During the Soviet occupation in Estonia, more specifically the era of Stalinism, the only possible communication channel for exchanging information among family and friends between the East and the West were private letters. The private letters from the physics teacher August Herman (1891–1951) to the Estonian language and literature teacher Kusta Mannermaa (1888–1959) help to understand the spiritual resistance to the Soviet occupation of schoolteachers in the 1940s. At that time, Herman worked at Valga Secondary School I and Mannermaa at Tartu Secondary School VI. Both of them had previous teaching experience from the independent Republic of Estonia.

This article features six private letters written by Herman. Mannermaa deposited the first of those letters (26 October 1946) at the Estonian Literary Museum in 1956. Mannermaa also included an explanation letter. He had urged Herman to collect memories of the Estonian poet Hendrik Adamson (1891–1946), which Herman succeeded in doing.

Since Mannermaa was Anu Raudsepp’s close relative, the other letters are kept in her private collection. The main topic of those letters is the sovietisation of educational life. Protocols of meetings of the Valga Secondary School I teachers’ council from 1946–1949 and protocols of meetings of the teachers’ Estonian Communist Party grassroots organisation at the same school from 1947–1949 deposited at the Estonian National Archives help to provide the background for these letters. Mannermaa’s thoughts from his diary reflect his opinions regarding the sovietisation of Tartu’s educational life.

In this politically very dangerous time, one had to be very careful regarding how one expressed one’s thoughts both orally and especially in writing because one could easily be stigmatised as an enemy of the Soviet regime and be subjected to repressions for expressing the ‘wrong’ thoughts. Though correspondence was checked by Soviet censors, it was possible to share sensitive information and opinions by writing about them between the lines. Only people who were very close to the author could understand letters written in a manner of strict self-censorship. Herman and Mannermaa had been life-long friends who shared common cultural and political views. They could understand and rely on each other. They refused to accept the loss of Estonian independence and suffered spiritually from Soviet ideological pressure, both in education and in society. As an example, Mannermaa’s diary entry from 4 June 1946 states: ‘And somebody said today again that the Russian troops should certainly leave our country, and we must become the masters of our own country again.’