This brings to mind Geir Lundestad’s phrase “empire by invitation,” describing America’s burgeoning role in western Europe in the early years of the Cold War at the behest of these governments (and largely supported by public opinion in these countries, as well).
Not much here for Estonian movies, but Kevade is the obvious standout; it isn’t my favorite older Estonian film, though. I’d recommend trying to find The Last Relic (Viimne reliikvia), if you get the chance. It’s a medieval adventure with some catchy songs, especially “Põgene, vaba laps!”
It’s not quite the 1970s, but I really enjoy The Witness (A tanú), a Hungarian satire of communism from 1969. I’m pleased to see that it’s available on the site and strongly recommend watching it.
A wonderful introduction to the Estonian language and some of its quirks.
I have minor quibbles, although my relationship to the language is as a non-native historian of the country, not a Finno-Ugric linguist or local. I always felt (rather unscientifically, of course) as though Estonian traded some of the agglutinative regularity that characterize Finnish and Hungarian for greater vocabulary familiarity for Germanic speakers. Despite what the author writes in her first endnote on foreign loan words, I've found a knowledge of German to be quite helpful when trying to guess the meaning of a word (or to extemporaneously construct one) using a calque from German.