• Estonia
    2011 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses

    • MULTILINGUAL BROADCASTS

      As early as 1927, Brother West received permission to broadcast on a commercial radio station in Tallinn. The lecture he gave, “Blessings of the Millennium,” was translated into Estonian. The broadcast not only aroused much interest but also resulted in some controversy. Thus, further permission to broadcast was not given again until 1929. Then regular broadcasts began every Sunday. The talks were given in English, Estonian, Finnish, Russian, occasionally in Swedish and German, and at least once in Danish. Those talks too aroused much interest and could be heard as far away as Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia. During the 1932 service year, the 200 lectures that were broadcast proved to be effective tools in making Jehovah’s name known. Not surprisingly, they also aroused clergy opposition!

      Knowing how fearful officials in Estonia were of anything having to do with Communism, the clergy falsely claimed that the Witnesses had Communist links. Quick to react to anything that they felt could weaken the nation, Estonian authorities banned the lectures in 1934. However, not everyone agreed with the ban. A schoolboy wrote the following letter in English:

      Dear Watch Tower and Judge Rutherford:

      I am sorry that our government in Estonia has forbidden your lectures in our broadcasting. I am a schoolboy, a pupil. My parents are not rich: they earn with fatiguing work a living to their children. But the love and hope to the Lord is like a sunbeam on their faces. I was severely ill in the winter, and then were your lectures in the broadcasting the only thing that have me consoled. The tears in my eyes were then the tears of happiness. . . . Where are these lectures now? . . . I began to learn the English, and this is my first letter written in this language, all without a dictionary. . . . With best wishes and greetings to Judge Rutherford.

      Brother Rutherford replied with a personal letter and sent the young boy some records of his lectures.