Birgit Itse urges Estonians and Scots to value their own culture

Journalist Birgit Itse, who lives in Scotland, told ERR’s Vikerraadio that Estonians and Scots share a tendency to put other cultures first and diminish their own culture and heritage. She said hospitality should not come at the expense of one’s own identity.

At the end of July, Itse accepted an offer to work for North East Radio Scotland, a local radio station. Since August 8, she has hosted the station’s Saturday morning programme, choosing its content and music herself.

Itse previously spent six years producing news and other programmes for Vikerraadio and R2. She said that if the same opportunities had arisen in Estonia, she might not have accepted them because of what she described as an Estonian tendency to think, “Who am I to do things like that?”

“In Scotland, I think, ‘I am the one who can do these things.’ That is the biggest change in my own way of being,” Itse said. “Maybe that is why I had to go to Scotland.”

Itse has also written a book about her relationship with Scotland, titled “My Scotland”. She said writing it made her realise that all her books deal with places within and around people, including her book about Naissaar and a poetry book published in English in November.

She said places can affect people in different ways, prompting them to return repeatedly or not drawing them back at all. That connection can change over the years, she added.

Itse said the best time to visit Scotland is from late April to early May, when nature begins to bloom, the weather is not yet very hot and large crowds of tourists have not arrived.

She also described the situation in Scotland in July as frightening. Smoke from a fire covered a 100-kilometre stretch of the country’s eastern and northeastern coast, she said. The fire was 160 kilometres away as the crow flies, while the affected landscape was left blackened. The exact cause was unknown, but the fire had spread across 25 square kilometres and was among the largest landscape fires in a national park, according to Itse.

Itse said people in Scotland rarely discuss the tendency to place other cultures ahead of their own. Those who point it out are often outsiders who say that Scottish culture is valuable and should be preserved.

“It is hospitality at our own expense. Perhaps it is also reflected in the overwork we engage in as a nation and as individuals,” she said. “We need to stand up for ourselves more boldly.”