonia but unfortunately these have been lost by now. Aleksander Kaelas had begun collecting bookplates in 1937 in Estonia. Now his collection of 3,715 ex librises, the biggest collection of Estonian bookplates abroad, is in the archives of Yale University.

The archeologist Professor Richard Indreko (1900–1961 Stockholm) fled to Finland and on to Sweden in 1943. Since his student years (he graduated from Tartu University in 1927) R. Indreko had been working for the Chair of Archeology, and the last years before his leave, he was the acting Professor of archeology of Estonia and its neighboring countries. Thanks to his numerous professional and personal contacts and the materials he took with him on his leave, Indreko could continue with his research abroad and found a job in the Stockholm State History Museum.

With Indreko it has to be underlined that of decisive importance in getting a professional job abroad was the compatibility of the field in the new society. Otherwise one had to accept lesser options or change the profession altogether. Those difficulties in the field of physics have been discussed in the personal archives of Harald Perlitz in his correspondence with his former colleague from the Institute of Physics of Tartu University Ernst Kilkson (1890–1973). Perlitz, relying on his personal experience, gave Kilkson not much hope in continuing in Sweden as a physicist. The latter had been working in exile first in the Göttingen Estonian Gymnasium together with the Tartu Professors Hugo Kaho and Kaarel Kirde. H. Perlitz wrote to Kilkson about his idea to move from Germany to the better conditions in Sweden on December 25, 1946: “Isn’t it so that the major cause of the refugees’ tragedy is in their wish to continue work in their profession, and even in its more specific field? In most cases there are no social conditions for that, there is no society that would give economic backing “to practice one’s profession”. Here the tendency seems to be to go over to new fields … or to learn new skills altogether” (F 138, item 69, page 2).

Richard Indreko succeeded in continuing in Sweden his research into the archeology of the Stone Age and later periods, and his work was fully recognized. His doctoral thesis written at Tartu was published as a monograph in German. His sudden death stopped his intensive work. He had just completed the first part of his 3-part monograph on the Stone Age settlements in North and East Europe that was still published in 1964. The personal archive of Richard Indreko (F 150) has 304 items containing his research papers, lectures (in the ETI), correspondence but also material on his active participation in exile organizations. Five items shed light on Richard Indreko’s work in establishing the Baltic Humanistic Union (Balti Humanistlik Ühing) in 1943 he directed until his death. The archive of the relief organization for the three Baltic States has been deposited in the Swedish State Archives and it probably documents the later years of the union.

As it is widely known, many Estonian intellectuals found first a job in Sweden in archives. The historian Arnold Soom (1900–1977, Steinach, Austria) had been a leading archivist in Estonia. During his studies at Tartu University he worked already for six years in the State Central Archives, and after his graduation he was the Narva city archivist in 1930–1940. In 1940 A. Soom was appointed the vice director of the State Central Archives of the ESSR, in February 1941 its director. He directed the archives also during the German occupation and did not obey the order of the occupation authorities to evacuate the archives in 1944 to Germany. This and the threatening approach of the new regime promised nothing good and on August 31, 1944 Arnold Soom fled to Sweden. As an established expert on archives he found soon a post in the Swedish State Archives. His merits in studying Swedish history were considerable: he was one of the dozen Estonian researchers together with the coastal Swedes the Swedish state had been willing to accept (Soom 1996: 8). Working for the Swedish State Archives he could continue with his research until his retirement in 1966.

The bulkiest part in the personal archives of A. Soom in the Tartu University Library (F 152) is made up of the minute copies of archival records made over decades in the Swedish State Archives, the Tallinn City Archives that were in Göttingen after the war, and elsewhere. Of great help for him, already in Estonia, was his wife. A. Soom’s major field of research was the economic and social history of the 17^th century Estonia; he is the primary historian to have studied and recorded the history of Narva. Views on historical Narva are the central topic of his postcard collection. Many sights of Narva, and of Estonia of the 1930s at large, especially those by the legendary Carl Sarap, in his collection are a rarity by now and valued as historical documents. In Sweden Soom complemented his collection with sights of Sweden and the geography of his collection has been widened by his trips abroad and by friends who sent him postcards from their travels.

In 1972–1974 A. Soom polished his earlier articles that are in his personal archives in the Swedish State Archives. There is also the manuscript of his memoirs up to 1940 completed in February 1976; the Tartu University Library has its copy sent by A. Soom. A part of the archival heritage of A. Soom is in the Estonian Historical Archives in Tartu (F 2598, list 1, 210 items).

Erik Tender (1902–1991) began with archival work in the Tartu City Archives as a student of history in 1925. Having studied the history of Tartu, he became in 1941 the head of the Tartu Central Archives, and during the war he also lectured at Tartu University. In 1944 Erik Tender fled to Germany where his family perished. In 1946–1949 he was the acting Professor of Swedish and Nordic history at the Baltic University working in Hamburg/Pinneberg, the archives of the Estonian Department of which are by now also in the Tartu University Library. Moving on to Sweden, E. Tender worked until his death as an archivist. His records, now in Tartu (F 153), are not numerous; of personal material we have mostly concepts of his letters, but the archive includes also the reprographs of the publications of the Baltic University that are a true rarity. They contain a full series of the information bulletins of the Baltic University and the students’ journal “Scientiae et Artibus”.

Of the archival records received from Sweden we have not arranged as yet the boxes of the archeologist and ethnographer Erik Laid (1904–1961). At the first glance these contain mostly offprints that would be included in the corresponding collections. The university library gave the archives of the historian Oleg Roslavlev to the Estonian Historical Archives in 2006. It would be reasonable to decide on the archival value of his materials there, for it is mostly the copies of the records preserved in the Historical Archives. The Historical Archives got also a few additional records for their personal collections of Theodor Künnapas, and the manuscripts of Professor Andrus Saareste were given to the Estonian Literary Museum that has already his personal archives.

The Tartu University Library has now also a part of the archives of the joint Baltic university working in Hamburg/Pinneberg, namely the archives of the Estonian Department of the Baltic University operating in the British occupation zone in Germany in 1946–1949 (Shahhovskaya 2003). For years nothing was known about the fate of the archives, and in 1980s the agricultural researcher Elmar Järvesoo (1909–1994), the secretary of the Estonian Department, began to compile in Toronto the history of the university using his personal notes and memoirs collected from others (Balti Ülikool 1991). The archival records of the Baltic University were found in the Uppsala University Library by an Estonian archivist Jüri Leps. The unarranged records sorted out by their language were presented on his initiative to the Tartu University Library in 2002. This is the present collection of the Baltic University, Estonian Department (F 168).

In correspondence with the size of the Baltic communities in Germany, the share of Estonians in the Baltic University was the smallest: there were about 50 Estonian lecturers, and 300 Estonian students. Only 7 Estonians graduated, and that can be treated as an achievement. This university was as if an emergency aid in the turmoil and indeterminacy of the post-war years, for researchers needed work, and young people education, and as it became possible, people left the DP camp – for other countries, other universities.

The archive now in Tartu, all in all 1,069 pages, contains mostly correspondence. It documents the attempts to establish the university and the preparatory steps in 1945. Of decisive importance there was Professor Julius Mägiste. The letters depict the recruiting of personnel and their further work, and various matters related to students. Every entrance application hints at the fate of a young person. For example, a girl from Tallinn, Benita Kiik, wanted to enter the Faculty of Economy but “unfortunately I have no certificate of my education as I lost my suitcases with documents last May in Czechoslovakia as a result of a sudden Russian attack” (F 168, 12:4). Ellen Trummer wrote: “Please describe me the living conditions as I have a 9-month-old baby and my mother with me” (F 168, 10:11); Axel (Aleksander) Paas: “I am in my last year at Tartu University” (F. 168, 11:2), Olga Tarmu: “I am now in a foreign camp, the only Estonian, and I would like to attend the university, so to meet also other Estonians” (F. 168, 11:62). In 1948 the Baltic refugees in the DP camps in Germany got possibilities to emigrate to other countries. This is reflected in the correspondence of the Baltic University now concerned mostly about the emigration of its lecturers. The university finished its activities in 1949. To carry on with some of its work and take care of its heritage there was established the Baltic Institute but the latter faded soon.

The archives of the Baltic University in Uppsala contained the records of one of its professors. The Tartu barrister Mart Nurk (1892–1948) had lectured at Tartu University since 1936. In early 1939 he took his doctoral degree on agreements and the same year he became an Adjunct Professor on commercial law. Fleeing Estonia in 1944 together with his family Mart Nurk worked as the Professor of commercial law and Roman law at the Baltic University until his death in 1948. His small archives includes the lectures held in Tartu, and in Germany, and fragments of his research begun in Tartu. Tartu University Library received his documents (F 177) from Uppsala in 2005.

Since 1950s the scholars in exile and those in Estonia began to have contacts again. So, most of the archival collections mentioned contain not only correspondence between Estonian scholars from all over the world but also letters from the colleagues who continued with their work at home, and the other way round too – letters from exile researchers are preserved in the archival heritage of the scientists and public figures of home-Estonia (e.g. letters of the literary researcher Otto Webermann to Edgar Oissar, Kaja Noodla, et al). The correspondence, conducted often by using secret ways and possibilities, gives a good idea about the professional aspirations of researchers and their share in the fight for Estonia’s liberty that was often not too uniform. The letters reflect thoughts, events and life style on both sides of the Iron Curtain. At that, one had to learn the skill of writing between the lines. Characteristic is a letter by the archeologist Harri Moora to his former colleague Richard Inderko of October 4, 1953 (F 150, 226:1–2):

“Dear Richard, Me and your other friends think often about you and have been looking long for the possibility to send you at least a short notice. Finally the possibility has come. I am sending my notice with two friends asking you to help them in every way. We have not lost and will never loose our hope to meet again you and our other distant friends in most happy circumstances. Recently our hopes in this regard have grown. […] As you probably have heard, I have had difficulties. But I’ve changed my tactics and now the situation has improved. It is not only me, of course, but the big cause many of us are dedicated to. Your book that you published there has reached us and we are happy that you can work and publish. We have also written this and that, and as we’ve heard we have been blamed in your parts for that. But you and our other friends know from your experience our possibilities and hopefully you can understand. Blame us, but it is for the good of our common cause and in a way it strengthens our positions. And let us also learn to read from between the lines, and we are ready to risk with our reputation for the sake of our common cause. […]”

To sum up

The exile archives in the Tartu University Library are only a small part of the material preserved in many repositories and of that needing preservation. In early 1940s about 300 persons with an academic degree fled to Sweden, including about 50 lecturers related to Tartu University.  “In spite of everything, the people of Estonia are still one” – these words of the archeologist Richard Indreko said in another context suit well to characterize the activities of exile Estonians in preserving their history but also the arrival of the archival material, created and collected abroad, to free Estonia. The Tartu University Library has pursued its activities in the archival direction not too eagerly but while arranging the material already got we’ve tried to obtain other records of the collection creators from both Estonia and abroad.

The archives preserved in the Tartu University Library have got in recent ten years 9 additional personal archives of exile origin, and 5 archives of institutions/organizations with almost 1,500 items of various documents. The lists of the archives that have been fully arranged have been digitalized and are available for reading on the web-site of the corresponding archival collections of the Tartu University Library, or the lists can be reached via the e-catalogue ESTER describing the archival collections too.

Archival collections of exile origin in the Tartu University Library: F 88, list 2. Maim, Nikolai

F 133. Poom, Eduard Rudolf
http://www.utlib.ee/ee/kataloogid/nimistud/poom_nimistu.pdf

F 138. Perlitz, Harald Gottfried
http://www.utlib.ee/ee/kataloogid/nimistud/perlitz_nimistu.pdf

F 150. Indreko, Richard
http://www.utlib.ee/ee/kataloogid/nimistud/indreko_nimistu.pdf

F 151. Kaelas, Aleksander
http://www.utlib.ee/ee/kataloogid/nimistud/kaelas_nimistu.pdf

F 152. Soom, Arnold
http://www.utlib.ee/ee/kataloogid/nimistud/soom_nimistu.pdf

F 153. Tender, Erik
http://www.utlib.ee/ee/kataloogid/nimistud/tender_nimistu.pdf

F 168. Balti Ülikool. Eesti sektor (Baltic University. Estonian Department)
http://www.utlib.ee/ee/kataloogid/nimistud/fond168_ttl.html

F 173. Eesti Abi. Invaliidfond (Estonian Relief.  The Collection of Invalids)
http://www.utlib.ee/ee/kataloogid/nimistud/eesti_abi_invaliidfond.pdf

F 174. Paim, Leo
http://www.utlib.ee/ee/kataloogid/nimistud/paim_nimistu.pdf

F 175. Eesti Vabaduskapital (Estonian Liberty Capital)
http://www.utlib.ee/ee/kataloogid/nimistud/eesti_vabaduskapital.pdf

F 176. Eesti Teaduslik Selts Rootsis (Estonian Academic Union in Sweden)
http://www.utlib.ee/ee/kataloogid/nimistud/etsr.pdf

F 177. Nurk, Mart
http://www.utlib.ee/ee/kataloogid/nimistud/nurk_nimistu.pdf

F 178. Eesti Teaduslik Instituut (Estonian Academic Institute)
http://www.utlib.ee/ee/kataloogid/nimistud/ETI_nimistu.pdf

References

Balti Ülikool Saksamaal 1945-1949: koguteos = Baltic University in Germany 1945–1949. Ed. by Elmar Järvesoo. Toronto, 1991

Lepik, Kalju 1999. Balti arhiiv Stokholmis. – In: Tuna, 1999, 3.

Rink, Evald 2004. Ameerika eestlaste kultuuripärandi hoidja Eesti Arhiiv Ühendriikides (Estonian Archives in the U.S., Inc.): lühiajalugu 1964-2004 a. Compiled by Evald Rink. Lakewood: Eesti Arhiiv Ühendriikides, 74 pp.

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 Translated by Anne Lange

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