Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles
available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The Letter of 40
intellectuals, also The letter of 40, originally A public letter from
Estonian SSR was a public letter dated October 28, 1980 and posted a
week later, in which 40 intellectuals attempted to defend the Estonian
language and expressed their protest against the recklessness of the
Republic-level government in dealing with youth protests that were
sparked a week earlier due to the banning of a public performance of the
band Propeller. The real reasons were much more deep-seated, and had to
do primarily with the russification policies of the Kremlin in occupied
Estonia. The letter was addressed to the newspapers Pravda, Rahva Hääl
and Sovetskaya Estoniya. None of these nor any other Soviet publication
printed the letter. Copies of the letter were however widely distributed
through samizdat.
