The world may little note or remember that on June 23, 1919, Estonian troops and their Latvian allies defeated the Baltische Landeswehr of the Germans who sought to preserve their power over the peasants of the Baltic States in the Battle of Võnnu. But Estonians remember, since the day is celebrated as Võidupüha every year. Why, months after the end of World War I, were the Germans still fighting in the Baltic States, of all places? As it happens, the Baltic Germans had been an elite class of burghers and rural landlords for centuries, since they had subjugated the native population centuries before, and the fall of the Russian Empire and the acceptance of German rule over the area in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk meant that a complicated situation had developed in Eastern Europe. The local population of Estonians, along with the Latvians and Lithuanians in their own lands, desired to be free after centuries of despotic rule, the Russians (under the rule of the Soviets) desired to restore the Russian Empire under Communist rule, and the Baltic Germans with the support of the German state wished to preserve their existing status as elites. In the complicated war, the Baltic Germans were defeated, with some help from the Allies in Latvia at Riga, and the Russians were, for the moment, held off and the little Baltic countries recognized as free [1]. Little wonder the day is remembered and honored.
The United States has its own festival labeled as Victory Day, as do many other nations [2]. In the United States, Victory Day is celebrated on August 9, and only in two states: Hawaii and Rhode Island. The reasons for this are highly intriguing and can be briefly explained. On August 9th, the United States dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, and five days later the Japanese sued for peace prior to the expected invasion of mainland Japan. While the day was once a national recognized holiday, the awkwardness of the end of World War II has led it to be removed from the calendar except in two states. Hawaii, of course, had been attacked by Japan in a sneak attack at the beginning of World War II [3], while Rhode Island suffered a disproportionate loss of sailors in the Pacific front, and so both of these states, which suffered at the hands of the Japanese to a far greater proportion than the rest of the United States, still remember and celebrate Victory Day, even if the manner of victory is something that has since gone into disrepute.
Why is it that Estonia has had no reason to celebrate its own Victory Day less passionately while the United States would prefer not to draw attention to its own Victory Day at all in the vast majority of the nation? In the nearly a century since Estonia won its independence, there has been no reason to think its victory against the former Baltic German elites of the region was dishonorable. If Germany has shown itself to be a peaceful nation now, the behavior of the Germans in World War II have drawn little sympathy from the world, and the thought that they once ruled over a large group of oppressed Baltic peasantry is not one that anyone is likely to view very highly, apart from the descendants of those elites. In the case of the United States, the situation is different. It has not been politically correct, for a variety of reasons, for the brutality of the Japanese to be as well-known as that of Nazi Germany [4]. Without that knowledge, it is hard to celebrate the destruction of a city by nuclear weapons. I remember as a college student writing a position paper on whether the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified—the fact that it is a question upon which reasonable people can passionately disagree suggests that their use is not something to be celebrated, and admittedly one does feel rather embarrassed about the fact even if one sees it as a justifiable act.
It is therefore not only the fact of victory that matters in its commemoration, but the context of that victory. Victory as a result of a fair battle is something to celebrate or mourn, but at least to remember. The effects of a siege may lead to bad blood on the part of those defeated—it was decades after the Civil War before the city of Vicksburg celebrated Independence Day again, after all—but even here the day is remembered even where it is cursed. It is days that have the appearance and feeling of massacres that are no longer considered worth celebrating, and for good reason. No one celebrates the “Battle” of Wounded Knee, except to draw attention to the day as a source of shame. For this reason Victory Day in the United States has fallen into disrepute, because even though the defeat of the militaristic Japanese in World War II was a good cause, worthy of remembering, the manner of that victory in the horrific slaughter of defenseless civilians through a new and terrifying, even apocalyptic, weapon is not something to celebrate, but rather something to mourn and something to question long after the deed is done. In such a way, we can be robbed of the pleasure of a victory when that victory comes about the wrong way.
[1] See, for example:
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Day
[3] See, for example:
[4] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/book-review-unbroken/
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/book-review-aung-san-of-burma/
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/03/26/book-review-the-rape-of-nanking/
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/the-priest-and-the-graveyard/
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