Mare Kalda (Estonian Literary Museum)

Video Parodies and Variability in the Vernacular Remixes of an Estonian Cult Movie

The well-known movie “Kevade” (Spring, Tallinnfilm 1969; in 2012 it was named the “film of the century” in Estonia) can be seen as a core text of Estonian culture. The movie is inspired by a novel by Oskar Luts and depicts the school system, relationships and life of the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. The novel has been a part of compulsory readig lists at school and the movie is frequently shown on TV; one can easily attain a digital copy of it. Even though the events take place in quite a distant past, several frames of the movie have become memetic: episodes of it are remixed and parodied. It is evident that the core text appeals to Estonian meme makers, as the characters of “Kevade“ can be often met in the vernacular reactions to both local and global ongoing events and scandals.