In this fifth essay based on a series of interviews conducted with John Trumper, M.D. attention is directed to Dr. Trumper’s work in the Soviet Union in the late part of the 20th Century (just before collapse of the Soviet Union). John had worked for many years as a pediatrician in the United States. He has also served as a physician with the Maori in New Zealand and with three Native American communities in the United States. Dr. Trumper brings a wealth of insights regarding interpersonal relations and culture to these interviews based on his remarkable history of engagement with people in many different settings–mostly small, nonurban communities. This interview concerns his work with Soviet citizen in a small community located near the Finnish/Soviet border.
Having worked in a Soviet country [Estonia] near where John Trumper was engaged during the early 1990s, I (William Bergquist) co-authered a book on Freedom with my colleague, Berne Weiss, who was working in Hungary at the same time. Here is an edited excerpt from this book that helps to provide a context for the observations made by and insights offered by Dr. Trumper:
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As a newly minted Estonian diplomat noted in 1992:
Independence is . . . difficult for people living in Estonia because they must now think for themselves. They can no longer tum to other people for guidance. There is no one to tell them what to do.
Freedom was a source of great hope—but also great challenge–for the citizens of Eastern Europe during the early 1990s. Berne Weiss and I arrived at this conclusion in Freedom (1994)—our book about the social revolution that occurred in Estonia and Hungary during years when the Soviet Union was collapsing. While there was hope in both countries, it was also true that many years of public lies and a long history of war and invasion in both countries left the residents of Hungary and Estonia with a legacy of profound skepticism about the lasting effects and endurance of freedom in each country. A sense of betrayal lay close enough to the surface to encourage a widely held wait-and-see attitude. Men and women who came from both countries were reluctant to commit to hope and were skeptical about solutions that had thus far been offered for longstanding problems. As one Hungarian put it, ”You Americans have a solution to every problem, and we Hungarians [and Estonians] have a problem for every solution!”
Yet, these same men and women also witnessed major shifts occurring in their countries and in their personal lives as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union. They expressed the belief that these changes are irreversible and that the challenges awaiting them primarily concern their ability to live with and sustain their new freedom. Although past history led to skepticism, current history led to hope and challenge. In setting the stage for our discussion of the reactions of Hungarians and Estonians to this freedom, Berne Weiss and I began with these contradictory feelings of hope and skepticism and, in particular, the sources and the expression of these feelings. Contradiction and other conditions of VUCA-Plus were alive and well in Estonia and Hungary of the early 1990s.
