History tends to repeat itself. If not in the Nietzschean sense, bringing back every nuance and characteristic exactly as before, then by reaffirming outdated attitudes and oppositions because inventing something new is many times harder than setting old grease ablaze again.

Instead of seeing notes of prosperity, flourishing and relevant social critique in Flo Kasearu's "Monumental Neglect" series and its apogee (2023–2026), the powerful monument depicting a woman waving her skirt has provoked hostility and incomprehension, with the main target of attack being Alma Ostra-Oinas (1886–1960), portrayed as a rider.

Ironically, it is once again the newspaper Postimees in whose pages Ostra-Oinas is being harshly criticized. Alma Ostra-Oinas, a gifted activist, top politician, writer and publicist, had already become the target of Postimees' editor-in-chief in the early 20th century as a young woman challenging social norms — daring, together with her companions, to participate in discussion evenings with Russian male university students and to edit and read banned literature (Väljataga 1996).

Jaan Tõnisson accused the enterprising students of Pushkin Girls' Gymnasium, including Alma Ostra-Oinas, of excessive liberalism. Behind the attack was, naturally, a political power struggle between Tõnisson himself and the men of Uudised and Noor-Eesti, who belonged to the left-wing spectrum. A misogynistic disposition also played a role, characteristic at the time of most men regardless of political affiliation.

Now a conceptually thoughtful, full-scale monument has been erected to an important woman, one in whose form, content, background and execution rebellion, admiration, irony, tragedy, comedy and strength merge together.

At the intersection of Liivalaia and Juhkentali streets in Tallinn, Alma Ostra-Oinas has raised above her head the brown skirt of the Pushkin Gymnasium uniform that became a symbol of freedom during the 1905 Postimees scandal. With the creation and installation of the statue, Flo Kasearu has very much in keeping with the times addressed the problem of the invisibility of women who shaped Estonian culture in urban space, history and everyday memory.

In the wake of this event, Mart Sander has written a disparaging, belittling and error-ridden piece that tears the entire project to shreds. Driven by strong negative emotions, Sander is unable in the article to decide what exactly he wishes to attack. As a result, he fires indiscriminately, demanding anatomical realism from art, flawless ideal nationalism, but at the same time ideological messaging as well, while accusing Alma Ostra-Oinas and, implicitly, all her supporters of selling out the Estonian people as a unified whole to communism (although Ostra-Oinas was in fact a social democrat and a builder of the Republic of Estonia).

What appears to motivate this malicious article is not the sculpture itself, with its fascinating cluster of stories and prehistories that from today's perspective require explanation and that can be interpreted through the collisions and intertwining of local women's movements and different forms of nationalism, but rather the opportunity to apply the slogan "divides society" to the work.

Precisely at those moments when the words of many participants in the discussion reveal hostility toward something different — for example, even a rough and asymmetrical horse — it seems that while we may be top innovators in digital matters, in art we bury innovative impulses. The horse must be anatomically correct, art patriotic and cute little fish sculptures should be erected in front of Arter!

There are also inaccuracies in Heili Reinart's older overview article introducing Ostra-Oinas. True, in 2016 such an informational article may have helped set processes in motion, but in light of current knowledge it no longer holds up. For example, it once again features a photo of physician and politician Alma Ast-Anni instead of Alma Ostra-Oinas and if gender seems irrelevant here, it is still difficult to imagine anyone offering a picture of Juhan Liiv instead of Gustav Suits.

The furor is caused by Alma Ostra-Oinas' marriage to Jaan Anvelt and Mart Niineste's rebuttal to Sander also dwells on this issue. Although it comes to Ostra-Oinas' defense, it leaves unexplained the fact that the fictitious marriage of 1909–1910 allowed Ostra-Oinas, a revolutionary sentenced to prison, to live in St. Petersburg under a false name, enabling her to hide from the authorities and continue her studies at the Higher Women's Courses in the imperial capital. Moreover, such academic freedom — including participation in literary evenings in mixed company — could at that time be enjoyed by women only far from Estonia, including in the empire's capital.

By the eve of World War I, Ostra-Oinas' political ambitions had at times receded, while aesthetic and intellectual interests came to dominate. She read extensively, including Estonian fiction, and between 1914 and 1916 wrote the Young Estonia-style novel "Aino" (Tallinn, 1923), about an aspiring and sensitive young woman — in other words, she rewrote the male-centered standard narrative of the era from a female-centered perspective, something genuinely innovative at the time.

In "Aino," published in 1923, Ostra criticizes intimate partner violence, dreams of a better future for women and blends modern aesthetics with Estonian folklore. Ostra was likely one of the predecessors of today's exceptionally strong women's prose in Estonia, which stands out even on the European level. Nevertheless, Ostra and many of her female writer colleagues have undeservedly faded into obscurity and none of the participants in the current polemic explores this point with sufficient depth.

Following the discussion surrounding Flo Kasearu's equestrian monument to Alma Ostra-Oinas, it becomes apparent that the reaction to such a significant event as the placement of a sharp and provocative new work of art in public space remains superficial.

People chew over similar questions, such as what the proper political label for Alma Ostra-Oinas should be, while leaving unanalyzed the woman's contribution to Estonian culture as a whole.

It is difficult to determine which fact has more negative consequences: the laziness of writers and pseudo-experts in familiarizing themselves with the diverse contributions of Alma Ostra-Oinas and her colleagues, especially her female contemporaries — including the failure to seek out those who have spent years, even decades, studying women's history and nationalism, among them Eve Annuk, Tiina Kirss, Merike Ristikivi, Katrin Kivimaa and Janet Laidla. This disregard for expertise has resulted in extraordinarily superficial treatments of Ostra's work. Or perhaps the more consequential issue is the speakers' continuing need to think about history, including nationalism, in a rigidly binary, hierarchical and childish way — the very mode of thinking that has pushed us into an era of overlapping crises and whose catastrophic effects on our lives have long since been spelled out clearly in academic literature.

It is high time to crawl out of the binary past constructed for our own sense of safety and begin observing change. The present is dreadful, but perhaps the striking sculpture dedicated to Alma Ostra-Oinas could bring people together in thought, offering a place where one might feel at ease beneath the shelter of a woolen skirt.

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