Estonia: Identity and Independence: Translated into English (On the Boundary of Two Worlds: Identity, Freedom, and Moral Imagination in the Baltics, 2)

Estonia Identity and Independence

On the Boundary of Two Worlds Identity, Freedom, and Moral Imagination in the Baltics 2

Editor Leonidas Donskis, Professor of Philosophy at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania, and Foreign Docent of Philosophy at the University of Helsinki, Finland Editorial and Advisory Board Timo Airaksinen, University of Helsinki, Finland Egidijus Aleksandravicius, The Lithuanian Emigration Institute, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania Endre Bojtar, the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary Kristian Gerner, University of Uppsala, Sweden John Hiden, University of Glasgow, UK Mikko Lagerspetz, Estonian Institute of Humanities, Estonia Andreas Lawaty, Director, the Nordost-Institute at Lüneburg, Germany Olli Loukola, University of Helsinki, Finland Alvydas Nikzentaitis, Lithuanian History Institute, Lithuania Rein Raud, University of Helsinki, Finland, and Estonian Institute of Humanities, Estonia Alfred Erich Senn, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA David Smith, University of Glasgow, UK Saulius Suziedelis, Millersville University, USA Joachim Tauber, Nordost-Institut, Lüneburg, Germany Tomas Venclova, Yale University, USA

Estonia Identity and Independence

Edited by

Jean-Jacques Subrenat

Translated into English by

David Cousins Eric Dickens Alexander Harding Richard C. Waterhouse

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2004

This translation into English was supported by a grant from the Estonian Cultural Endowment (Eesti Kultuurkapital). Cover design: Arunas Gelunas The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 90-420-0890-3 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam – New York, NY 2004 Printed in The Netherlands

Table of Contents Foreword by Lennart Meri

vii

Acknowledgements

ix

Introduction by Jean-Jacques Subrenat

1

Hando Runnel, A Very Ancient Nation

9

I. From the Origins to the Mid-19th Century

11

Richard Villems, Marginalia on the Topic of Identity

13

Tarmo Kulmar, The Time of Shadows

23

Andrei Hvostov, Mart Laar, Harri Tiido, Historical Myth in National Identity: An Exchange of Ideas

35

Tiina Kala, Estonia from the 13th to the 16th Centuries

47

Margus Laidre, From the Reformation to National Awakening 1520–1850

65

II. The National Awakening and the Building Up of an Independent State

81

Ea Jansen, The National Awakening of the Estonian Nation

83

Eero Medijainen, Estonia and the World

107

III. The Soviet Period (1940–1988)

135

Andres Tarand, The Soviet Period

137

Jaan Kaplinski, Jaan Kross, Paul-Eerik Rummo, Kalev Kesküla, Resistance, Scepticism and Homo Sovieticus: An Exchange of Opinions

153

vi

Estonia: Identity and Independence

Jaak Allik, The Strong People of Kalev Remained… (An Opinion) Raimo Raag, The National Identity and Culture of Estonians Living in the West 1944–1991

167 179

Toomas Hendrik Ilves, An Opinion

199

Mari-Ann Kelam, An Opinion

203

Liis Klaar, The Estonian Identity in Exile: An Opinion

211

Aino-Lepik von Wirén, An Opinion

217

Helga Nõu, An Opinion

221

IV. The “Singing Revolution” and Independence Regained (1988 to the Present)

223

Mart Laar, The Restoration of Independence in Estonia

225

Tunne Kelam, An Opinion

239

Küllo Arjakas, Reflections on the Late 1980s and Early 1990s: An Opinion

245

Rein Raud, The Conditions for a Multicultural Estonia

257

Sergei Ivanov, Jaan Kaplinski, Mart Nutt, David Vseviov, Harri Tiido, The Pragmatic and the “National” Approach to the Question of the Russian-Speaking Population in Estonia: An Exchange of Ideas

269

Jüri Luik, Jean-Jacques Subrenat, Harri Tiido, Globalisation, Integration into European Structures and their Effect on National Identity and Culture: Discussion

281

Co-Authors

293

Chronology (compiled by Lore Listra)

299

Foreword For several decades I have felt towards the French spirit a debt that I will now repay, or at least acknowledge with pleasure. As the president of this small country, I repeatedly emphasised that the purpose of all Estonian history has been the realisation of the right of self-determination, the restoration of independence and the establishment of a sovereign state. We succeeded in that objective on 24 February 1918, in the aftermath of the First World War, which transformed many peoples, previously almost anonymous, into subjects of international law. On the eve of the new millennium this is hindsight, too self-evident to justify wasting words on. But ten years before the Manifesto of Estonian Independence, who would have had the courage to speak of the Republic of Estonia, of the Estonians’ own country, in 1908? Yes, Estonian author Juhan Liiv did dare to dream of this, and even put his dream on paper, but he was just a poet, and therefore a madman: even those who quoted him did so condescendingly. Who in 1936 would have predicted that India would achieve independence, or in 1979 that the Berlin Wall would fall ten years later? When politicians quote politicians, history becomes a collection of banalities which, like Jonathan Swift’s island of Academia, floats above the real world without ever touching it. One man who did not quote politicians, and who did not float above reality, but travelled through Estonia’s real landscapes, asking, comparing, thinking, and breaking through the wall of political banalities, was Louis Léouzon Le Duc. In his book La Baltique, he, for the first time, alluded to the possibility that Estonia would regain its “ancient independence.” The date? 1855. That indeed is my debt to France and the French spirit. Lennart Meri (President of the Republic of Estonia, 1992–2001)

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Acknowledgements This collective work is above all indebted to its co-authors for having agreed to write an article, generously give an interview or participate in a discussion, but also for having accepted that their position would be disputed or even reevaluated in the same chapter or elsewhere in the book. It should be added that before making a written contribution, all the co-authors assisted in specifying the book’s content through an exchange of views.* The idea of this book was first discussed in detail with Antoine Chalvin, a true expert on Estonia. The depth of his knowledge and his meticulous approach helped to define the precise bounds of this project. In addition, he agreed to supervise the French edition, overseeing a team of translators assembled for that purpose and also personally translating some of the texts. Lore Listra provided decisive help to this project. She examined each contribution, suggested improvements and, much as an officer of the watch, who must simultaneously read the map and observe the realities of the voyage, on several occasions helped steer clear of excessive esotericism and redundancies. Tiia Uibo gave precious help in navigating from the point of departure to the port of final call; Maria Hansar capably substituted for her over several months. The journey from concept to synopsis also benefited from the views of Toivo Tasa, who is very knowledgeable about contemporary discourse. For his part, Alban Foucher performed very useful documentary research. Without a publisher, an editor is but a dreamer. After the first detailed presentation made to her, Ly Aunaste brought about the decisive engagement of the publishing house Avita, and Aivar Leštšinsky then ensured, with her, the publication of the Estonian edition. At this point the initiator of this project wishes to express to all his sincere thanks, while assuming responsibility for any flaws in the concept or execution of the result. Jean-Jacques Subrenat

*

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this book only reflect the private views of their respective authors, and are not meant to represent or reflect the positions of organizations or other entities to which they may belong.

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Introduction 1. Why this Book? Foreigners interested in Estonia for either professional or personal reasons are led to ask themselves several questions: what are the various hypotheses concerning the origins of Estonian identity, how have its inhabitants preserved their identity throughout the vicissitudes of history, how has that identity evolved, and under what influences; in which circumstances was independence declared, denied and recovered within the space of just seventy years? Observation of contemporary Estonian reality certainly leads one to ask questions to which answers are not readily available, at least not in the form of an accessible synthesis. There are history books that examine the acquisition of independence, and also the period following the implosion of the Soviet Union, which permitted Estonia to proclaim its independence once again (for example Mart Laar, Urmas Ott and Sirje Endre, Teine Eesti: Eesti iseseisvuse taassünd, 1986– 1991, 2 nd edition, Tallinn: SE&JS, 2000). As concerns Estonian identity however, the pronouncements of historians, linguists, geneticists or ethnologists have not yet given rise to public debate, apart from an occasional exchange in the press. In 2001, Estonia celebrated the first decade since regaining its independence: who could have imagined, in 1980 for instance, that the course of events would make this country the master of its own destiny? A reflection on the identity and independence of Estonia is one way of marking this important milestone. This book does not presume to offer a specialist’s view of Estonian history, be it of the geneticist, the archaeologist or the palaeographer, nor is it a history textbook. It decisively avoids proposing an authorised interpretation, a sort of official catalogue of the facts, nor does it seek to impose an unremarkable portrait of the truth consisting of commonplaces. The idea of this book is above all to contribute to debate. From the beginning, three editions were envisaged: in Estonian, since the Estonians themselves undoubtedly feel some curiosity regarding an evolution in which they are the prime actors; in Russian, since for Russian-speakers – who make up roughly one-third of the population – it is important to integrate themselves into this country; and finally in French, for the Francophones who may ask themselves questions about Estonia, a country that since 1998 has been involved in negotiations over accession to the European Union.

2

Introduction

This perspective of the enlargement of the European Union also provides an opportunity for people in the member states to acquire a more thorough knowledge of the future enlarged EU, not only in its abstract form as expressed through statistical facts, but also through the public debate in each of the future member states. 2. A Book with Several Facets It is clearly not the aim of this book to set up an altar to the glory of a country, even less to an ideology or any particular government, but instead to contribute to a debate on certain concepts, taking as a case study, Estonia, a country still insufficiently known throughout the world and even in Europe: the links between language, culture and identity; the experience of foreign occupation and the desire for independence. In order to keep this project within the bounds of a debate of ideas, the coauthors were invited to contribute in one of the three following categories: to write an article in a manner that permits the coherent development of a period or a theme; to engage in a discussion that seeks to provide a better understanding of the contemporary period, because that provides room for personal observation; finally a few debates that permit facts to be presented and defended from contradictory points of view, since the notion of identity remains subjective – this, indeed, is what makes it a topic of interest. This method does not seek to ensure rigorous equality in the representation of views, but does nevertheless allow differing, and sometimes diametrically opposed points of view, to be expressed. 3. The Concept of Identity under Debate Whereas a country’s independence is reflected in its legal status as a sovereign state, defining identity is much more problematic: is it above all a form of cultural nationalism? Does affirming one’s identity consist above all in opposing or distinguishing oneself from others? If identity can be reduced to a country’s majority language, should one then speak of several identities, one of which is dominant? It is perhaps useful to briefly recall some of the theories that have shaped and in some cases continue to inspire the debate on identity in Europe. Herder (1744–1803) was undoubtedly one of the first in Northern Europe to propose an analysis of what constitutes cultural distinctiveness. In his

Jean-Jacques Subrenat

3

manifesto, For Another Philosophy of History, Herder affirmed that identity arises from the need and desire to differentiate oneself from others (the autodifferential theory). For him, each culture is unique, in the sense that the individual who has been immersed therein participates in what he refers to as the “spirit of the people” (Volksgeist), which in turn forms the foundation of the “collective soul of the people” (Volksseele). It is not of minor interest that Herder was to formulate his theories to contest the rationality of the philosophers of the Enlightenment, too abstract in his view. To those who proclaimed the universality of values, Herder opposed the diversity of cultures and their irreducible character: the German thinker was reproaching the Latin countries for their propensity to be cosmopolitan, and instead affirmed that the Enlightenment philosophers’ contemplation of man as an abstract notion had hidden from view man as incarnated in the nation, anchored in a certain territory and endowed with a certain identity. It is thus that Herder developed the concept of “Germanism,” which has been further developed by others, such as Goethe and Fichte. For the masters of Romanticism, it became evident that the individual could define himself only in relation to the group and its particular culture. It would undoubtedly be misleading to contrast the French philosophers of the Enlightenment, who propounded universality, and the German advocates of cultural and territorial identity. Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821), although indisputably French, was able to write in his Observations on France: The constitution of 1795, like all of its predecessors, was made for mankind. There is, however, no such thing as mankind in the world. In my life I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, etc., but as for mankind I declare that I have not yet encountered it; if that exists, it is altogether without my knowledge. The influence of Herder has been great, especially in northern Europe, because during the 19th century erudite minds were employed, each in their own cultural sphere, with the reconstruction of a corpus of traditions that, for want of practical application and lacking systematic transcription, risked dissolving into oblivion. Palacký’s monumental work, The History of the Czech Nation, announced the Czech national revival, while Hoffman von Fallersleben in Germany and Grundtvig in Denmark contributed to the awakening of their respective countries’ national identities. In Finland, the

4

Introduction

publication of the Kalevala epic founded a national spirit; in Estonia the composition of the Kalevipoeg epic, and the printing, in 1868, of Kreutzwald’s Ancient Tales of the Estonian People led to a strong rediscovery of national cultural identity. This phenomenon also took place however, in other parts of Europe: the Barzaz Breiz patiently shaped by Théodore Hersart de la Villemarqué, represented one of the first collections of songs and legends from Brittany. To conclude this brief reminder of the role of Herder, it should be noted that he taught in Riga, where he was very impressed by Latvian folklore, and particularly its myriad songs and poems. There is no doubt that in return Herder, who proclaimed that “the spirit of a language is at the same time the spirit of the literature of that people,” played an important role in the awakening of each of the Baltic countries to its national identity. Whereas Herder was instrumental in the awakening to cultural identity, two other philosophers defined, each in his geographical and cultural sphere, the meaning of the word “nation” in the 19th century: Fichte in Germany and Renan in France. Let us recall the context of Germany at the beginning of the 19th century: as Napoleon’s troops were reaching Prussia, in addition to this humiliation, the bitter winter of 1807–1808 came as a very serious ordeal. It was then that Fichte (1762–1814) pronounced his fourteen “Addresses to the German Nation,” calling for the reform of the educational system and the rousing of the nation. Instead of discussing these topics, it appears more useful to offer two illustrative excerpts: - On the German nation: “The traits characteristic of the Germans as a distinct people, as a people authorised to refer to themselves simply as the people, in contrast to other descendants who have become detached from it: these are designated by the word Deutsch” (Seventh address). - On the difference between the Germans and the French: “The French do not possess an I that they have forged themselves; they only have a historic I born from universal consent; Germans, in contrast, possess a metaphysical I” (cited by Touchard, Histoire des Idées politiques). Fichte, to whom certain ideologues have subsequently made reference in justification of their political and military beliefs (National Socialism, panGermanism), chose to exalt the German identity by strongly emphasising the

Jean-Jacques Subrenat

5

differences, in his view fundamental, that distinguish the Germans from other peoples and cultures. It is in this vein that he criticised the Romance languages, in which he perceived a lack of evolution, and glorified the German language, which seemed to him to be the only “living” tongue. This dichotomy subsequently fed a rivalry, which later developed into outright animosity, between the Germans and the French, as it has also for more than a century inspired in several European countries an ideology of the affirmation of one’s own group through disdain for others. Charles Maurras, in turn, did not fail to make use of this to justify his own ultra-nationalist choice, thus denouncing Fichte’s Manichaean vision: “What disdain for the Romance languages! What abhorrence for the Latin spirit! What a forceful definition of the spirit of the two peoples! One is death, the other life” (cited by J.-J. Chevallier, Les grandes oeuvres politiques). In France, in turn, Gobineau based his ideas on the then still nascent physical anthropology, which is another illustration of the affirmation of the self through differentiation from others. In Italy the idea of the “different destiny” also had its ideologues, such as the priest Gioberti (1801–1852), or Mazzini (1805– 1872), who saw the Italian people as God’s chosen people, entrusted with the task of once again guiding humanity to eternal bliss. One is also reminded of Bismarck’s astonishing phrase: “When dealing with your rivals the Slavs, always maintain the deep conviction… that you are indeed their superiors, and always will be” (15 April 1895, “Speech to a deputation from Styria”). In the question of identity, therefore, two great philosophical structures face one another. On the one hand, Herder, Fichte and their successors emphasised ostensibly objective criteria (language, culture, heredity, and later genetics or sociolinguistics) and formulated a conception essentially based on differences of an ethnic and “organic” nature (religious and social practices and structures), ultimately leading to a determinism of identity, and thus of the nation. On the other hand, there is a concept that claims to be more universalist and is founded on supposedly subjective criteria (the desire for freedom and independence, the citizen’s free will, human rights). Ernest Renan (1823–1892) was undoubtedly one of the best theoreticians of this second path. On 11 March 1882, at the Sorbonne, Renan gave a lecture which still echoes to this day. He challenged the so-called objective criteria, notably those of race and religion, and instead invited a reflection whose modernity is striking to this day (“Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?”):

6

Introduction Let us not abandon the fundamental principle that man is a reasonable and moral being, before he is confined in such and such a language, before he is a member of such and such a race, before he belongs to such and such a culture. Before French, German, or Italian culture there is human culture.

At the risk of boring those of our readers who are familiar with this great classic of humanist thought, it may nonetheless be beneficial to cite some passages from Renan’s lecture: A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One lies in the past, the other in the present. One is the possession, in common, of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present-day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received in an undivided form. Man… cannot be improvised upon. The nation, like the individual, is the culmination of a long past of endeavours, sacrifices, and devotion. Of all cults, that of the ancestors is the most legitimate, for the ancestors have made us what we are. A heroic past, great men, glory (by which I understand genuine glory), this is the social capital upon which one bases a national idea… One loves in proportion to the sacrifices to which one has consented, and in proportion to the ills that one has suffered. One loves the house that one has built and that one passes down to one’s children. The Spartan song, “We are what you were; we will be what you are,” is, in its simplicity, the abridged hymn of every homeland [patrie]… a nation is thus a great solidarity, constituted by the awareness of the sacrifices that one has made and of those that one is prepared to make in the future… [The nation] presupposes a past; it is summarized, however, in the present by a tangible fact: consent, the clearly expressed desire to continue a common life. A nation’s existence is, if you will pardon the metaphor, a daily plebiscite. The relevance of Renan to the debate over identity is particularly important, since he considers that the so-called objective criteria which lie beyond the individual cannot transcend the citizen’s free will or a freely formed community. Michelet follows the same vein when he states that free will and the desire to live together are the very elements that form the body of a homeland, “that great circle of friends” (Le Peuple, 1846). In addition, the concept of nation, in the name of which such acts of courage have been

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7

performed, but also, sometimes, incommensurable crimes, is itself variable. For Fabrice, the hero of Stendhal’s La Chartreuse de Parme, the nation is “a nation plus a sentiment,” whereas for Saint-Just it represents “the community of attitudes” (cited by Régis Debray, dossier “France,” L’Express, No. 2558, 13–19 July 2000). The contemporary debate on the question of identity is fed by numerous theoretical contributions, some concerning specific cultural zones (e.g. Fernand Braudel, L’identité de la France, espace et histoire, 1986; Harald James, A German Identity, 1989; Michel Foucher, Fragments d’Europe, 1993), and others seeking instead to establish some kind of universal matrix of identity based on linguistic, cultural, economic, strategic or social considerations. Yet, since the objective of this book is not to offer a detailed account, we shall take a bird’s-eye-view of contemporary research in order to see what may help us to understand and interpret the question of Estonian identity. In reaction to the German model of the 18th century, from the mid-19th century the evolutionists formulated a theory of the convergence of cultures towards a sort of common human ideal. The latter were, in turn, countered by the diffusionists, for whom culture, more than political or social structures, has the unique power of determining social behaviour. Franz Boas, for instance, proposed the idea of “cultural zones” in which one cultural framework is applied to all. For his part, Geert Hofstede underlined the crucial importance of national culture, which largely determines the choices in a society, including the form of government. 4. Language and Identity In another domain that is intimately tied to the question of identity, the work done by linguists or sociologists in the second half of the 20 th century has permitted not only a structural understanding of language, but also the determination of the social usage of language and its political implications. As Louis-Jean Calvet recalls in a recent work, Einar Haugen (The Ecology of Language, 1972) was the first to formulate the idea according to which languages should be understood in their totality (Louis-Jean Calvet, Pour une écologie des langues du monde, Paris, Plon, 1999). In arranging all languages in one and the same “ecology,” Calvet assigns each language a certain place in relation to the overall system, regardless of

8

Introduction

its numerical importance. In his analysis, there are today roughly six thousand seven hundred languages in the world, of which half are threatened with extinction during the course of the 21 st century. He points out that the Chinese and English languages are each used by a billion individuals, and that the category of from one hundred to several hundreds of millions of speakers includes Hindi, Malay, Spanish, Portuguese and French. In such a view, Estonian clearly appears to be a “small language,” but Calvet’s theory could nevertheless be applied to Estonian, especially as concerns the manner in which everyone in Estonia lives side by side with more than one language, namely Estonian and Russian. Calvet’s theories permit a better understanding of the ongoing debate in Estonia between those who support the status of Estonian as the only official language, and those, mainly Russian-speakers, who appeal for the Russian language to be granted the same status as Estonian. Although this topic is not examined per se in this work, the reader will be able to gauge its importance, particularly through the numerous roundtable debates whose conclusions are presented here. In concluding this introduction, allow me to add an anecdotal comment. The discussions that led to the birth of this book took place between 1999 and 2000, mostly in a Tallinn apartment which happened to be, before Estonia regained its independence, the Office of the Censor (Glavlit). The simple recollection of this fact, although otherwise unconnected with this book, in any case is a reminder of the extent of the transformation undergone by Estonia in just a few years. I wish the reader, regardless of his age or position, to find in this a symbol of lasting hope: ideas, notably that of free will, survive the often rather specialised pressures required by the ideologists to impose their authority. Jean-Jacques Subrenat

Hando Runnel A Very Ancient Nation

Üks väga vana rahvas

A very ancient nation with earthy wisdom too, greeted us ages back and said, we are quite new, and said we are still living our days still lie ahead. And with this happy message Our eyes with tears grow red.

Üks väga vana rahvas, kel muldne tarkus suus, meid teretas aegade tagant ja ütles, me olla uus, ja ütles, me olla elus, me päevad veel olla ees. Ning seda õnne kuuldes meil olid silmad vees.

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I. From the Origins to the Mid-19th Century

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Richard Villems Marginalia on the Topic of Identity 1. The Significance and Insignificance of Genetic Identity Thucydides, citing Pericles’ speech in praise of the soldiers who fell at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, presented an exceptionally revealing description of national identity, through the essence of Athenian social institutions. Now, nearly two and a half millennia later, it is difficult to be more eloquent and clear. My topic, however, is altogether a different matter – genes. I would like to begin with an observation from my long career as a university lecturer. In introducing students to contemporary human genetic variation, I always observe with great interest their reaction to the assertion that the DNA of two Estonian students, randomly selected from that very auditorium, would presumably exhibit differences six times greater than the differences between the DNA of ten thousand randomly selected Bantu and ten thousand randomly selected Estonians. As a rule, over half of the students are unwilling to accept this assertion. I then explain the quantitative evidence resulting from the research performed by Richard Lewontin et al a couple of decades ago and the real meaning and explanation of the assertion: humankind is relatively young and thus a very homogeneous species, much more homogeneous than gorillas or chimpanzees. At this point there remains in the lecture hall only a relatively significant minority for whom there remains a contradiction with this assertion: If genetics (or rather geneticists) do not wish to distinguish Estonians from the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego or pygmies, and consider that difference to be significant, so much the worse for genetics (geneticists). There is also a small contingent that does not heed Lewontin’s arguments – staunch Christians and the followers of the great ideals of the Enlightenment, for whom the unity of humankind is axiomatic, not to mention Buddhists, in whose opinion the unity of humankind is expressed in the fact that only those (re)born as human beings can break the chain of birth and rebirth: for them, all else is secondary in this context. It may appear incongruous to begin a chapter in a book devoted to the reception of Estonian identity with a request to forget for a moment national identity while reading the following, and instead concentrate on the prehistory of humankind; or at least make a clear distinction between (the sentiment of) national identity and a people’s genetic identity. I would, however, encourage the reader to do so; it would in any case be advisable. Is it, however, also

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Marginalia on the Topic of Identity

possible? We can (I can) declare in the strongest possible terms the need to separate these concepts, but does that mean that it is possible in psychological terms? Even in Europe? Here I am not referring to the gangs of skinheads that operate almost everywhere. Last year Berkeley socio-anthropologist Paul Rabinow, who achieved fame with his Moroccan research at the end of the 1970s, created havoc with the book French DNA: Trouble in Purgatory, which did not concern the physical identity of the French genome, but geneticists’, and others’ understanding of the “Frenchness of French DNA.” This was not about the genes themselves, but the reception of the concept, the objects of the research being scientists, journalists and the government, with digressions into the sociology and history of the sense of identity and technocracy. Hence the moral: on the level of the social unconscious, the area of overlap of national and genetic identity is extensive, and we must unfortunately take this into consideration, despite clear examples from recent history, where the instruments of those manipulating the sense of identity have generally been, depending on the requirements of the time, either religious affiliation or close linguistic and genetic kinship. One need only briefly consider the three entities Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia. However, the term “national genetic identity” is not one that a geneticist finds impossible to define with accuracy. For him it is an empirical term that can be formulated as an “all-encompassing table” of the frequencies of genetic variations characteristic of a specific human population (in this case a people). It appears, however, that in the case of identity there is a desire to reveal and emphasise not so much that table, but the features that distinguish the selected population from others; and not just others, but preferably one’s close neighbours. Yet this is also data that can be presented empirically: the first of the two ancient questions who are we and where do we come from, seen from the geneticist’s viewpoint. The second – where do we come from – is of equal importance to the researcher of genetic identity. Incidentally, the question of “coming from somewhere” is apparently easier for Northern Europeans to understand on a psychological level than it is for other peoples: as predominantly rational people who have received relevant instruction in school, it is accepted that we could not have always occupied the area that twenty thousand years ago was covered by glaciers and the Scandinavian ice cap. Thus the crux of the question for the Estonian general public is also not one of arriving/not arriving, but instead of arrival and arrivals. From how many directions did the genetic code contained in Estonians’ present-day gene

Richard Villems

15

pool come? Where did the “material bearers” of those strands live in ancient times? When and in which order did they arrive here? Contemporary biology postulates that genotype forms the basis of phenotype. Whereas the deciphering of the typical human genotype nears completion, the investigation of the connection between genotype and phenotype is just beginning. Genetic identity is a concept about which rational discussion is completely possible, while the description of a national phenotype tends to be intrusively close to ideology. On the one hand this is unavoidable, since other origins (e.g. the natural environment, behavioural customs) have been able to add only very limited empirical supporting material to the discussion. Another reason is, of course, that generalised descriptions of a national phenotype have on several occasions been tailored to suit political aims, especially as concerns psychotype. The investigation of phenotype, which is based on knowledge of genotype, i.e. the ascertainment of the ties between genotype and phenotype, is presumably an altogether more long-term task than the nearly completed international programme for the ascertainment of the structure of the human genome, and will last for several more generations. This is all the more so, as the centre stage will be occupied not by the history of human phenotypes, but instead by complex problems connected with the genetic background of the main diseases. Thus we may entertain some small hope that the increase in the level of education of the world’s population could ensure this new and nascent knowledge receives a response as is required for the survival of humankind as a species. As long as the sinister shadow of the national ideas of the Third Reich lingered on – to name just one prominent 20 th-century attempt to promote national identity. If there is scope for hope, one may also doubt this. 2. The Genetic History of Humankind: The Background for the Understanding of Estonians’ Genetic History I will now turn from the concept of genetic identity to the more neutralsounding genetic history of the species, which in this context is more accurately referred to as our demographic history. In order to understand the demographic history of humankind, including that of the Estonian people, one must first recall that for over 95 percent of the time that man as a species is considered to have existed, we have lived in the Palaeolithic period. The prehistoric period represents, however, only a tiny portion of the volume of

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Marginalia on the Topic of Identity

books devoted to general history: precisely 5 percent of J. M. Roberts’ World History, which sits on my bookshelf. Thus there is an almost exactly inverse proportion between the number of pages and the amount of time covered. The above-mentioned comparison is not intended as a reproach to historians, on the contrary: this ratio is understandable and reflects the volume of our empirical knowledge. From this point of view, even the said 5% is a great exaggeration. Acceptance of such a disproportion does not in the least infer an underestimation of the Palaeolithic. On the contrary, one may consider the assumption that the genetic drift caused by long-term Palaeolithic isolation has determined a great deal in the history of our species to be an altogether rational working hypothesis. The same has, of course, been performed by various trends in natural selection, in correspondence with the most diverse ecological conditions (and their continual alteration) in which the members of our species spent thousands of generations. At the same time, attempts to interpret predominantly social phenomena through genetics are premature, and in many cases most likely to be altogether irrational, for the same reason that it would be irrational to attempt to describe DNA replication on the basis of the String Theory. Historians should not, however, be surprised, much less protest, if researchers of the genetic history of humankind define periods, about which even archaeologists of the prehistoric period possess little information, as important and decisive. Most geneticists and paleoanthropologists are in agreement that our species, homo sapiens, originates from a hominine primate that developed in Africa about 150 thousand years ago – perhaps from one branch among other similar branches. This branch is the only one to have survived to the present day. Since here and below I am not speaking of humankind in general, but am focusing on Estonians or at least FinnoUgrians, I will begin from a time that, from the point of view of the species, is truly recent – the settlement of Eurasia by anatomically modern man about 40 thousand years ago. Furthermore, one of the largest black holes in both paleoanthropology and genetics is the 50- to 60-thousand-year period just before the colonisation of Eurasia. The time from this period of earliest settlement to the beginning of the last great Ice Age about 24 thousand years ago was presumably also the most important in the development of the genetic identity of the major human races. The next significant stage is the Last Great Ice Age itself, which lasted for millennia and had a direct and drastic influence on settlement density in

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Europe, and also exerted an indirect influence (i.e. not through cold, but desertification) in the northern part of Africa, Arabia, present-day Iran, the Indus Valley and perhaps even on the people of more easterly regions. It is very important to know that the meticulous investigation of archaeological finds has now made it possible to identify two large refuges where protoEuropeans sheltered during the winter. These are the so-called FrancoCantabrian region in northwest France and northern Iberia, and the middle reaches of the Dnieper-Don River north of the Black Sea. Archaeologists claim that instead of decreasing, the population density in both of these regions grew, even at the peak of the last Great Ice Age 22 thousand years ago. The third important stage was the re-settlement of northern Europe and other extensive areas, this being a long-term process that took place in parallel with the melting of layers of the inland ice sheet and increasing humidity. It is natural to presume that re-settlement took place on a large scale from the above-mentioned refuges, although not necessarily only from those areas. The settlement of the Americas by anatomically modern man is generally believed to fall within this period, as well as one other significant geophysical phenomenon, the precise influence of which remains to be assessed – the nearly hundred-metre rise in the world’s oceans. The last undeniably momentous event in demographic history is, of course, the evolution to the Neolithic lifestyle, i.e. the transition from hunting and gathering to animal husbandry and agriculture, which originated from the Levant, Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia roughly 10 thousand years ago. This, on the one hand, favoured those populations that had the good fortune to live in the belt stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean that was favourable to agriculture and animal husbandry. On the other hand, this process began very gradually to homogenise the genetic differences that had accumulated during the course of Palaeolithic isolation. In this context, increased prosperity gave rise to genetic effects: the food producers’ gene pool selectively expanded at a rate much faster than that of the gatherers. There is no doubt that it predominantly expanded, but did not become deeper: genetic changes are so slow to develop that expansion only gradually leads to the enrichment of variants. To return to discussion of the background: Palaeolithic is, like Mesolithic and Neolithic, a cultural term to which one cannot apply a precise time scale. When the Tasmanians, who were only recently destroyed or led to destruction by the white man, first encountered Europeans, they were technologically in an early stage of the upper Stone Age – an earlier stage than that of the Cro-

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Marginalia on the Topic of Identity

Magnons of Europe more than thirty thousand years ago. On the other hand, the Neolithic period in the Levant and Estonia is separated by thousands of years. Almost all classical linguists are of the opinion that it is not possible to take reconstructions further into the past than 5000–7000 years. From the point of view of the history of Europe and the Levant, this corresponds to the beginning of the Bronze Age or the late Neolithic Age. Representatives of the Nostratian school (designating a hypothetical language family comprising Indo-European, Semitic, Altaic, and Dravidian) operate with linguistic macrogroups that are twenty thousand years old. Geneticists see no serious theoretical difficulties in reconstructing our genetic lines at least ten times further into the past. In practical terms such reconstructions are, however, simple in only two (albeit important and extremely intriguing) hereditary systems – in the observation of the genetic history of our maternal and paternal lines, and the demographic history that flows from that. In contrast to ordinary genes, these are handed down without merging: either from the maternal or the paternal side. In genetic terms, it is much easier to investigate the lineage of the genes of our mitochondrial and Y chromosomes than it is to reconstruct the history of the continually Mendel-type merging and also unpredictably recombining “ordinary” genes. 3. The History of the Finno-Ugrians’ DNA and Identity: Who Are We and Where Do We Come from? In the above subtitle I replaced the word “genetic” by the abbreviation DNA, in order to give a clear indication that what follows is not a paraphrase of the results of “classical” genetics and physical anthropology. The second limitation is that the statements below only concern the results of the investigation of the above-mentioned maternal and paternal lines. This work, especially the reconstruction of maternal lines, has now reached the stage of the first significant generalisations about humankind in general, but especially about Eurasia and Mediterranean Africa, and we can answer with much greater accuracy the question of the genetic identity of the Estonians (Armenians, Basques, etc.). Who then are the Estonians, in genetic terms, in comparison with the people of Eurasia and the world? More precisely, where do our maternal and paternal ancestors come from, and how distant are Estonians from the

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European, Asian or African “average,” or indeed from their neighbours? Does the present level of development of genetics permit the identification of the elements that unite Finno-Ugrians, compared to Indo-Europeans, for instance? In other words: are the classifications “Finno-Ugrian” and “Indo-European” based on a strictly and purely linguistic distinction? In more impersonal terms: in the spread of peoples’ genetic variants, is linguistic or geographical origin of primary importance? And is the answer to these questions the same when viewed comparatively through our maternal and paternal lines of descent? Most of the languages spoken in Europe belong to the Indo-European language family, apart from exceptions such as the Basques and FinnoUgrians, of which the Finns, the Estonians and the Hungarians have independent national states. At the same time, the Finno-Ugric languages are a sub-group of the Uralic language family. In speaking of the Finno-Ugrians I also refer to those Finno-Ugric peoples lacking independent national states but about whom there exist DNA data or fragments thereof. These are the Karelians and the Samis and a series of Finno-Ugric groups from Eastern Europe and the Volga basin: Maris, Mokshas, Udmurtians, and to a lesser extent Komis. Fragmentary data, mainly characterising only paternal lines, are available for several Samoyedic peoples of the Uralic language family. The same applies to the Hungarians, for whom only half of the DNA genetics have been investigated. On the basis of the principle of “global reach,” which in the pre-DNA era was applied to genetic features in their entirety (blood groups, etc.), in the past decade it has become clear that the worldwide distribution of variants of the gender-specific parts of our genome – the Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA – is far from homogeneous one-dimensionality. Thus the general rule that states that roughly 15 percent of genetic variation can be explained by continental differences (i.e. those comprising large-scale geographical divisions) does not apply in their case. Or rather that rule should be modified, although further explanation would require delving into details of population genetics that are superfluous in this context. Concerning humankind’s maternal lines, and presumably as a result of Palaeolithic isolation, the following global regions of “primeval mothers” can be distinguished: a) sub-Saharan Africa; b) western Eurasia and North Africa; c) India; d) East Asia as well as the indigenous populations of Siberia, Polynesia and America. It should be noted that all of the Eurasian, American and Australian maternal lines that have so far been investigated are described in

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Marginalia on the Topic of Identity

the genetic tree as one branch of the sub-Saharan Africa variations, once again confirming the hypothesis of the (recent) African origin of modern man. On this scale, the maternal lines of Estonians and other Finno-Ugric peoples may be identified as typically western European, with a minimal mongoloid component. Differences in detail within Europe can be explained as originating from genetic drift and other stochastic demographic processes. We can paint a complete picture from the Iberian Peninsula to the Volga River and the Ural Mountains. Furthermore, we can scrutinise the details and distinguish numerous maternal lines which are found in Cornwall, Crete and among the Finno-Ugrians of the Volga, and about which we can confidently assume that these are generations that originate from one progenitress. On the other hand, one can also find unique lines that, for instance, unite Albanians, Estonians and Syrians or Lapps and the French. In other words, one can see a spider’s web of common progenitresses that unites peoples regardless of their membership in a linguistic group, and it is only against the background of this predominant homogeneity that individual emphases appear, for instance the greater or lesser frequency of certain maternal lines in one region or another, because the maternal lines of Estonians and Finns do indeed coincide in those features that are not necessarily characteristic of the inhabitants of Crete. I would not refer to this pan-European similarity as a crisis of identity, but as a fundamental characteristic of the identity of Finno-Ugric mothers, yet in general terms, the reality of the relatedness of the maternal lines of IndoEuropeans, Hamito-Semitic and Finno-Ugric maternal lines. Basque maternal lines also belong to the same group. And yet, modern genetics is nevertheless able to please those who yearn for a Finno-Ugric genetic identity (or rather, distinctiveness). Indeed, by contrasting with other groups, it became clear that most Finno-Ugrians share a massive gene variant that covers roughly half of all paternal lines; a unique mutation that is lacking in Africa and the western part of Europe, as well as in India, China and Japan. The border of the western spread of this mutation is so sharp that only one-twelfth of Swedes possess it, and it is almost absent among Germans, Dutch, French, English, Spanish, Italians, Greeks, Poles, Byelorussians, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenians and Croatians, hence from most of the Indo-Europeans of Europe. Of the Slavs, the only exceptions are the Russians and Ukrainians of Eastern Europe, among whom the abovementioned paternal line variant makes up about one-seventh of all Y chromosomes, quite clearly reflecting the so-called Finno-Ugric substrate in the eastern Slavs’ gene pool – a phenomenon with an analogy well known to

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researchers of toponyms and hydronyms. Moskva [Moscow] is, after all, a typical Finno-Ugric toponym. This paternal line is, however, very common among the peoples of Siberia, even among the indigenous peoples of Kamchatka, the Koryak and Itelmen, and the Chukchis, who live adjacent to Alaska, and thus also among those Siberian peoples who speak Altai-Tungus tongues, and languages belonging to unclassified language families. This leads us back to the age-old problem of the ancient home of the Finno-Ugrians, which is almost as old and indistinct as the question of the ancient home of the Indo-Europeans. The classical view that the latter lies in Siberia has persisted for over a century. And indeed, among the Yakut the above-mentioned paternal line is more numerous than among even the Estonians or Finns. It now appears, however, that this circum-arctic paternal line more likely migrated from Eastern Europe to Siberia than vice versa. In determining the original home of gene lines, internal divergence is of greater importance than frequency of occurrence. This parameter is, however, considerably higher among the Finno-Ugrians of Europe. This leads to a very important generalisation: the extensive overlapping of the paternal lines of Siberian Ugrians and Finno-Ugrians, to which there is no parallel among maternal lines, is proof of an extensive eastward flow of genes caused predominantly by men, presumably in the late Upper Palaeolithic period. The Dnieper-Don refuge during the Ice Age, more precisely the process of resettlement following the retreat of the glaciers, would have been a natural source of this flow. The said process was presumably connected with the movement of the main animals of prey (during the time of the refuge mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses) northwards and to Siberia. In any case, in contrast to our pan-European (Western Eurasia-like) maternal lines, Estonians, Finns and most other Northern European Finno-Ugrians have extensive connections with the peoples of Siberia through their paternal lines, yet not with the main Mongol tribes, which lack the corresponding paternal line. A few interesting details remain to be mentioned, firstly – Hungarians almost completely lack the paternal line that is characteristic of the other European Finno-Ugrians. Secondly, this same line, although absent in western and southern Slavic populations, is well represented among both Latvians and Lithuanians. Here we can see a clear contrast between linguistic and geographical influence: the two above-mentioned Baltic peoples are linguistically Indo-Europeans, and in the tree of languages, their languages are sisters to the Slavic languages. The question of whether this offers

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evidence of the ancient linguistic exchange between proto-Latvian and protoLithuanian, perhaps in connection with the transition to the Neolithic lifestyle, as hypothesised by Finnish linguist Kalevi Wiik, remains an unresolved question. It is, however, already possible for geneticists to argue that the genetic identity borne by the Finno-Ugric maternal and paternal lines also includes the Latvians and Lithuanians. Who then are the Estonians, in genetic terms, and where did they come from? Based on our present knowledge, we have no reason to devise complex patterns; the great majority of the Estonians’ genes presumably originate from post-Ice Age Europeans, those who arrived about 40 thousand years ago and survived the 8000-year Ice Age in refuges Furthermore, there are no influential arguments that would lead one to presume the people who lived here before the Ice Age (and there is also no reason to believe that they did not live here) were not predominantly of the same genetic makeup as those who established the refuges 24–25 centuries ago, as the ice boundary moved southward and moved with it, i.e. northward, as the ice retreated. This of course concerns only our genetic history, and does not purport to explain the details of ethnogenesis. I would like to conclude this article with a quotation from Steven Shapin’s review of the above-mentioned book by Paul Rabinow: … DNA is a Post-Modernist molecule, since fragments of our contemporary expert culture insist that the reflexive condition for believing these things about DNA, or indeed disbelieving them, is ultimately ascribable to the workings of DNA itself, while the knowledge of these workings is an authentic item of our culture.

Tarmo Kulmar The Time of Shadows 1. The Mesolithic Period The earliest traces of human inhabitation on Estonian territory are connected with the Kunda Culture. These finds come from the Early Mesolithic Pulli settlement site by the River Pärnu and date back to about 9000 B.C. The Kunda Culture received its name from the Lammasmäe settlement site in Kunda in northern Estonia, which dates from earlier than 8500 B.C. The preboreal climate of the 8th millennium B.C. underwent a transition in the next millennium to a warm and dry boreal climate, and a humid, warm Atlantic climate predominated in the Late Mesolithic period. The territory of presentday Estonia was covered by forests, where semi-nomadic communities lived near bodies of water and subsisted by fishing, gathering and hunting. The existence of such subsistence activities is confirmed by diverse tools made from stone, bone and antlers. Comparative material from Latvia and Lithuania helps to determine the anthropological affiliation of the people who inhabited the area at that time: it is likely that the oldest inhabitants of Estonia belonged to a palaeo-European macro-race. Other finds support the hypothesis that the first people to settle in Estonia came through Byelorussia or Lithuania. In the opinion of linguist Paul Ariste, several words from the language spoken by the people of the Kunda culture have entered into the Estonian language, for instance words for natural objects (mets “forest,” mägi “mountain,” neem “cape,” oja “stream,” nõmm “heath,” soo “marsh”), fish (haug “pike,” rääbis “whitefish,” koger “carp,” siig “lavaret,” koha “pikeperch”) and parts of the body (nahk “skin,” turi “nape,” rind “chest,” koib “leg,” rusikas “fist,” huul “lip”). The concepts elada “to live,” sugu “kin,” eile “yesterday,” kiitus “praise,” häbi “shame,” hull “insane” show that this was a culture whose understanding of its surroundings was quite elaborate. The word küla “village” offers evidence of a certain established, presumably semi-nomadic, form of collective living. It is likely that the Mesolithic inhabitants of Estonia spoke a single proto-European language. The word meri “sea,” incidentally, spread from that language to the FinnoUgric languages and also many Indo-European languages. The lake names Peipsi and Võrtsjärv and the river name Pärnu also presumably date from the times of the Kunda Culture.

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The Time of Shadows

The latter circumstance alone permits us to consider ourselves inheritors of the Kunda Culture, and offers some idea of the ancient understanding of identity. One should not, however, overemphasise this in the case of the Mesolithic population. Geographical, ecological and economic conditions laid down clear limits, despite the close dialects that were quite likely spoken and the communication between communities, which, taking into consideration the fact that rivers were used as transport routes, may have been not all that infrequent. Every clan may have been in contact with several neighbouring clans, which together formed a rudimentary tribe. Due to similar living conditions and communication, communities belonging to such tribes must have had a similar material culture, dialect, beliefs and a certain sense of community. As concerns the religion of the Kunda culture, the scarce finds of artefacts permit only indirect presumptions to be made. The main features of nature-based religions are apparently quite similar in all places, and naturally dominated the clan and tribe members’ worldview as understood within the group. Due to the numerous types of religions, one presumably cannot expect religion to have functioned as a factor ensuring ethnic unity among tribes during the Mesolithic or even throughout all of prehistory until the Iron Age. In conclusion, on the basis of common linguistic usage and economic activity one could speak of community, clan and perhaps even to a certain extent of tribal identity during the era of the Kunda Culture. 2. The Neolithic Period In prehistory, the beginning of the Neolithic Period is marked by the discovery of clay vessels, the introduction of hewn stone tools, the domestication of animals and the advent of primitive agriculture. The arrival of crop cultivation in the area of the present-day Baltic States was greatly delayed. On Estonian territory, polished stone tools can already be found in settlements from the Mesolithic period. The ability to make clay vessels signals the beginning of the Neolithic period. The ceramics of the early Neolithic period, i.e. the Narva culture, appear in Estonia at the beginning of the 5th millennium. The oldest finds, from the Narva Riigiküla IV settlement, date from ca. 4900 B.C. Narva type ceramics were first found in eastern Estonia. The latest archaeological investigations indicate that Narva-type ceramics are found throughout almost the entire Estonian coastal region and on the islands. In the case of tools made of stone or bone, there is a notable similarity with the artefactual material from the

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Kunda culture, which offers evidence of cultural continuity. The appearance of early ceramics on the territory of Estonia must nevertheless be considered a cultural loan. The ability to make clay vessels apparently reached here from Eastern and South-Eastern areas. Thus this could be an ethnic synthesis of different cultures. It has been possible to date the early finds of typical comb-ware to ca. 4200/4000 B.C. The corresponding finds have mainly been obtained from Neolithic settlements in Estonia. Typical comb-ware ceramics are made of clay mixed with stone fragments. The vessels had been heavily fired, and had a convex or slightly tapered base. The ornamentation was made by combing which left horizontal stripes on the surface of the vessels. There are also significantly more types of stone tools. In many cases, typical comb-ware ceramics occur in Narva culture settlements, which demonstrates the coexistence and fusion of the two cultures. In comparison with the settlements of the Narva culture, the artefacts obtained from the Middle Neolithic settlement sites are much more abundant. In the 4th millennium B.C., changes took place in the finishing of the surfaces of clay vessels, and ornamentation became less frequent. Late combware ceramics presumably arose through the mutual influences of typical comb-ware ceramics and groups of local ceramic styles, and as a result we can distinguish a south-eastern Estonian and an eastern Latvian group, but also a group comprising Saaremaa and northern Estonia, which has more features in common with the ceramics of southern and south-western Finland. The rise of several Neolithic ceramics groups on Estonian territory supports the hypothesis that different cultural tendencies may have reached Estonia. Linguists presume that some words in Balto-Finnic languages (sada [hundred], sarv [antler/horn], vasikas [heifer], sõsar [sister], tütar [daughter], nimi [name]) may originate from some early Indo-European Satem language, which was one of the Finno-Ugrians’ substratum languages. Some of the above words are also loan words in the Finno-Ugric languages of the Volga region. Since the origins of Estonian Neolithic ceramics lie in the East, SouthEast and South, it is not impossible that proto-Indo-European influences had already reached Estonia by the Early Neolithic period. In contrast, typical comb-ware ceramics appear to have been brought by the Finno-Ugric ethnic wave based on which the Finno-Ugric tribes later developed. Similarities have been found between the ceramics of the Volossovo culture of Eastern Europe and finds from settlements of the typical comb-ware ceramics culture in Estonia. Corroboration of the eastern origin of the typical comb-ware

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ceramics culture is provided by skulls with Mongoloid characteristics found in the corresponding settlements in Estonia and Latvia. Thus archaeological and anthropological facts allow one to connect the makers of typical combware ceramics with tribes of Finno-Ugric origin. In comparison with the Mesolithic period, the number of archaeological finds increased considerably. The size of the population grew, and settlement took root on the islands and in north-western Estonia. The means of subsistence had not changed, and presumably up to fifty people would comprise a settlement. The technology for making stone tools had improved, facilitating the hunting of larger animals. An increasing number of objects are being found that date from the period of typical comb-ware ceramics and appear to have reached Estonia from more distant regions through barter. The improvement of technology and the productivity of work, the intensification of barter trade and the increasing stabilisation of settlements certainly led to the consolidation of the tribal system – the development of a social system connecting communities, the formation of tribal languages and the adoption of common religious concepts. These circumstances undoubtedly strengthened tribal identity as a feeling of inner cohesion. On Estonian territory, the beginning of the Late Neolithic period is characterised by the appearance of two new classes of artefacts – ceramics with corded decoration and well-polished stone axes (so-called boat-shaped axes). The earliest finds of that culture in Estonia are dated to before 3200 B.C. This so-called boat-shaped axe culture or corded-ware culture is, to date, represented mainly by chance finds and a couple of dozen burial sites. There is still very little information about the settlements of this culture. In the final centuries of the Stone Age, other ceramics and finds began to appear on Estonian territory, offering evidence of the migration of diverse ethnic groups into this region. The bearers of the boat-shaped axe culture brought with them new areas of economic activity – animal husbandry and primitive agriculture. The dog had already been domesticated by the Mesolithic period; now, as osteological analysis shows, an attempt was made to domesticate the wild boar. Evidence of agriculture is provided by the charred grain of wheat on the wall of a corded-ware ceramic vessel found in Iru settlement. Like other cattle-raising peoples, the tribes of the boat-shaped axe culture presumably introduced a patriarchal clan system of social organisation. In anthropological terms, the bearers of the boat-shaped axe culture are characteristically proto-European. The newcomers were likely to be of

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southern origin and were among the ancestors of the ancient Baltic tribes – the Latvians and Lithuanians. The boat-shaped axe culture has given the Balto-Finnic primal language many words of Indo-European origin connected with agriculture and cattle raising (jäär [ram], härg [ox], oinas [tup], vill [wool], äke [harrow], kõblas [hoe], kirves [axe], seeme [seed], hernes [pea], uba [bean]). This fact confirms that the Estonian tribes were making a transition towards other areas of economic activity. In connection with the new attitude towards nature, changes also took place in religion, which most likely took the form of rudimentary sky, thunder and fertility cults. A shift began to take place in the area of means of gathering food and in everyday life; on the basis that they used battleaxes, however, one may say that this process was not at all peaceful. That transitional period naturally lasted for centuries. Intermarriage with the boat-shaped axe tribes, as well as earlier intermarriage with the bearers of the Kunda culture, greatly increased the frequency of the proto-European anthropological type among the local Stone Age population. The mongoloid supplement among the people of the typical comb-ware ceramics culture is barely noticeable, especially in western Estonia. The apparent reason for this is the more numerous boat-shaped axe culture population in western Estonia, for instance as a result of the abundance in western Estonia of pasture-land required for cattle raising. Estonians are accustomed to considering themselves to be Finno-Ugrians, because Estonian is one of the Uralic languages. The opinion of some linguists that our linguistic ancestors formed the initial population in most of northern and north-eastern Europe may even be correct. One must, however, distinguish between linguistic and ethno-anthropological processes, which do not necessarily overlap. Thus the Kunda Culture has not disappeared, because the newcomers, who arrived in several waves, intermarried with the indigenous population. The Kunda people continue to exist anthropologically in the Estonian people’s genetic code and linguistically in their social memory. The same pertains to the proto-Indo-European boat-shaped axe culture. Thus the three above-mentioned main components – two protoEuropean and one Mongoloid – already, in the Stone Age, laid the foundation of the development of the Estonian people. It is highly likely that this fact influenced inter-tribal behaviour in different parts of Estonia, especially in the periods of assimilative development between the 5th and 6th millennia, but also in the 3rd millennium B.C. On this basis one may conclude that the events that took place in those times, which we are unfortunately only able to

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reconstruct indirectly, influenced and certainly rapidly guided the development of tribal and even territorial identity. 3. The Early Metal Age The beginning of the Bronze Age in Estonia is dated to approximately 1800 B.C. The first centuries of this period brought no pivotal social changes. Settlement was relatively fluid, and agriculture and cattle raising were gathering strength. The development of the borders between the large Baltic and Balto-Finnic ethnic groups was under way. Individual bronze objects had apparently arrived from southern areas through barter. The Late Neolithic burial tradition continued (inhumation burials in cemeteries below groundlevel). The Late Bronze Age (10th–5th centuries B.C.), however, is represented in Estonia by an abundance of bronze objects, as well as structures which may be closely connected with the strong centres of Bronze Culture that arose in Scandinavia. That period is also referred to as the first Viking Age, since there was lively communication with the Germanic and Scandinavian tribes, whose material culture and level of social development was somewhat higher. Settlement was very dense on the island of Saaremaa and in northern Estonia. For the first time in Estonian history, fortified settlements (Asva and Ridala on the island of Saaremaa, Iru in northern Estonia) began to be built. The rise of such defensive structures and also economic centres bears witness on the one hand to advances in economic areas requiring strong male labour (construction, cattle raising, seal hunting), and on the other hand to the increasing frequency of military conflicts. The development of shipbuilding and seafaring facilitated the spread of bronze, and eventually the adoption of iron, and introduced new types of objects into the material culture. Changes took place in burial customs – a new type of burial ground spread from Germanic to Estonian areas – stone cist graves, and cremation burials became increasingly common. A small number of boat-shaped stone graves have also been found. It is apparently through marine communication that the oldest loanwords from the Germanic languages, connected with agriculture (rukis [rye], kaer [oat], ader [plough], põld [field], leib [bread]), the keeping of domesticated animals (kana [chicken], laut [barn], juust [cheese]), metals (raud [iron], kuld [gold], tina [lead], mõõk [sword], katel [cauldron], nõel [needle]), seafaring (looded [tides], käil [prow], aer [oar], rand [coast]), societal relationships (kuningas [king], raha [money], rikas [wealthy], vald [parish], pant [pledge], laen [loan], varas [thief]) and religion (haldjas [fairy],

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arbuma [to soothsay], taig [witchcraft]), reached the Balto-Finnic languages in the Early Metal Age. These are merely a few of the more notable examples. Ancient fields that have survived until the present day and heaps of stones testify to the fact that agriculture was practiced. There is much less data about the Later Bronze Age in inland regions of Estonia, the development of which was different, although there is no reason to doubt that settlement continued there also. The Pre-Roman Iron Age began in Estonia in about 500 B.C., and tentatively lasted until the middle of the 1st century A.D. The oldest iron items were imported, although since the first century iron was smelted from local marsh and lake ore. Settlement sites are located mostly in places that offer natural protection. Fortresses were also built, although these were only used temporarily. Burial in stone-cist graves continued in coastal areas. A new type of grave – quadrangular burial mounds – began to develop. Underground graves with cremation or inhumation burials are also known from this period. Square so-called “Celtic fields” surrounded by enclosures date from the PreRoman Iron Age. It appears that the majority of stones with man-made indents, which are presumably connected with magic designed to increase crop fertility, date from that period. The find material is relatively modest. Communities were small and consisted of extended patriarchal families. Burial traditions show the clear beginning of social stratification. The differences in the construction of burial sites permit one to presume the rise of an ethnic boundary between the tribes of northern and southern Estonia. The rise and intensification of many Balto-Finnic cultural traits can be observed. The existence of new types of ceramics and other artefacts, especially in the southern part of mainland Estonia, points to the persistence of ties with eastern and south-eastern regions, in the latter case presumably through the intermediation of the Baltic tribes. On the basis of the above information, one can conclude that increasingly frequent communication with neighbouring regions led to the development of agriculture, cattle raising, metal processing and seafaring, although new social forms also developed, and new religious ideas were established. Contact with outsiders, whether peaceful trade or common defence against an enemy, must undoubtedly have caused a strengthening of the feeling of group identity. This took place primarily within extended families and communities, but also on the basis of a particular geographic feature It was apparently in this period that the intensification of ethnic differences and the differentiation of linguistic dialect regions in northern Estonia and the islands and in southern

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Estonia began to take place. The development of a common dialect was of course assisted by regional identity. Nevertheless, one cannot yet speak of territorial county structures or the development of a corresponding identity in this period. 4. The Roman Iron Age In this period, which is roughly dated to between 50 and 450 A.D., the areas surrounding the Baltic were affected by the influence of the Roman Empire. These influences were, however, only indirect and through many intermediaries. In material culture this is reflected by only a very few Roman coins, some jewellery and artefacts. In contrast to the dry and cool conditions of the first millennium B.C., the climate became more temperate and maritime. Two developments took place, mainly in northern Estonia: settlements moved to higher areas, and agriculture became increasingly important. In western and south-western Estonia animal husbandry remained predominant, although the transition to agriculture had taken place earlier than elsewhere. The shallow, easily cultivated soils in these places were best suited to agriculture, which had become dominant by the middle of the first millennium. Agriculture was practised more on the fertile soils of southern Estonia. The abundance of iron artefacts in southern Estonia during the Roman Iron Age speaks of closer mainland ties with southern areas, while the islands of western and northern Estonia communicated with their neighbours mainly by sea. Changes began to take place in burial customs. In northeast Estonia, the so-called quadrangular burial mound – a square stone structure with many parts – developed. They were used for cremation burials, and by the second half of the period they were widespread throughout Estonia. Little research has been done about settlements. There are data of the intensification of agriculture and ancient fertilised fields. One extremely important feature is the almost complete absence of weapons in burials and the fact that new fortresses were not built, and the old ones were not much used. This offers evidence of a peaceful time without hostilities. One may assume that stable social relations permitted peaceful development for the population, which favoured the greater differentiation between tribal areas. By the end of the period one can speak of three clearly defined tribal and dialectical areas: northern Estonia, southern Estonia, and western Estonia including the islands. Thus one is most likely justified in believing that at least three ethno-geographical and linguistic regions came

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into being, the population of each having formed its own understanding of identity. 5. The Middle Iron Age This period consists of the Völkerwanderung (450–700) and the Pre-Viking Age (700–850). Notable events during the Pre-Viking Age are the increasing density of settlement and the large-scale appearance of fortresses used as places of refuge. The expansion of settlements is particularly noticeable in western and north-western Estonia. A fortress-settlement system developed, consisting of a fortress and an open settlement located beside it. There are many known settlement sites with intensive cultural layers. A village structure with compact settlement developed. The Middle Iron Age in Estonia should presumably be considered to be a turbulent period with recurrent hostilities – this is confirmed by the large number of fortresses, abundant finds of concealed tools, weapons and other artefacts, and, since the 7th century, the frequent occurrence of swords in the find material and also the appearance of new types of graves. The construction and maintenance of quadrangular burial mounds ceased. These burial sites are more reminiscent of rough cairns. Both cremation and inhumation burials were practiced. In eastern and north-eastern Estonia, people began to be buried in round or oblong sandy barrows. Barrow cemeteries seem to point to the expansion of the Slavic tribes, but likewise to the extensive influence of the eastern Finno-Ugric tribes. There are a strikingly large number of grave artefacts, especially Scandinavian-looking imported articles and weapons. The appearance of weapons among these artefacts can be explained above all by events within society: village communities disintegrated into single families, a sort of nobility began to emerge, individual homes became widespread. It was apparently in this period that demarcated territorial units – parishes [kihelkonnad] – began to develop. This was a long slow process. Apparently a large proportion of parishes developed on the basis of ancient tribal areas. The rise of a parish-based organisation apparently lay in an agreement or kihl between members. Scandinavian sagas and western European chronicles contain some written information about the tribes of the eastern Baltic, including Estonia. There is reason to believe that in Estonian history, the Middle Iron Age was a period in which the local population’s sense of identity began increasingly to develop on the basis of territorial principles. Parishes laid the

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foundation for counties, which developed later. Defensive structures, villages, burial grounds and the road network were of central importance in this system, and a powerful and authoritative nobility arose. Parishes were still presumably governed by clan-based mass meetings. The anarchic surroundings forced the population to at least form a co-ordinated line of action in the event of attacks – a common defence policy. This of course assisted greatly towards the strengthening of a sense of self-definition. 6. The Later Iron Age The last period of Estonian prehistory (from roughly 850 to the beginning of the 13th century) is characterised mainly by intensified communication: Estonian tribes become involved in Viking Era battles on the Baltic Sea; the state of Kievan Russia, with an aggressive foreign policy, develops in the south-east; the military activity of the Baltic tribes living there increases, and a trade route passes from Scandinavia to Byzantium through Estonia. Settlement expands throughout Estonia, apart from areas of bogs and marshes. From northern and western Estonia, ancient agriculture increasingly reaches southern and eastern Estonia. By the end of the period peasant village culture has become established on Estonian territory. The export of grain from northern Estonia begins in the 12th century, and from southern Estonia in the 13th century. On the basis of the Liber Census Daniae (the Danish Census Book), one can conclude that there were 21,000 ploughlands in Estonia at the beginning of the 13th century, which corresponds to about 180,000 people. The relation between village and fortress changes: in addition to the fortified rural cities – county centres (Varbola, Soontagana, Valjala) of western Estonia, there are both smaller heavily fortified inhabited areas (Lõhavere) and those that are used only as places of refuge. Diverse types of graves are known from the Later Iron Age in Estonia. In western and north-western Estonia, burials take place through either cremation or inhumation in stonecist graves reminiscent of rough cairns. Burials in stone-cist graves continue in central and northern Estonia, and there are also underground graves. In the Votian-style graves of north-eastern Estonia, burial has taken place without cremation since the 2nd millennium. The grave inventory is very extensive. There are an increasing number of farm-like households, and the intersections of roads and ports become trading locations. The inflow of coins began as early as the 9th century. One may presume that there was no social class of traders by vocation – trade is carried out by those people who have excess

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goods and the opportunity to sell them. The proportion of weapons finds increases, and more work tools, everyday utensils and types of jewellery are found than ever before. Wheel-made pottery began to appear in the 11th century – the potter’s wheel was presumably adopted from Slavic areas. Whereas in the previous period more concealed finds came from wet areas, in this period more comes from near occupied settlements. This shows that the burial of property due to imminent danger is quite widespread. The Later Iron Age represents a significant stage of development in the formation of parishes and counties. The economic foundation of the wealth of the nascent nobility (parish and village elders) is land ownership, and their income is obtained from trade and handicraft, since craftsmen are often in the service of members of the nobility. In Henrik’s Liivimaa Kroonika [Chronicle of Livonia], many nobles are referred to as elders. The level of social differentiation is also indicated by the use of slaves for labour who are obtained from military campaigns. The development of counties began in the Later Iron Age as a result of economic and military co-operation with neighbouring parishes, which apparently originated primarily from defensive needs. There were apparently no county elders, and important issues were decided at mass meetings and assemblies of parish elders who were members of the nobility. It sometimes happened that a powerful nobleman’s village would be named after him (Lembitu village, for instance). The rise of the nobility is particularly noticeable in more fertile regions or those with more extensive foreign relations – Sakala, Virumaa, Saaremaa, Rävala. Thus on the basis of what the archaeological material reveals about the social processes that took place in the Later Iron Age, but also on the strength of the few extant written sources, one can observe the inception of county identity based on intensifying common parish identity, and also postulate the advent of early feudal relations of subordination and solidarity on the basis of the wealth, power and authority of individual members of the elite. Finally, it is natural to assume that by the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th century attempts were witnessed, through political necessity, to establish military co-operation between counties, which, at the end of this period also provided an important impulse towards the further development of the Estonian people as an ethnos possessing a common territory, language, habits and culture. It is probably impossible, on the basis of the existing material, to say much more about the development of Estonian identity in antiquity.

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The Time of Shadows References

Ariste, Paul. Keelekontaktid. Tallinn: Valgus, 1981. Jaanits, Lembit; Laul, Silvia; Lõugas, Vello; Tõnisson, Evald. Eesti esiajalugu. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1982. Kriiska, Aivar. Stone Age Settlement and Economic Processes in Estonian Coastal Areas and Islands. University of Helsinki, 2000. Kriiska, Aivar; Jonkus, Tõnno; Kraas, Peeter. Eesti muinasesemed. Tartu, 1999. Available at http://brutus.fil.ut.ee/andaluusia/ Kulmar, Tarmo. Die Theologie der Kraft-, Götter- und Seelenvorstellungen der ältesten Schicht der estnischen Urreligion. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 1994. Künnap, Ago. Maakaart maskis. Taas uurali asjust. – Akadeemia, 1996, 10 (91). Laanest, Arvo. Sissejuhatus läänemeresoome keeltesse. Tallinn, Eesti NSV Keele ja Kirjanduse Instituut, 1975. Mark, Karin; Heapost, Leiu; Sarap, Galina. Eestlaste antropoloogia seoses etnogeneesi küsimustega. Tallinn: Teaduste Akadeemia Kirjastus, 1994.

Andrei Hvostov, Mart Laar, Harri Tiido Historical Myth in National Identity An exchange of ideas Participants: Andrei Hvostov, Mart Laar. The discussion was chaired by Harri Tiido. Tiido: When we speak of national identity, what is it we are actually talking about? Hvostov: There exist two types of identity: a “me” identity and a “we” identity. Let us leave aside the “me” identity. The “we” type of identity can mean many things: the identity of the extended family, that of the tribe, or of the nation. In this context a nation is a product of thought. I am using as my point of departure Benedict Anderson and his book which appeared in the 1980s entitled “Imagined Communities.” In it he claims that our modern nations, as opposed to the traditional extended family or the tribe, are such a large body of people that even in such a small country as Estonia, it would be absurd to claim that one single person can know personally more than one tenth or even one hundredth of the population. The question arises as to what unites me with these other people whom I have never seen and presumably never will. It is a matter of the perception of the history and destiny which we hold in common. And in that case we are dealing with a construct. Tiido: For me, having an identity is more a question of a feeling of “not us.” If a tribe lacks the awareness of the existence of another tribe, it will imagine itself to be unique, so the need for an identity will consequently be lacking too. When someone arrives who is not “one of us,” that moment forms the starting point of the shaping of an identity. Laar: Looking at history, certain peoples have not come into being, despite the necessary circumstances being present, plus the them-and-us dichotomy. This is similar to the emergence of the feeling of ego in an individual when it opposes itself to other people. In the case of a nation we are often dealing with a psychological point in time, since at a particular moment a nation simply emerges from the growing awareness of itself. Of course, people have

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tried to steer this awareness, but it is very difficult to define with any accuracy when this self-awareness comes into being and when it does not. This is to a large extent a psychological process. It is interesting to observe that when, for instance, people awoke to national identity in the Estonia they lived in, Estonian national awakening was a process of identification against something. Estonian national awakening arose on account of men who, for one reason or another, decided not to throw their lot in with the Germans. They had had every opportunity to become Germans. Hvostov: Maybe this sounds odd, but in my opinion the behaviour of those who were active during the period of national awakening arose from the fact that at the time it was, to a certain extent, a fashionable activity. It was largely a question of revolt – an individual would dare to revolt against the rules of his society which he had previously taken for granted. But it was presumed that an educated person was also a German. Tiido: Nonetheless, let us go back a few centuries from the period of national awakening, to the 13th century. It would seem that if people in those days were to speak of national identity, all would depend on who was interpreting this notion, on the historian and the content attributed to such an era. People at that time hardly worried about the concept of identity; life was that much simpler for them. Hvostov: When we read Henrik of Latvia’s chronicles, the chronicler came to the assistance of the prevailing way of treating history and of regarding oneself as an Estonian. When talking of those tribes that lived in the territory of what is now Estonia, he uses the term Estonians which he does not do with regard to those tribes living on the territory of Latvia. In the case of Latvia, he used the terms Latgalians, Samogitians and so forth. But if you try to assess the role of the Estonian tribes, it is doubtful whether there was any kind of feeling of “us” as one group. Laar: From history we can see that the significance of those districts at the time, and the differences between them were appreciably larger than tends to emerge from the everyday national romantic way of dealing with history. At the same time, the differences are not so large as to render completely irrelevant that treatment of events. For instance, the territory of Latvia was

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overrun with such speed that there was no time for consolidation, whilst in Estonia a measure of consolidation did none the less occur. During the course of the war, certain joint endeavours with the participation even of distant districts took place in Estonia. If you examine extant agreements, it can be seen that they have been made between counties, but there are no agreements of submission to Estonia. But we may note, on the other hand, the great contrasts in the ancient struggle for liberation. Some of the subjugated districts threw in their lot with the German Knights of the Cross and fought against those counties which were yet unconquered. We can take the example of the Battle of Otepää, where the Germans, with the help of Russian forces, were expelled from the stronghold. It tends to be forgotten in this context that men from the Ugandi district fought alongside the Germans in this same stronghold. This makes the situation much more complex. When writing history one should, however, try to avoid at all costs approaching mythological effects, and should suppress the urge to support a current theory by basing it on mythology. One should treat ancient liberation struggles with great care. Tiido: Henrik of Latvia’s approach could be the result of his scant knowledge of the Estonian tribes; he was simply better acquainted with the Latvian ones. But if we now look at the mythological approach, to what extent has this been used in the 20th century when making political decisions? Hvostov: I have the firm conviction that history is not a science. I even find it difficult to say what it then is. History’s ancillary disciplines, such as archiving and heraldry, could better be regarded as sciences. But history is philosophy, maybe even literature, maybe art. But it is most surely linked to politics. A given approach to history is a tool which can be used for political ends. When I use as my point of departure the idea that history is neither true nor false, but that there is only useful and unusable history, then the question arises as to whether the present-day way of viewing history is useful, does it meet with the political exigencies of the moment? Does it, for instance, tally with our orientation towards the European Union? Have we not good reason to slightly alter the way history has been looked at up to now? This has always been done. Each generation wrote, to a certain extent, its own history according to its needs. Should we not treat our own history with more courage, so as to lend support to our present aspirations in the direction of Western Europe?

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Laar: In my opinion, there is an essential difference between an individual or nation who reflects on past events and the ensuing identity, and who, in so doing, reinforces his or its self-awareness or intuition, and the same individual or nation shirking away from these challenges. One can claim that history is either useful or not, and then adjust the past according to its utility. As regards the reception of ancient struggles for liberation in Estonia, our historians can be divided into two groups – some have consciously used history as a weapon; others have attempted to suppress their personal attitudes, opinions and tendencies, and write history as it really was. I consider the latter approach the wiser, since every myth disintegrates one day. And such moments of disintegration can cost the nation dear. For that reason I consider myths – irrespective of their present-day political use – as dangerous in the long term. We may recall, for instance, the theory that Estonia emerged during the 20th century from a 700-year period of slavery. This theory has, in my opinion, done much damage to the self-image of the Estonian people. Hvostov: In the case of Africa, it is also claimed that not one phenomenon has affected the continent as negatively as the constant lament on the frustrations of slaves, the arrival of the white man and the consequent treading underfoot of the local population. Such a relation to history simply paralyses people’s initiative, stopping them from feeling pride in themselves and in their own past. But let us return to the various approaches to history. For instance, we can describe these for the 19th century and provisionally term them the pro-Estonian approach, the pro-German and the pro-Russian one. History is one fathomless treasure chest where one can find the most disparate of facts. Using the abundant information about the 19th century, one can arrive at a clear concept based on around one third of the facts available, and where the remaining facts simply do not fit into the mosaic; so they are hidden under a cover and one pretends that they do not exist. An encounter between representatives of the three concepts will result in people making conflicting accusations and ignoring the facts. In precisely the same way, it is possible to write three different approaches to history for the 13th century, where the proRussian approach can be subdivided yet again into a Soviet and a Russian approach. Laar: These two tend to become one and the same, I cannot see a great difference between them.

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Tiido: But we cannot leave aside different approaches to history, since, for instance, the existence of the present-day Estonian state is based on one particular approach. If we were to abandon it, great problems would arise with regard to foreign relations with our state and even to its legal basis. In Russia there exists a different approach to history and this is one of the chief bones of contention between us. Laar: To a certain degree, each nation and every state is based on its approach to history. The question is really: does the nation or state want to try to find out the true history of their country, or does it wish to avoid doing so and simply say it doesn’t want to know. We see history as something politically useful, but political expediency can mean different things at different times. In the interests of land reform, it was once more politically expedient to call to mind the ancient liberation struggle, nowadays it may perhaps be politically expedient to say that Kaupo was a far-sighted politician who understood the necessity of integrating with the West, whilst Lembit was a stupid politician who fought vainly for two decades against European integration and in so doing allowed large numbers of people to die for nothing. Hvostov: That is exactly the point I once made! Laar: But it’s simply a stupid way of thinking! Hvostov: I was focussing on the fact that our Eurosceptics – in so far as they exist at all – base their arguments, from time to time, on the ancient liberation struggle. When trying to find arguments for not joining the European Union they fall back on arguments from the 13th century, or to be more precise, they use ancient events for their own ends. Once we have decided on our orientation our Euro-enthusiasts will per se begin to see the events of the 13th century in a somewhat different light, whether they like it or not. Laar: I would like to point out that this is already happening. If you get hold of texts dealing with Estonian history, the parts on the ancient liberation struggle vary considerably. But at the same time I think that too much rationality with regard to the history of a nation can lead to what happened in the case of the Livonians. These were once a very large and powerful nation, but they simply no longer exist. By way of a series of miracles, we Estonians

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have managed to survive, and this may very well have come about owing to a merging of attitudes. Tiido: Consequently, in each society and in whatever period of history, Eurosceptics and Europhiles are both necessary and one must then choose a balance between the two conflicting viewpoints. Laar: I’m only claiming that if a nation wants to mythologise its history and build on political expediency, then one fine day this house of cards will simply collapse. Every nation needs its spirit in difficult times, but this spirit must be one of strength, not of neurosis or convulsion. But if you base yourself on myths, there can come the day when the myth is exploded and the spirit too will disappear. Tiido: If the 13 th century did not in fact herald the start of a 700-year period of slavery, then what did take place during the intervening centuries? Laar: For me, the primary question is: what is a period of slavery? This needs a very precise definition set against the background of society at the time. There is one fault with Estonian historiography – we have always tried to do research while ignoring the larger canvas, i.e. what was occurring in the region, or in Europe as a whole. If we pay no heed to this context, then we begin to feel that we were either over- or underdeveloped, when in reality the truth lies somewhere in between. When looking at the period following the 13th century, and when speaking of a period of slavery, one should take into account the prevailing relations elsewhere in Europe. Forming such a picture is by no means so black and white that one can simply speak of bad Germans and good Estonians. Hvostov: I would suggest an alternative where we stop talking about the dark night of 700 years of slavery, and instead speak of 700 years of continual German domination. Tiido: Historical myth is, however, clearly not only inevitable for the national identity of any given period, but also very necessary. In some periods, historical myth plays its very distinct role whether it consolidates or divides.

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Laar: During the period of Estonian national awakening, there were two parallel approaches to the ancient struggle for liberation. Both occurred in speeches, both were summarised in book form, but Russian censorship delayed the publication of one of them for a decade or so. However, both approaches were quite influential in their own way. One was that of Jakob Hurt, the other that of Carl Robert Jakobson. Hurt did at least try quite consciously to avoid constructing his theory on myth. And both these approaches are an inextricable part of our way of treating our later national identity. Hvostov: I would agree that Hurt did avoid creating myths and for that reason his approach did not become popular, since in those days such an approach simply wasn’t needed. Laar: But why do you think it didn’t become popular? Hvostov: Jakobson’s approach was necessary at the time. When we take a look at all the textbooks that have been published since, and at approaches to history, then they all stem from Jakobson. Laar: I would deny that Jakobson’s approach has been the more successful. In the period of national awakening it didn’t in fact become popular, that happened later, during the period of Russification. In Jakobson’ s famous school textbooks it was Hurt’s approach to history which caused the Russian censor to ban one anthology. It’s too easy to contend that, at the time, such a myth was in fact necessary. The myth lived on with a certain shift of focus and in concrete terms, during the period of national awakening the nonmythological approach continued to exist in full force, although of course not everywhere. And for that reason, the national movement failed. The difference lies in whether you base your thinking on myth or on how things really were. The latter approach is, naturally, the less popular one, is more complex and harder to accept, but relatively more useful. Tiido: Here I would like a little clarification. In your opinion, can a historical myth be bad when shaping one’s national identity? Laar: In the long term, yes it can.

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Hvostov: I am of the entirely opposite opinion. It is not only beneficial, but is an inevitable requirement. The identity of every nation is based on myth. Laar: Then we must again define what we mean by myth. A myth can be something quite different from history. When we speak of a myth belonging to a particular country or nation, in such a context it can exist as a permanent companion. But when we speak of history as myth, then I will stick to my opinion. Hvostov: I am using the term “myth” to mean “non-truth.” Tiido: I would call myth adjusted truth, but still regard it as inevitable. As a historian I must acquiesce to it. At the same time, I am unable to answer the question as to whether myth is expedient. Laar: I would agree that myth has always existed. As a historian I have to acquiesce to that fact. Myth has always been in existence and has always been powerful. And clearly myths are more attractive than anything else. Tiido: Is our current approach to history demythologised, or is it based on myth, as it always has been? Hvostov: In my opinion, it has not as yet become demythologised. Here I would make the distinction between academic historiography and the popular approach to history. Laar: Let us talk of the way history is received by the general public. Hvostov: Yes, in that field there are points of view which are not so much historical postulates as the views of the writer. Tiido: But if such historical myth were to be destroyed, could this weaken one’s sense of national identity? Laar: We could claim that, but in my opinion the destruction of myths carries no risk. Quite the opposite, it enables us to understand ourselves better. Although the destruction of a myth can in itself become its opposite, creating a new myth in its turn. The problem is, however, that in academic

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historiography there is an ongoing process of myth destruction, but this has not yet reached the consciousness of ordinary people. The gap between the academic approach to history and public opinion is a serious problem. In such circumstances it is hard for historiography to combat myth. The state should think seriously about how to bring history closer to ordinary people. Hvostov: Maybe such change is not within the power of the state, but it is in the power of specialists in the arts, writers and so on. Or, more generally within the brief of journalists. If their perception of history changes, then they can themselves begin to influence the knowledge of history by the public at large. But I will now return to the question of whether it is dangerous for a myth to crumble. Yes, it is dangerous if no new myth is put in its place. No vacuum should occur in between. Tiido: If a new myth must be found to replace the old one, do you believe or claim, therefore, that a myth is a necessity under all circumstances? Hvostov: Yes, that is what I am claiming. But every myth is based on knowledge, myths aren’t just created out of a void. Luckily, history has a bottomless store where facts for all circumstances can be found. Tiido: Let us therefore create a myth of our own – that Estonians have, throughout history, constituted a multicultural society and have taken on board all foreign influences and those who brought them, using them, amongst other things, to enrich their own gene pool. Laar: This is, alas, no myth but a reality. If we examine the Estonian gene pool, we will come to that austere conclusion, like it or not, but it is for each individual to decide. Hvostov: I have offered the theory which, in condensed form, goes as follows: the arrival of the Germans in the 13th century was a good thing. Up to the present, it has always been regarded as something negative, because they came and wrecked everything. Laar: Academic historiography has more or less arrived at the same conclusion. The question is only whether we must present it as a myth or simply look at it in a balanced manner. The fact that the arrival of the

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Germans wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to us has now been accepted at a national level. Hvostov: The categories of “good” and “evil” are not terms used in the study of history. When I said that the arrival of the Germans was a good thing, then that in itself is a myth. From a historical point of view we should employ different terms – perhaps “inevitable” or something similar. Tiido: Let’s say then that myth is useful for future planning. But using the term “liberation struggle” about the 13th century, isn’t that in itself mythologising the term? Perhaps it would be more accurate to use the expression “struggle for survival” with regard to the Estonians, and, from the German point of view, a “struggle for supremacy.” Hvostov: Yes, the term is indeed a mythological one. A more accurate expression would be a “struggle against Christianity.” Laar: I can’t entirely agree, since this was not only a struggle against Christianity. When you look at the details of the struggle which took place even before the struggle on Estonian soil against Christianity, then you can see that this was not only against Christian belief. One third of Christians had been brought over from Sweden, Denmark and other littoral regions, where Estonians were active as pirates. When people talk about an ancient liberation struggle, they always ignore the fact that after Riga had been founded there was no choice for traders across the Baltic but to wipe out the pirates, termed Estonians, from the face of the Earth and put a stop to their activities over on this side of the sea. If you read about the pirates in the chronicles of Henrik of Latvia you will soon discover how developed such activities were. Hvostov: I agree entirely with what you say. By the way, I have made a parallel here with Chechnya: Russia was fed up to the teeth with kidnappings and the slave trade. Laar: Yes, our forefathers did provide a very good excuse for the start of a crusade. And that comparison with Chechnya is quite apposite here. It doesn’t pay to idealise our forebears. The same sort of thing was occurring elsewhere in Europe.

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Hvostov: Piracy was, in those days, a form of economic activity. Tiido: An accepted form of economic activity. Laar: Quite, a most accepted form. Hvostov: But the praxis of this world has shown that once those Scandinavian tribes – the Vikings – were baptised, then they immediately calmed down and piracy ebbed away. For that reason, it was necessary to baptise the Estonian tribes, because they were a problem for Europe. In this way, Europe simply solved one of its problems. Laar: I think that when dealing with the ancient struggle for liberation, you have to look at it in a balanced way, weigh up both sides of the argument, without having too noble, or too base, motives when doing so. In the end, you can reach the conclusion that both sides were brave and we drew the short straw and remained there, it would have been a proud fact to have had a Great Duchy of Estonia, but that can’t be helped. I have one suggestion – we should treat our history with equanimity.

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Tiina Kala Estonia from the 13 th to the 16 th Centuries On map [legend]:

Tartu piiskopkond = Bishopric of Tartu Saare-Lääne Piiskopkond = Bishopric of SaareLääne Riia piiskopkond = Bishopric of Riga Liivi laht = Gulf of Riga Liivi Ordu maad = Lands of Livonian Order Riia linna alad = Lands of City of Riga Riia peapiiskopi valdused = Possessions of Archbishop of Riga Tartu piiskopi valdused = Possessions of Bishop of Tartu Saare-Lääne piiskopi valdused = Possessions of Bishop of Saare-Lääne linn = city ordulinnus = fortress of Teutonic Order piiskopilinnus = Bishop’s fortress Vana-Liivimaa XIV-XVI sajand = Ancient Livonia from the 14th to the 16 th centuries

The Middle Ages in Estonia is a period characterised by power politics, religious life and conditions of the indigenous population that differ from those of both antiquity and the modern era. This is the period from the appropriation of Estonia by the Germano-Scandinavian colonists at the beginning of the 13 th century to the spread of the reformation and the division of the above-mentioned territory during the Livonian War at the end of the 16th century. During the Middle Ages cities in the Western European sense developed, due primarily to the Hanseatic League, Estonia became a part of the Europe-wide trading system, and the Catholic Church tied it into the European cultural and educational world. The formation and nature of the Estonian people’s contemporary selfdefinition has to a large degree been determined by the written word. For decades the primary attention of Estonian historiography has been focused on the narrower topic of the history of the Estonians, instead of the history of the whole of Estonia as a country. The power structures built in Estonia by these

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Estonia from the 13th to the 16 th Centuries

newcomers were perhaps more independent than all subsequent forms of government until the 20 th century. The description of the historical fortunes of the Estonians has been heavily influenced by the imagery of national romanticism created in the 19th century, which offered a uniformly negative assessment of the conquest and Christianisation that had originated mainly in Germany, portraying the history of the Estonians from the 13th to the 19th centuries as a 700-year dark age of serfdom. This understanding became established largely due to fiction, which preceded professional historical research by several decades. As a result, fiction writers’ expressions from the realm of rhetoric appeared in historians’ texts; their content has in many cases been treated as historical fact to the present day. By the 1930s, historians of Estonian descent had achieved significant academic potential that would have permitted the development of a framework of the history of the Estonian people, although by that time a conception originating from fiction that categorically pitted Estonians against Germans, had already become deeply rooted. This conception was mostly not based on the sources, but on a writer’s imagination. The extensive spread of such understandings was also promoted by the fact that the serfdom of the 18th century and the first part of the 19th century, which stood out from its predecessors due to its harshness, was better established in the national memory in that it was chronologically the most recent. The phenomena characteristic of that period were also automatically applied to preceding centuries. Due to the fact that emphatically Estonia- and Estonian-centred fiction in the style of national romanticism understandably failed to provide a larger picture of medieval power relationships and the way of life in other parts of Europe, the often minimally-educated readership considered phenomena that were simply part of the specific context of the time, such as plunder in connection with warfare or the limited rights of the common people, to be expressions of hostility directed towards Estonians. Much of what we know about the early era of colonisation and Christianisation on the territory of Estonia and Latvia at the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th century comes from the chronicle written by the German priest Henrik of Latvia. Most of the chronicle is devoted to the hostilities between Christian proselytizers, the Estonians and other local peoples. Since Henrik himself was a missionary in Estonia and

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Livonia, his account offers the impressions of a contemporary and direct witness of these events, although some of it is of course subjective. Many of the events of the history of Western Europe in the 13th century are a challenge to researchers due to the abundance of sources available. In the case of Estonia, the opposite is true – there is a great shortage of source material pertaining to the 13 th century. Because of this, no Estonian historian could imagine investigating the events of that period without Henrik’s Chronicle. As a result, the history of Estonia in the 13th century (as it has been portrayed until the present) is very much centred on Henrik, and due to its subject material also concentrates to a great degree on conquest and violence. Violent episodes naturally occupy an important place in the earlier history of any people, but the impression they left on the Estonian self-image was that the only precise information we possess concerns violence in which we were the underdogs, and historians lack information, based either on historical truth or mythology, of illustrious victories achieved by our ancestors. Henrik Chronicle begins at the time German missionaries reached the Väina River in 1180. Here they came into contact with the Livs, a people related to the Estonians, and with the Baltic tribes that were the ancestors of the Latvians – the Latgallians, the Semigallians and the Selonians. In the course of conquest and Christianisation, the fate of the territories of presentday Latvia and Estonia followed a similar course, and both countries’ medieval history is actually the history of the land that in historical literature is referred to as Ancient Livonia. By the end of the 12th century, both the eastern and western neighbours of the Finno-Ugric and Baltic tribes of the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea had been Christianised, and this territory formed a narrow strip of pagan land between Christian states – the Catholic monarchies of Denmark and Sweden on the western coast of the Baltic Sea, and in the east the Orthodox Russian principalities. The Estonians had had both commercial ties and military conflicts with the inhabitants of these regions over several centuries, although the earlier contacts had not possessed the nature of determined seizure and conquest on the part of the neighbour. At the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries, the military campaigns originating from neighbouring Christian countries had acquired a qualitatively new level, and began increasingly to resemble crusades. Several different forces participated in the seizure of Estonian and Latvian territory: German merchants and crusaders, the Danish monarchy and the Roman Pope. During the Drang nach Osten, the Germans had exhausted the

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economic possibilities of most of the western Slavic areas, but not their thirst for conquest. The continuation of eastward conquest and missionary work was keenly supported by the archbishops of Hamburg and Bremen, who hoped to revive their former leading position in the Holy Roman Empire by Christianising adjacent areas in the north and the east. The papal curia, which had already begun to express interest in missionary activity in Estonian since the end of the 12 th century, also wished to expand its influence eastwards. On the initiative of Eskil, the Archbishop of Lund, the French monk Fulco, who at the beginning of the 1170s was repeatedly granted support through edicts issued by Pope Alexander III, was appointed bishop of the mission to Estonia. It is not known whether Fulco actually ever reached Estonia, but this episode is evidence of the increasing interest in this region on the part of both the papal curia and the Scandinavian bishops. Parallel with these events, at the beginning of the 13th century Danish King Valdemar II made great advances in the consolidation and expansion of his state, conquering part of SchleswigHolstein including Lübeck, and now his interest also turned eastward. Henrik’s Chronicle examines events from the beginning of the 1180s, when German missionary Meinhard, who was to be the Livs’ future bishop, reached the mouth of the Väina River, to 1227, when German crusaders conquered Saaremaa. That cannot, however, be considered to be the victorious end of the conquest – the Estonians’ uprisings continued during the entire 13th century, although concerning later events there are no sources that can be compared to Henrik’s Chronicle. Whereas at the end of the 12th century the crusaders, who initially operated in small numbers on Liv territory south of the area inhabited by the Estonians, were unable to make significant gains, the situation changed at the beginning of the 13th century. In 1199 Albert von Buxhövden, Canon of Bremen, was appointed Bishop of Livonia, and he immediately began to organise a broader military campaign. In 1200 he arrived at the mouth of the Väina River with a larger force of crusaders and in the following year founded the city of Riga, which was to become the bishop’s seat and one of the most important centres for the Crusades. In the same year missionary Theoderich, implementing Bishop Albert’s idea, founded the Order of the Brethren of the Sword, which became one of the crusaders’ most important military forces. The accession of Innocent III to the papal office in the same year that Albert became bishop of Livonia also activated the papal curia’s policies in Livonia. The papal curia did not apply independent military force in these

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areas either during or after the primacy of Innocent III. His task was to regulate conflicts between conquerors and maintain equilibrium between German and Danish crusaders, in order to preserve the possibility of favouring one side by curtailing the ambitions of the other. At issue was not merely the governing of Ancient Livonia, but dominance of the entire Baltic region. In 1208 German crusaders and merchants first marched into Estonian territory, and thus began the Estonians’ resistance, which lasted for roughly two decades and had reverberations extending into the second half of the 13th century. The Danes only began to interfere forcefully in local events from 1219, when they conquered a large part of northern Estonia and founded their fortress on the hill of the former Lindanise fortress, around which the city of Tallinn began to take shape. This was not the Danes’ first encounter with the Estonians. In 1206 a Danish force made an unsuccessful attempt to gain a foothold on Saaremaa. Among the leaders of the Saaremaa campaign was one of the most influential Danish statesmen of that era, Archbishop of Lund Andreas Sunesen, who became the Danish king’s first vice-regent in Estonia after the 1219 conquest. There was continual discord between the above-mentioned foreign forces. Although it had in essence been called into existence by the Archbishop of Riga, the Order of the Brethren of the Sword nevertheless became an important rival to the bishop and a competitor for possessions and influence. The rivalry remained even after the Brethren of the Sword were defeated in a battle with the Lithuanians in Saule, northern Lithuania, and it was joined to the Teutonic Order as its Livonian branch, and continued for most of the existence of Ancient Livonia. The Danes were understandably not interested in the expansion of the influence of the Brethren of the Sword into northern Estonia, and the pope tipped the balance by granting his support to the Danes, curtailing Albert’s ambitions. Nor can the Estonian camp be said to have been homogeneous at that time. The military forces of different regions often acted separately, and the assembly of the majority of Estonian forces succeeded on only a few isolated occasions during the entire struggle against foreign rule. On the Estonian side, the people of Saaremaa acted in the most organised and successful manner, and on the Latvian side the Curonians. Situated on the waterway that leads through Ojamaa to the eastern part of the Baltic Sea, and controlling access to the important Väina shipping route, they had more experience of foreign

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relations and warfare. Crusaders approaching from the Baltic Sea first came into contact with these regions, and thus these could have become the first conquered and Christianised territories. In reality, the people of Saaremaa and the Curonians were, due to their own determined resistance, to be the last to be vanquished and Christianised, from the end of the 1220s to the beginning of the 1230s. Chronicler Henrik has repeatedly emphasised the weak resistance and meekness of the inhabitants of Central Estonia. In southern Estonia the old enmity between the Estonians and the neighbouring Russians also played its part, permitting the Germans to draw the Estonians into their camp by going against the Russians. This method was used by the Germans especially in Liv areas, where the local peoples were set against each other using old disputes. Difficulties in uniting the local people may also have been the result of the uneven distribution of military conflict throughout Estonian territory. There were certainly regions that had not experienced any warfare during the three decades of the struggle for freedom, and also those regions that were affected by invasions only once or twice over a period of several years. This situation apparently did not differ from at least the couple of preceding centuries, when invasions from both east and west were quite common. Thus the local people did not sense the newness of the situation or the deliberate nature of the conquest. The 19 th-century national romantic image of a harmonious and democratic pre-conquest society whose existence was terminated by a dramatic struggle for freedom and a subsequent period of repression can hardly be reconciled with reality. Although the paucity of sources makes it difficult to describe the Estonians’ social order in antiquity, the archaeological data suggests a certain social stratification that must have meant, for part of the population, a moderate degree of dependence on the local nobility, even before the conquest. The construction of fortresses and roads and the organisation of military campaigns presupposed the existence of some kind of system of obligations. Thus changes in the actual condition of the people cannot, at least in the first decades after the conquest, have been all that drastic, despite the replacement of individuals in key positions. There are known to have been many landowners of Estonian descent in the 13 th century, and there are also extant agreements from the middle of the century concluded between the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order and the people of Saaremaa, in which the latter still figure as more or less equal contractual partners. It is possible that such agreements also existed with the

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inhabitants of other Estonian regions. The foreign rulers initially consolidated their power mainly in the cities or in individual fortresses. The only structures that gradually arose in the countryside were modest pieds-a-terre that served as the centres of aristocratic possessions that the new arrivals most likely visited only once or twice a year in order to collect taxes. The first urban charters in Ancient Livonia were granted in the 13th century (the Riga Charter based on the Hamburg Charter in the 1280s; the Lübeck Charter in Tallinn in 1248; the Haapsalu Charter in Haapsalu in 1279, based on the example of Riga), although there is no evidence of the implementation of a similar system of legal norms in the countryside during the same period. Here the old customary law apparently remained in use. As referred to above, the changes that accompanied the conquest must at first have been very modest for the majority of the indigenous population. The above statement refers mainly to the economic and legal status of the original inhabitants. Apart from that, however, one should not forget that military conquest was accompanied by Catholic proselytising. It is difficult to offer a uniform assessment of Christianisation, since the baptism of the Estonians and other pagans residing around the Baltic Sea presumably took a different course in the different regions where it was performed – perhaps in some places it involved peaceful preaching, in places agreements, and in some cases it certainly took place by the sword. That is proved by frequent references to the washing off of holy water and the molestation of priests in instances of uprisings against foreign rule. There is little precise information on the Estonians’ ancient religion. On the basis of individual sources and later analogies, one can say that, similarly to other pagan peoples, natural objects were worshiped, the spirits of the ancestors were honoured, they engaged in soothsaying and sacrifices, yet we know nothing of the Estonians’ pantheon of pagan gods or the procedure of religious rituals. Christianity was certainly not unknown to the local peoples in antiquity, and especially after the Christianisation of the surrounding peoples. It is possible that a few Estonians were christened in Estonia or abroad. Opposition to the Christian church was probably caused by the violence and economic constraints (e.g. the tithe) that accompanied the arrival of the Christians and not the substance of the new religion. The German and Danish priests christened the Estonians and their southern neighbours over a period of about 20 years in the first quarter of the 13th century. In parallel with Christianisation, the first congregation churches began to be built. These were presumably at first, small, partly wooden

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buildings, and it is likely that each parish did not have its own priest in the first decades after the conquest. One may presume that considerable work in the dissemination of the main tenets of Christianity was done by the religious orders, especially the orders of mendicant friars. At the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th century, the Cistercians played quite an important role among the missionaries in Livonia. Theoderich, the first Bishop of Estonia and Bertold, who succeeded Meinhardt in the position of Bishop of Livonia, were also Cistercians. The first monastery founded in Livonia, which was situated in Dünamünde at the mouth of the Väina River, was also a Cistercian monastery. Papal Legate Wilhelm, Bishop of Modena and later of Sabina, visited Livonia in the years 1226–1227 and 1237–1238, performing the task of diplomatic intermediary in the assuaging of disputes between the foreign powers. A strong supporter of the Dominican Order, he initiated the construction of monasteries for the friar preachers throughout his legationary territory, also in Livonia. In the 1220s and 1230s, the first monasteries were built in Tallinn and Riga. Due to the instability of the local situation, the Tallinn monastery was only able to begin active operations from the end of the 1240s. In connection with the conquests and Christianisation, it became necessary to create a local ecclesiastical administration. In 1211, Albert had appointed as Bishop of Estonia his assistant Theoderich, who held the title until his death at the Battle of Lindanise in 1219. Theoderich was a missionary bishop, who lacked a permanent residence and chapter house, and whose domains were not completely Christianised. Actual bishoprics developed in the years 1220–1240. Initially bishops changed residences repeatedly, and the borders of their dioceses were not clearly defined. During the entire Catholic period there were three bishoprics in Estonia: Tartu, Saare-Lääne (subject to the Archbishop of Riga) and Tallinn (subject to the Archbishop of Lund). In Danish areas in northern Estonia, an attempt was made to form a Bishopric of Harju-Viru in addition to the Bishopric of Tallinn, but nothing came of this, and all of northern Estonia remained under the control of the Bishop of Tallinn. In 1240 Valdemar II donated land for the bishop’s sustenance, and from that time one may speak of the actual existence of the bishopric. In contrast to the other bishops on Estonian territory, the Bishop of Tallinn lacked temporal jurisdiction, as a result of which his influence was much smaller.

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Thus by the mid 13th century the land of Estonia had been divided between the Danish crown, the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order and the bishops of Saare-Lääne, constituting a conglomerate of small feudal states, whose disputes over influence continued until the end of the Middle Ages. The sources offer little information about the first half of the 14th century. Valdemar and Erik’s feudal law – the compilation of the feudal law granted to Estonia by the Danish kings – also stipulated the nature of relations between the ruler and his vassals and ensured the bequeathing of investitures along the paternal line. This can be seen as one step in the strengthening of the vassalage, and it later played its part in determining the future of the land. Although the subordination and division of the land had ended long ago, the 14 th century was not at all peaceful. In the first decade of the century, clashes took place between the Lithuanians and Russians for the feudal possessions of Livonia. Fortresses (Vastseliina, Aluksne) were built on the eastern border to fend off the latter, and in the mid-century, regulations were repeatedly issued in order to ensure the assembly of the land’s military forces in the event of war with the Russians. Relations between the Livonian Order and the City of Riga remained hostile, and on this occasion the disputes ended with Riga’s surrender to the Order in 1330 and the construction in Riga of a residence for the master of the order. The best-known event of this turbulent period is the Jüriöö Uprising, named after the day on which it began, which engulfed the whole of northern and western Estonia and the islands. Although this event has provided material for national romantic fiction and art works, relatively little is known about the actual origins, course and consequences of the uprising. It is described in greater depth only by the Chronicle of the Order, otherwise known as the Younger Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, the original of which has not survived; the account is known from other annals. Economic, religious and political motives for the uprising have been identified, although it is likely that all of the above aspects came into play. According to the chronicle, the Estonians killed all the Germans in Harjumaa and Virumaa who were unable to flee to safety in the city, including the monks in the Cistercian Monastery in Padise, elected military leaders, whom they called kings, and requested assistance from the bailiffs of Turu and Vyborg. The latter fact points to the possibility that the insurgents in the lands belonging to the Danish crown in northern Estonia were aware of the discord between Denmark and Sweden.

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The uprising was quelled by the forces of the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order, and the Estonians’ “kings” were killed during the negotiations. Two years later resistance was also suppressed in western Estonia and on the islands. Although this was a failed undertaking on the part of the Estonians, it does provide material for discussion as to the status of the indigenous population more than a century after the conquest and Christianisation. At that time Estonians must still have seen themselves as an independent military and political force, and local and foreign potentates must also have seen them as such. There are only very few isolated facts concerning independent activity by Estonians in the political arena dating from the first half of the 14th century. In 1311 or 1312, when papal representative Franciscus de Moliano investigated the activities of the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order at the height of the campaign against the Knights Templar, the reports prepared by the legate contain information that Estonians sent their own complaints, apparently against the Order, to Rome. Regardless of whether this took place through Estonian legates or other intermediaries, it does nevertheless indicate that the indigenous population possessed both opportunities and the skills required to engage in independent diplomatic activity. It is possible that the author of the Younger Livonian Rhymed Chronicle exaggerated in describing the Estonians’ bloodletting, in order to justify the brutal suppression of the uprising, yet the insurgents’ military force must in any case have been considerable. After all, the vassals of Harju-Viru approached the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order as the strongest military force in Ancient Livonia, as they did not dare rely on their own strength or that of the Danish central authorities. The other parts of Estonia (apart from northern and western Estonia and Saaremaa) were most likely unaffected by the uprising, or at least there are no records to that effect. Thus one cannot make broader generalisations concerning the whole of Estonia by assessing the consequences of the uprising. Concerning northern Estonia, isolated comments indicate that the land was still battle-scarred years after the suppression of the uprising, and the foreign rulers’ fear of the indigenous population had not completely receded. The year 1346 heralded an important change in the political partition of Ancient Livonia: Denmark, which was languishing in internal political difficulties and a financial shortfall, sold its possessions in northern Estonia to the Teutonic Order, which in the following year transferred them to the

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Livonian branch of the Order. From then until the Livonian War, the Teutonic Order was the largest landowner in Ancient Livonia. Despite the above-mentioned internal unrest, conflicts between the foreign rulers, and above all the external danger from Russia and Lithuania, the 14th century cannot be seen in an entirely negative light from the point of view of the development of the country. It was at that time that the cities of Ancient Livonia began to develop more vigorously, close relations developed with the Hanseatic League, and the foundation was laid for the flourishing of the cities, which lasted at least until the first half of the 16th century. The genesis of the cities of Estonia and the whole of Ancient Livonia is complex and contradictory. Cities, as clearly demarcated fortified settlements arose here after the conquest, and were thus an imported phenomenon. One cannot deny, however, that city-type settlements had already developed in antiquity. Due to the absence of corresponding written sources and the scarcity of archaeological research, it is not possible to describe supposed preconquest urban centres in any great detail. One can only presume that mercantile-handicraft, partly temporary settlements existed at the present locations of Tallinn and Tartu, but also in such pre-conquest centres as Kareda village in Järvamaa. The network of centres that developed at the beginning of the 13th century, i.e. during and directly after the conquest, did not remain unchanged. Whereas at that time Otepää and Lihula were also notable centres, in addition to Tallinn, Tartu, Rakvere and Viljandi, later the importance of the first two began to wain and they never became cities. The causes of such a decline may have been of both a political and economic – geographical nature. The formation of Estonia’s largest city, Tallinn, falls in the Danish period, and its legal establishment was determined by the Danish kings. In place of the Estonians’ former citadel, at the foot of the fortress belonging to the Danish vice-regents and temporarily, from the end of the 1220s to the beginning of the 1230s to the Order of the Brethren of the Sword, there arose a settlement whose development was favoured above all by the presence of a port. In the mid-13 th century the Danes granted Tallinn the Lübeck Charter, and the city council of Tallinn began to operate at about the same time. The core of the citizenry is considered to have been the German merchants of Ojamaa who arrived in Tallinn in approximately 1230 by invitation from the Brethren of the Sword. Although Tallinn became a typical German merchant city like many others in the Baltic Sea region that the Germans had occupied, the proportion

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of local inhabitants in the city remained quite large, over different periods always constituting at least half of the urban population. Despite the fact that northern Estonia belonged to Denmark, the majority of both immigrant urban inhabitants and vassals were Germans, and the Danes’ share was restricted primarily to the king’s vice-regency. After the sale of northern Estonia to the Order, Tallinn became a city of the league, yet this did not cause serious changes in government, the legal system or economic life. There is less information about the formation of the other cities in Estonia than there is about Tallinn. One can speak of an early network of cities and villages as of the first half of the 14th century. Tartu, which in terms of size is the second city in Estonia, somewhat differed from Tallinn due to its political status. It was the centre of a bishopric, and the city had constantly to take into consideration the bishop’s interference in its internal affairs (Tallinn city council appears to have been less dependent on the regent residing on Toompea). From the 14th century the Hanseatic League played an important role in the development of the cities. Of the cities of Estonia, Tallinn, Tartu and Pärnu were members of the Hanseatic League. Despite the ambitions of various regents, cities were then perhaps more independent than at any time since. Primarily through the Hanseatic League, it was possible to follow an autonomous economic and trade policy, the Lübeck Charter ensured relative independence in internal affairs, and wealth and military potential played their part in the case of external and internal hostilities. Despite their diverse ethnic composition, urban communities were relatively homogeneous entities. Although there were not, among Estonians, important merchants or generally even representatives of the more noble handicrafts, in the cities there was always a great need for unskilled labour that flowed from the countryside, because the cities had a negative birth rate. At the same time, there is information that there were also Estonian citizens in the 14th century. In subsequent centuries the acceptance of Estonians as citizens began to be limited by raising the fee for citizenship. The corporate organisation of urban life, by which most inhabitants, regardless of whether or not they were citizens belonged, either directly or through a member of their family, to some vocational or religious brotherhood, also foresaw a position for Estonians. Of course the Great Guild or the Brotherhood of the Black Heads had no members from among the country’s indigenous inhabitants, but the cosmopolitan corporatism typical of medieval cities, which did not draw very sharp lines between ethnicities, and

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in the case of religious life often not even differences in social standing, ensured urban Estonians a secure position in the community life of the city. There are very scarce data concerning the medieval way of life in the countryside, especially from the Estonians’ point of view. Since there were different regents, the administrative management and the way of life of residents of rural areas was not uniform throughout Estonian territory. After the conquest, the country was gradually covered with fortresses of the order and vassals’ strongholds. In the 13th century, especially at a time when the vassalage and the Order were not yet permanent and settled, the Estonians did not yet much depend on the newcomers. It is not known to what extent and for how long the indigenous inhabitants’ ancient common law-based hierarchy, for instance the status of the old village and parish elders and their descendents, endured. In the first decades after the conquest, there are only data concerning a few Estonian vassals in northern Estonia. Their names can be found in the Liber Census Daniae (most likely, on the basis of the comments of Danish priests, the list of Danish possessions in northern Estonia revised in 1241). There were presumably also vassals of Estonian descent in southern Estonia, but there is no source comparable with the Danish assessment book in this matter. The first tithe imposed on the peasantry by the foreign rulers was the church tithe formally established in 1240. As mentioned above, in the 13th and 14th centuries the peasantry’s dependence was limited to tax and court matters, which were not necessarily very severe. It is not known how successfully it was possible to collect the tithe or other taxes, as there is a lack of data for that period. Tax dependence most likely existed to a certain extent even prior to that period, and thus it was not necessarily a cause for serious confrontation between the newcomers and the indigenous population. Relations between the peasantry and the newcomers may in places have become patriarchal. A distinctive feature of the agrarian society of Ancient Livonia, in comparison with other regions conquered in the Drang nach Osten, is the fact that agrarian colonisation by German peasants never took place here. The reason for this is seen to be both the unfavourable local climate and the regents’ lack of interest in additional labour, as the local labour force was sufficient. The 15 th century saw an increase in reports of attempts by landowners to prevent the peasants from fleeing, and peasants with their families were sold together with the land. It is certain that the entire peasantry was not subject to such dependence, but apparently only those families that were in arrears in the

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payment of their taxes. The peasantry’s increasingly close attachment to the land may have been due partly to the vassalage becoming increasingly settled and the expansion of possibilities for the sale in western Europe of agricultural produce, especially grain dried in the kiln-house that could be stored for a long time. There were free peasants or even lesser vassals of Estonian descent in the 16th century (and also later, in some cases). One cannot rule out the possibility that among them were the descendents of the ancient nobility. At the beginning of the 16th century Estonians were used in the Order’s army as auxiliary forces in the wars against Russia. By the 16th century the status of not only the Estonians, but also the colonists, had changed. Whereas in the 13th century the German crusaders who had settled in Livonia had had close ties with the mother country – the survival of a weak and sparse colony depended largely on the resources of Germany, and the local rulers’ authority depended on German or Danish secular or religious power – over the course of centuries the colony of Livonia became increasingly strong and independent. As of the 1420s Diets, at which all of the most important local authorities (commanders of the Order, bishops, abbots, vassals’ representatives, envoys of the cities) began to assemble at regular intervals, so that the country’s external and internal affairs could be discussed jointly. Although full agreement on more complicated matters was rarely achieved at the Diets, and the degree to which the Diets’ resolutions were implemented was modest, it nevertheless provides evidence of the relative independence and self-assurance of the local authorities. Diets were held until 1561, i.e. when northern Estonia came under the Swedish crown. The Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order, which after the sale of northern Estonia to the Order had incontestably become the most influential state authority in Ancient Livonia, gradually attempted to expand its influence in other possessions in Ancient Livonia. This was mainly expressed in the endeavour to incorporate the bishoprics in the region, i.e. to achieve a situation in which the bishop would belong to the Order. In the case of the Archbishopric of Riga, this was, by the end of the 14th century, successful, whereas in the bishoprics of Tallinn, Tartu and Saare-Lääne only in the case of a few isolated bishops. Despite the repercussions that arose from the monopolisation of bishops’ positions, the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order gathered strength at an increasingly rapid rate until the middle of the 16th century in parallel with the decline of the Teutonic Order itself. In 1525, when the Order in Prussia was secularised, the Livonian branch led by Master Wolter von Plettenberg

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became independent. In the event of favourable political circumstances, the continuation of Plettenberg’s policy may perhaps have eventually led to the Order absorbing the small Episcopal states, and a monolithic state may have arisen. After Plettenberg’s death, however, it was no longer possible to continue upward progress. The Master of the Order’s military activities in the Bishopric of Riga and the antagonisms within the Order concerning the filling of the position of master weakened Ancient Livonia. By the beginning of the Livonian War it had become a conglomerate of small states languishing under internal disputes and lacking a strong leader; its corporate structure was unable to compete with nascent early modern absolutism in neighbouring lands. The creation of the new power structures that accompanied the conquest and colonisation of Livonia was based on Catholicism. The dissemination and consolidation of Christianity was the very thing with which the newcomers explained the reasons for their activity to both the indigenous population and themselves. Although Ancient Livonia remained, for Catholicism, a peripheral land and an outpost against the schismatic Russians, the church in Estonia underwent a similar development to that which took place in Western Europe. This is exemplified by the struggle for the episcopal sees, long-term irreconcilable disputes between mendicants and parish priests and the rise of the worship of saints on the eve of the Reformation. Data concerning local religious life are not at all complete, since there are very few extant documents describing pre-Reformation religious life. More is known about those aspects of religious life that bordered on economics or politics, the church’s internal organisation, the liturgy, while the level of religious knowledge of both indigenous and immigrant inhabitants cannot be precisely described due to the scarcity or absence of sources. References to the pagan customs of the indigenous population can be found in individual documents from the era of Christianisation and conquest, for instance Innocent III’s missive of 1199 to Bishop Albert. The Pope recommended initially taking a tolerant attitude towards these customs, considering the newness and weakness of the church in Livonia. Decisions of the Riga provincial synod and the synod of the Bishopric of Saare-Lääne dating from 1428, 1437 and 1505 affirm that the indigenous inhabitants worship natural forces and use old village cemeteries. These documents are not, however, directed as much against pagan customs, but instead against negligent clergymen. The people are not accused, but it is demanded that the priests be proficient in the local language and perform their pastoral duties

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more conscientiously. Despite these appeals, a pagan-Catholic syncretism in which elements of the worship of saints were combined with the honouring of ancestral spirits and fertility rites persisted in the countryside both before, and to a certain extent also after, the Reformation. Traces of this syncretism endured in a few regions even at the beginning of the 20th century. Urban Estonians were presumably better educated in the tenets of Christianity. So-called non-German preaching sees operated in all of the churches and monasteries in Tallinn by the beginning of the 16th century at the latest. There are no such data concerning cities in other parts of Estonia, although there is no reason to believe that the situation there would have differed much from that in Tallinn. As mentioned above, monasteries, the most important of which were built during mission campaigns, played a relatively important role in the dissemination and consolidation of the Christian faith among the indigenous population. The first monastery in Ancient Livonia – the Dünamünde Cistercian Monastery built in 1205 – became a political centre of sorts during various conquests. In 1305 the Teutonic Order purchased the monastery’s possessions at the mouth of the Väina River, and in the following years the monks built a new monastery at Padise in northern Estonia, where they had had possessions since at least the second half of the 13th century. The second Cistercian monastery in Ancient Livonia, in Kärkna near Tartu, was presumably built on the initiative of Hermann, the first Bishop of Tartu, at the beginning of the 1230s. The role of the female Cistercian convents located in Tallinn and Lihula in both politics and mission work must, however, be described as marginal, as was usually the case with the female Cistercians. Of the orders of mendicant friars, the Dominicans reached Estonia in the first half of the 13th century, and the Franciscans in the 15th century. There is information about the Dominicans in Tallinn from the end of the 1220s, and it became possible to build a permanently operating monastery at the end of the 1240s. In Tartu a monastery was built for the preaching friars at the end of the 13th century or the beginning of the 14th century. In addition to Tartu, Franciscan monasteries also operated in smaller centres, Rakvere and Viljandi. The greatest amount of information available concerns the history of the Tallinn Dominicans and the activities of the monks. As in other European cities, the preaching friars in Tallinn, competing over popularity and income, came into conflict with the congregation clergymen. The antagonism began in the first half of the 14th century at the latest, and continued until the

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liquidation of the monasteries during the Reformation. On the basis of complaints made by secular clergy, the Dominicans’ answers and individual extant monastery receipts, one may conclude that the Dominicans’ ties not only to the urban but also rural population, were quite close, and journeys for preaching and gathering donations, especially in rural regions closer to Tallinn, took place regularly. The construction of St. Brigid’s Convent on the outskirts of Tallinn began in the early 15th century, becoming one of the most extensive undertakings in Estonia’s ecclesiastical and monastic history. The initiative and most of the material resources came from merchants in Tallinn. Thus in contrast to other abbeys, which were constructed with support from an organised state structure (either the Danish King, a local bishop or the Teutonic Order), St. Brigid’s Convent was purely the expression of the citizens’ religious sentiments and economic ambitions. The monastery was the largest sacral edifice and as such a symbol of the citizenry’s assurance and prosperity. On the eve of the Reformation, an attempt was made to found a number of new monasteries, which can partly be attributed to an increasing wave of piety in the late Middle Ages, although this aspiration failed, mainly for economic reasons. Both the Catholic Church and the entire power system of Ancient Livonia gradually decayed following the Reformation, which reached Livonia in the 1520s. In the cities, the principles of religious reformation were accepted without difficulty, for primarily economic reasons, and in Tallinn and Tartu iconoclastic attacks took place in autumn 1524 and the beginning of 1525 respectively, the consequences of which the local city authorities attempted to smooth. In 1525 all monasteries in Tallinn and Tartu were also liquidated, with the exception of the Cistercian monastery in Tallinn, which continued to exist until the beginning of the 17th century. Most of the rural monasteries disappeared during the Livonian War. The transition to the new ecclesiastical system was a process that lasted years, and in some cases decades. Despite the fact that the city council sided with the reformers from a relatively early point, a gradual transition was preferred to rapid and radical reorganisation. Many aldermen remained Catholics after the reorganisation, and the Catholic bishops also remained. During the Livonian War, when southern Estonia was under Polish control, there was even a Catholic counter-reformation. As a consequence of the Livonian War (1558–1583) between the small states of Ancient Livonia and Russia, Poland and Denmark, the former

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conglomerate of small states was divided between three large states – Sweden, Poland-Lithuania and Denmark: Sweden acquired northern Estonia, Poland got Lithuania and southern Estonia, whereas Denmark received the island of Saaremaa. The indigenous population’s welfare was initially little affected by these changes. Their identity (they were seen as pagans, neophytes or non-Germans) was determined by the foreign rulers. In the 15th and 16th centuries that power already felt itself independent enough to decide this country and people’s welfare without the support or direction of the former motherland. The foundations of the functioning of the foreign government were the corporatist system (the Teutonic Order) and the Catholic Church (the bishoprics and religious brotherhoods). Catholicism was the main ideology of the vassals and the Order – they had, after all, come to these parts in the name of the Catholic Church, ad majorem Dei gloriam. The indigenous population’s self-awareness was determined in the Middle Ages by Catholic-pagan syncretism and a language and everyday life that differed from that of the representatives of the foreign rulers. No great changes took place in this area during the subsequent centuries. At the end of the Middle Ages and during the Reformation and Livonian War, the Ancient Livonia ruled by Catholicism and in a largely corporatist manner ceased to exist, although it was only in the 19th century that the indigenous population’s self-awareness changed noticeably. From then until today, Estonians’ identity has been shaped not only by the surrounding economic, religious or political realities, but the way in which those realities are depicted in writing.

Margus Laidre From the Reformation to National Awakening 1520–1850 1. The Arena of Ares Over the three centuries which separate the mid-16th century from the mid19th century, Estonians were forced to live under five different rulers. Each change of rule brought with it a long and burdensome war. One particularly bellicose period was from 1558–1710, during which time, the years of war and years of peace were in the proportion 70:82. Here we must recognise the fact that war was waged with greatly differing intensity, both with regard to time and space and broken by intervals of peace, longer or shorter in duration. But these wars none the less contained elements of which we would now term total war. The situation as described above was by no means unique to Estonia. In the whole of Europe, people (i.e. the rulers) saw armed conflict as the only way of prosecuting their “just” aims and maintaining a hold on their possessions, so that war appeared to be the normal state of affairs for society. During the 16 th century, there were only ten years of peace throughout Europe, during the 17 thcentury four, and during the 18 th century, sixteen. The period 1500–1700 was one of the most affected by war (one war every third year on average), also with regard to the area they were fought in. Many great powers were at war for half or more of this period. From 1560–1715, France had 110 years of war, i.e. 70% of the time. Compared with this, Estonia enjoyed relative peace (“only” 46%), but appearances can be deceptive. For instance, France conducted its wars outside its core territory, whilst in the case of Estonia, there were constant hostilities within the country itself. True chaos reigned during the latter half of the 16th century when there were 25 years of hostilities during the Livonian War (1558–1583), partially overlapping with the Seven Years’ War (1563–1570) and the Russo-Swedish War (1570–1595), all of which took place partly on Estonian soil. There is good reason to speak of a Hundred Years’ War in Estonian history, i.e. from 1558 until 1661, since it took that length of time for the old ruling structures to collapse and for a new sole victor to emerge. Up to now, this period has been seen as a string of separate armed conflicts without focusing on any connection between them, how the conditions for the outbreak of one conflict contained the seeds of the next until the power relationships were finally settled once and for all. Also, the fact that efforts tended to be directed against

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the same opponents, the gradual elimination of which allowed for the strongest to emerge victorious. The bilateral conflict which broke out in 1558 grew into a truly complex and bloody struggle involving Russia, Poland, Sweden and Denmark for power over Old Livonia. Within the first three years of the war, the Livonian Order and the whole of what had been the state structure of Old Livonia collapsed. On a political level, this was a struggle between old versus new, where reinforced manifestations of strength on the part of emerging nation states demonstrated convincingly the superiority of their system over the obsolete structure of society. In Estonia, the Middle Ages were now at an end. But the end resolution took its time in coming. Periods of war and peace of longer or shorter duration succeeded one another. Armies would roll back and forth across the land and nobody knew under whose rule they would find themselves the following week or month. The last act of the Hundred Years War in Estonia consisted of the clashes between Sweden and Poland (1655– 1660) and between Russia and Sweden (1656–1661). The supreme victor proved this time to be Sweden. Both Poland and Russia renounced their territory in Estonia and Livonia “for all eternity” in favour of the Swedes. By 1645, Denmark had already given up Saaremaa (Ösel) and therefore Sweden was now at the height of its power. Only now did the political roulette wheel of the struggle for the eastern littoral of the Baltic Sea come to rest for a longer period of time. The reasons that the hundred years of hostilities in Estonia were justified and were pursued with such vehemence in the first place was on account of the continuous conflicts between Sweden and Poland. There were a number of truces, but these accentuated the fact that the problem had not been solved, and consequently that hostilities were not yet over for good. Longer and shorter intervals in the fighting and truces were typical of warfare during the Middle Ages, the early Modern Age and the Modern Age itself. Wars were not declared as such and consequently were only dubbed so after the ink of the peace agreement had dried, sometimes during the war itself, but also much later. Even what is widely known internationally as the Hundred Years War (1337–1453) was not called that in the first instance, but that name only arose some 370 years later. There we are dealing with a historical construct which first saw the light in 1823 to account for the “dire age” (le temps de malheurs) and which is used right up to the present. Similarly, our own hundred years of conflict in Estonia has only been termed a Hundred Years’ War in retrospect, 339 years after the event.

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The peace lasted almost forty years which, given the state of affairs in Europe at the time, was a surprisingly long time. Denmark, Poland and Russia however could not accept the situation – the fact that the Baltic had in effect become a domestic sea belonging to the Swedes – and they gradually began to wreak revenge. In February 1700, August II the Strong (also known as Frederick Augustus I of Saxony), who had been elected king of the Poles, tried to conquer the Swedes at their most well-fortified stronghold in the Baltic Provinces, Riga. The surprise attack failed, but its aftermath – the Great Northern War – lasted 21 years. Immediately afterwards, the Danes attacked the Swedish forces, and that same autumn came the Russians. Peter the Great was the only ruler to actually declare war on Sweden. At first, hostilities spread throughout Estonia and Livonia. Then Charles XII arrived on the scene with his army. In late November, the Swedish forces, some half the number that the Russians could muster, defeated Russia at Narva. The news that Peter the Great’s forces had been crushed reverberated through the whole of Europe, causing people to express both admiration and fear. Even on the streets of Paris, the cry of “Vive le roi Charles!” went up. The French ambassador to the Swedish court, Louis Guiscard, who heard of the Swedish victory when in Tallinn (then called Reval), is said to have lost his powers of speech for a couple of days. In the spring of 1701, the king’s forces left Estonia. The Russians recovered more rapidly from the blow than had been anticipated, and that same year launched a counter-attack. Peter I did not yet want to establish himself for good in the Baltic Provinces, since he feared the return of Charles XII. The result was a systematic wrecking of Estonia and Livonia by Russian forces, an action which culminated in the destruction of Tartu (Dorpat) in 1708. Before this happened, a number of German citizens of Tartu were deported to Russia. The same fate awaited the burghers of Narva. The final phase of the war reached Estonia in 1710 when Pärnu (Pernau), Kuressaare (Arensburg) and Tallinn (Reval) capitulated. But the war was not completely over until 1721, when the Treaty of Nystad (Uusikaupunki) was signed. Now, Estonia and Livonia were incorporated into Russia for the next two hundred years.

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Casting a brief glance at the wars described over the previous few pages, you might gain the impression that all they had in common was that they took place on Estonian soil. The fighting was between foreigners. But here it is worth pointing out that the effect of wars on society is very large. Most immediately, the economy and demography are affected. These are in the first instance negative influences, arising from the fact that everyday life is at a low ebb and thrown into confusion, and the population decreases. Although the civil population suffered most during these wars, it was not the fighting itself that caused the greatest mortality. Until the last quarter of the 17th century, armies were relatively small and their weaponry not particularly effective. However as they moved from place to place, the army brought with it disease, and the large concentration of people involved made more probable the rise of famine and epidemics. These did not differentiate between friend and foe. It was therefore these factors that increased the number of deaths and slowed down the birth rate. Famine and disease resulted in more victims than the hostilities themselves. In this context we can mention the crop failure and consequent famine of 1601–1603, the plague of 1657 and the great famine of the years 1695–1697, to which were added typhus and dysentery. In these years, Estonia lost some 70,000 to 75,000 people. Immediately following the war of 1710–1711 came the plague, the fifth catastrophe in a row and where the catalogue of disasters reached its apogee. The hundred years of warring in Estonia was, however, not one long period of depression. The many truces and breathing spaces were coupled with the fact that the intensity of warfare varied greatly. This meant that war was not waged continuously, but only when conditions (the weather, material resources, the strength of the army) would allow. Also to be considered is the fact that war was not waged over the whole territory at any one time, since the resources were lacking for this. War was not yet total in nature, which meant that different regions were affected in greatly differing ways. Some regions suffered time and time again from devastation and looting, others suffered little and some areas were not affected at all. The difficult and confusing times gave rise to a great movement of people. Some of the refugees from the fighting returned to their homes shortly afterwards, others found new places to live. There was also immigration from neighbouring territories. The overriding factor was most usually a

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dissatisfaction with living conditions, causing people to look for a better life elsewhere. To a lesser extent, immigration was an organised activity. The vast majority of those entering Estonia were Russians and Finns. Nor should we omit to mention the Latvians and, from further afield, for instance Dutch, Scottish, Hungarian and Lithuanian refugees. One grandiose plan during the mid-18th century was for half a million Germans to move to the Baltic region. The project was the brainchild of the clergyman Eisen von Schwarzenberg who wished to demonstrate to the manorial lords that free German farmers could do a better job than Estonian or Latvian serfs. The plan was crushed, however, by the fall of Peter III from power. Catherine II sent the majority of the settlers to go and live in the Volga region. This was by no means merely a minor episode, since if the coup d’état had not taken place, it would have meant that the ethnic composition of the Estonian people and the history of our country would have been very different. By the mid-16th century, Estonians had been living under foreign rule for three centuries. This led to a dualism of power which remained unchanged until the collapse of Old Livonia. The lower stratum consisted mainly of Estonians, the upper one consisted entirely of foreigners, principally Germans. Following the wars, at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries, a third factor arose. Centralised power was increased through conquests by the Swedes, Poles, Danes and later Russians, which meant that the metropolis was, both in geographical and in mental terms, further removed from the occupied territories and whose representatives thus belonged to two different peoples if compared with the previous situation. Although one’s estate was marked by different characteristics, the mother country and the distant provinces held in themselves an a priori source of conflict. Here, the struggle was conducted for power and privilege. Religious differences such as the Catholicism of Poland versus the Orthodoxy of Russia played a marginal role in this. Sweden was the state which, for the first time in history, managed to unite all the territory of what is now Estonia under one ruler. The political connections between the Duchy of Estonia (i.e. northern Estonia) and the metropolis were weak because of the extensive powers granted to the local nobility after they had submitted to the rule of Sweden. Union with Sweden was a voluntary act whereby they retained many of their local privileges. Swedish law was not in force here. The situation in Livonia (i.e. southern Estonia, plus northern Latvia) was different, since it was regarded, in legal

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terms, as conquered territory. For this reason, the power coming from the centre was markedly stronger. The Baltic nobility lacked representation in the Riksdag, the Swedish parliament. In Livonia the nobility had, since the 1640s, requested such representation on numerous occasions. Charles XI’s absolutist style of government and politics in the provinces, especially what was termed the reduction, i.e. the nationalisation of private lands which chiefly belonged to the nobility during the 1680s, met with sharp resistance on the part of those disenfranchised. The result was open conflict with the centre which led to the end of self-rule for the Livonian nobility. On account of her unexpected victory in the Great Northern War, Russia found it very important to obtain the support of the Baltic nobility. This was already evident at the signing of the documents of surrender – termed “capitulations” – where the Russians were prepared to make large-scale concessions. The manors which had been nationalised at the end of Swedish rule were restored to their former owners. Privileges were retained and in practice even extended. The fiscal system, the Lutheran religion, the German language and the customs borders were retained. This created a special situation for the Baltic provinces. The policy paid off. The Baltic German nobility became one of the most loyal in the whole of the Russian Empire. Catherine II was the first ruler to begin to reduce the privileges of the Baltic German nobility. The Empress expressed herself in the following terms: “The said provinces… must be treated in such a way that they become more Russian and no longer behave as forest wolves.” The ensuing enforcement of the new code of laws (1783–1796), known as the Regency, which aimed at melding together all the border areas of the empire to form one united Russia, ignoring the different historical, religious, and ethnic background of these areas remained a short-term experiment. On Catherine’s death, the former system of governance was restored. 3. The Nation The above has been of vital necessity for an understanding of the place of Estonians in history and their identity. Already, before their conquest by others, the Estonian people had ceased to be one homogeneous whole, on account of a weakness in the development of state and society, a major factor in allowing the conquest to occur in the first place. This fragmentation continued throughout the period surveyed in this essay. For this reason, it is too early to speak of national unity and even identity before the middle of the

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19th century. No less important is the fact that the concept of the state was even then not based upon the indigenous population, but was imported into Estonia. One of the first signs that society now possessed a conscious identity was giving the people and the country a name. From the Middle Ages onward new names appeared on the map of Europe which originated with the peoples themselves. For instance, in 1438 the natio germanica was spoken of for the first time in the Reichstag. In the Estonian territory, however, people would identify themselves with their village, parish, town or province, i.e. the region where they lived. The ethnos was not such a determining factor as where people lived in concrete terms. A Livonian would, in these terms, simply mean any Estonian, Latvian, German or other person coming from Livonia. From the end of the 17th century, people began to use as their yardstick whether someone was a subject of his royal majesty or of a foreigner. Local usage also distinguished between non-Germans (mostly Estonians and Latvians) and Germans, who were, in turn, mainly Baltic Germans, yet the term was carried over to also mean any overlord. The Estonians of the day simply called themselves maarahvas, i.e. the people of the country, which bears witness to closeness to the soil and local provenance. There was no possibility of any large-scale feeling among Estonians of belonging together as one nation. During the period of wars, gangs of peasants would rob their ethnic brothers and sisters simply on the pretext that their villages were at the time under enemy control. In the words of the16th century chronicler Balthasar Russow, “the bitterest enemies of the peasants were precisely those farmers and cotters who had now started to rob and became more bellicose.” In multi-ethnic states such as Sweden and Russia at the time, it was difficult to forge one single identity which would have facilitated turning the state into a monolith. Neither the attempts by the central authority at Swedification at the end of the 17th century, nor those to introduce a Russian way of life at the end of the 18th century in Estonia and Livonia, bore fruit. The longer that time passed since the conquering of the country, the more oppressed the indigenous population became. It can be posited that the legal and social rights of the ordinary people deteriorated markedly. In 1635 Adam Olearius said in his travel diaries: “It is thought that there is no point in giving them too much freedom and money, as they would only grow restive. Since they still bear in mind that their forefathers owned the land themselves, but were subjugated by the Germans and turned into slaves.” Estonians sank slowly into a peasant status which lacked a national elite.

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The emergence of serfdom was a historical process which took shape over several centuries. The worsening of conditions must be seen against the general social and economic background of Central and Eastern Europe at the time. The harsher forms of serfdom which occurred east of the River Elbe slowly turned into an imaginary border line with the more efficient and smaller-scale production methods in the Old World, and interestingly also formed the border, later on in history, of the Communist system. The question as to whether such phenomena are connected in a random or determinist way is something which will require closer scrutiny. The worsening of conditions for the peasantry was a result of the long period of wars which ruined the land and destabilised both economic and legal relationships. The ruling stratum – the nobility – grew in size. Having suffered grievously themselves in the wars, the nobility sought to improve their own lot by putting a greater burden on the peasants. The dues owed in corvée (a day’s work of unpaid labour due by a vassal to his lord), and this work in kind by the peasantry to the nobles thus grew. It is estimated that the burden of dues paid by peasants rose by 80% over the 17th century. Farms were obliged to give to the state and the landowner between 50% and 80% of all income. It is important to remember that in the first instance the worsening of the conditions of the peasantry was due to the large-scale broadening of the manor economy, not to any conscious policy by metropolitan Sweden. The autocratic rule of Charles XI had a dramatic effect on the lives of Estonians towards the end of the 17th century. During the course of the Reduction (i.e. the restoration of alienated estates) the King decreed in 1681 and again in 1687, that serfdom was to be abolished on crown estates in Livonia and Estonia. Thenceforth, peasants were no longer to be treated as the serfs of the nobility, but as subjects of the King, and they were to be treated like all other peasants in the Swedish realm. The mobility of the peasantry remained circumscribed, but a number of measures alleviated the restrictions imposed. The prohibition on freely choosing a trade or profession was abolished, peasants could now only be sold along with land. At the same time, peasants were allowed to make complaints against their lord of the manor and take them to court. Quite frequent use was made of this right. All these changes were pointing in one direction – towards greater freedom. This is hardly a characteristic usually associated with Charles XI, but when compared with those of the Baltic provinces, the peasants of Sweden were liberated and represented in the Riksdag. In Estonia and Livonia, the changes were driven by the need of the central authority in

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Sweden to have a class of free peasants, and in such a way create a front against those who were nearly always out in front regarding almost every issue, i.e. the Baltic German nobility. The abolition of serfdom was not, as such, the result of a conscious struggle on the part of the people themselves, but was more a reflection of the struggle between royal power and the local nobility, where the King chose to use the peasantry as allies. Nowhere in Europe have the peasantry been at the forefront of social change, being more of a conservatively minded group whose principal aim was, rather, a desperate attempt to cling to what they already had, and an avoidance of all innovation which was regarded as mere deterioration of things as they stood. This does not mean that the peasantry were satisfied with their lot. But in Estonian historiography, as it stands, it is not possible to tell which groups of peasants were the most dissatisfied. Was it, on the one hand, the relatively free and prosperous who saw a threat to their well-being, or, on the other hand, the very poorest who had been deprived of almost everything, bar their lives? It would of course be interesting to know what the peasants themselves thought of their liberation, but no outbursts of emotion seem to have followed. This is easy to understand, since, more important than abstract liberation were concrete benefits which had not as yet shown themselves. In the words of the writer Friedebert Tuglas, our peasants thought with their stomachs and felt with their backbones. The peasants were more preoccupied with questions of everyday survival than with whether their overlords spoke German, Swedish or any other language, because all these languages were foreign to them anyway. In Estonia, this as often as not meant conservatism, and not in the best sense of the word. Nevertheless, this very quality was maybe one factor which helped the Estonian nation to survive to this day. The long-term aim was to maintain intact the freedoms given to the Estonian (and Latvian) peasantry. The influence of the Great Northern War and the ever increasing pressures from the Russian state and the barons in the Baltic Provinces undoubtedly had a negative effect on the development of the rights so recently attained. What was principally lacking was time for these gains to flourish. The long war and the shift in power brought the country a long period of misery and at a stroke threw the country back by an epoch or so. In Estonia especially, life in the countryside was pressed back into the feudal mould. The basic reason was not so much the change in power at the top, but the extent to which the local nobility and landed gentry turned the situation to their own

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advantage. There has never been, before or since, such a lack of rights for the Estonian peasantry as in the 18th century. Since the peasants had not forgotten their attempts to obtain rights from Stockholm, they in turn now expected to find them in St. Petersburg. These hopes were not met. In 1739, after a survey originating with the Emperor, the Livonian Landrat, Baron Otto Fabian Rosen, put his signature to a wideranging commentary with regard to the rights of the peasantry in the Baltic Provinces. According to this document, the local peasants were serfs, and the lord of the manor could treat them as he thought fit, i.e. inherit, exchange or sell them, as with other manorial property. Both the peasant himself and his property were regarded as belonging to the lord of the manor. Rosen’s declaration was in line with the opinions of the barons of the day, and was also supported by state power. In 1789, when the Bastille fell in Paris, and the “Declaration on the Rights of People and Citizens” was promulgated in France, a document promoting equality and freedom for all people, peasant serfs were still being regularly sold at public auction in the southern Estonian town of Valga, about which the clergyman August Wilhelm Hupel said sarcastically, that people in these parts were cheaper than the Negro slaves of the American Colonies. As a point of comparison, it could be added that in that same year of 1789, some 7% of French peasants were serfs. In the light of the above, it would seem paradoxical to claim that during the Enlightenment, the Baltic Provinces were under the influence of German cultural ideas. Close links with Germany ensured permanent contacts with her intellectual life. But ideas coming from Europe were left largely without widespread dissemination and had a very limited effect on the upper strata of society here in Estonia. The role of the Baltic region in German culture remained a very modest one, but this fact was by no means on account of its geographical location. Estonia and Livonia lacked two key factors which had deeply affected 18th century German culture, namely having its own courts and university (activities at the university were suspended owing to the war in 1710, only to be resumed 92 years later). The growth of a monetary economy, especially the payment of taxes in money during the 18 th century, made the Estonian baronial economy more dependent on world markets. This was ultimately the factor which forced changes in society and the economy. Neither humanist ideas, nor a bad conscience, simply the most straightforward practical considerations, rang the knell for serfdom. In 1816 in Estonia, 1819 in Livonia, the Emperor passed monetary laws in the field of farming, by way of which peasants were

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pronounced freemen in personal terms. (Similar reforms had occurred in Schleswig-Holstein in 1805, Swedish Pomerania in 1806, Prussia in 1807, Russia in 1861 and Romania in 1864.) At the same time, Estonians were now obliged by law to take surnames (the name reform occurred between 1826 and 1835) because, up to that time, they had been given a Christian name along with the name of the farm where they lived. In proportion to the size of the population, they had had 25 times the number of names as compared with France. This was not the result of a rich imagination, but more on account of the large number of dialects and the incomplete state of literacy. However as all land was now declared as being the unrestricted property of private landowners, these freedoms could hardly be regarded as worth their name. (The first farms were bought up by peasants in Estonia as early as 1826.) The peasants had, admittedly, received restricted freedoms, but they remained under the tutelage of the manor, as before. The conditions under which the rural population laboured were still depressing. In 1844, the Finnish scholar and folk poetry collator Elias Lönnrot journeyed on foot through Estonia and said he wouldn’t want to live under local conditions here in Estonia, even for one single day and be paid 2,000 roubles for the privilege. The peasantry were only freed from corporal punishment in 1865, but in practice it was maintained by the courts right up to the 20th century. (In Sweden, corporal punishment in civil courts had finally been abolished in 1734, and in the army in 1812.) Much of course depends on one’s point of view. A German traveller commenting on the devastation caused in Ireland by the famine between the years 1845 and 1849 said, that “it would seem that the poorest Latvians, Estonians and Finns live relatively untroubled lives by comparison.” 4. The Spirit Up until the first quarter of the 16th century, the Christian world was divided between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. From then onwards, Protestantism was added. The Reformation, starting out from central and northern Germany, spread to all the Baltic countries and arrived in Estonia in the early 1520s. These beliefs were centred on the cities and towns. The peasantry, which had hardly even had time to assimilate Catholicism, were left unaffected by the religious purges and remained quite indifferent to the new beliefs. The beliefs entertained by the peasantry were determined by the

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point of view of the lord of the manor. It would still take a very long time for Lutheranism to be “taken on board” by the majority of the people. During the years ahead, the Reformation did however become of great significance for the joint religious beliefs of the Baltic littoral (with the exception of Lithuania which remained Catholic). Initially, the reforms did not play the role in Old Livonia as they had done in the Scandinavian countries. But in the end, the Reformation brought a church for the common people, a written language, and literature. One key idea of the Reformation, the fact that any nation should be able to read the Bible and other religious literature in their mother-tongue, took root very slowly in Estonia. The New Testament appeared here half a century later than in Finland (1686 in the southern dialect, and 1715 in the northern dialect of the Estonian language). A full translation of the Bible into Estonian was not achieved until 1739. Over time, the church proved to be a disseminator of education, but this, not so much to give the people an education, as to achieve greater popularity for the Word of God (read: religious subjugation). The local church and congregation became the only sectors of society outside the home and the manor where the peasantry could hold higher posts. Finally, during the latter half of the 1680s, the world of the school came into being. The initiative for a country-wide network of schools came entirely from the central Swedish authorities. The local nobility were, by tradition, against giving the peasants an education, and early on it was also necessary to convince the peasants themselves to send their children to school. Swedish political considerations came into play here, since the Swedish monarchy wanted to strengthen the position of the peasantry and counter the influence of the Baltic German barons. One key event in the history of Estonian intellectual life was the foundation of the university at Tartu in 1632, but, during the 17th and 18th centuries, had little practical significance for the Estonians themselves. While the university did allow ordinary people to enter its doors, this at first made little difference. But the traditions of the university were a prerequisite for its being reopened in 1802 in Tartu and in Estonia in general (a Latvian university came as late as 1919). The established university traditions played a major role for the intellectual aspirations of Estonians in the 20th century. The re-institution of a university in Tartu was, paradoxically, one of the positive results of Czar Paul I’s reactionary educational policy whereby students were banned from studying at West European universities, for fear of the contagion of liberal ideas.

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From the point of view of the spiritual and intellectual awakening of the common people, the Hernhütter movement, which grew out of Pietism, is worth noting. This arrived in Estonia towards the end of the 1720s. (The movement is named after a strict Protestant religious settlement founded in south-eastern Germany in 1722.) A people now liberated from the horrors of war but still suffering a ruined economy found the necessary solace in this movement. This was also the first time that Christianity became a widespread belief amongst the common people, something which the official church had hitherto not managed. The people were swept by a wave of deep piety, the taverns remained empty and women gave up wearing their colourful peasant costumes and jewellery. This was taken to extremes, one manifestation of which being the propagation of an end to sexual intercourse even amongst married couples, since now all men and women were to live as brother and sister. In the early 1740s, Empress Elizabeth of Russia banned the movement and, although she revoked the ban a couple of decades later, the movement never attained its former strength. The 18th century, which is known in Western Europe as a century of philosophy, of enlightenment, and where the idea of human rights was first expressed, was a long, dark century for the Estonian people. However, the first half of the 19th century brought with it largely positive developments in intellectual life, specific examples of which are the starting of the first Estonian newspaper and the founding of the Õpetatud Eesti Selts – i.e. the Society of Learned Estonians – in 1838. The object of the Society was to “further the interests of the Estonian people, both with regard to history and the present day, its literature, as well as knowledge about the country itself.” Baltic German culture and that of the Estonian people had now made small steps towards one another, but would never grow really close, or merge. 5. Conclusions Although Estonians have, hitherto, played the role of extras on the stage of history, the historical events which have taken place on our soil nevertheless constitute one whole. At the same time, they are also part of the history, over centuries, of such countries as have had a bearing upon the course of our history for shorter or longer periods. Looking back in time, this is what constitutes the richness and variety of Estonian history, but during the period described above the darker tesserae of the mosaic were much in evidence.

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The key to an understanding of the whole of the period under observation lies in the subjugation Estonia underwent during the 13th century. The clash of civilisations lay in the fact that the Germans, coming from the West, were already living in their late Middle Ages, whilst the Estonians were still living in prehistoric times. The differences between the two parties were too great for natural fusion to have taken place, as existing and developed political institutions were a prerequisite for this. Over time, the gap widened rather than narrowed. Unlike what was occurring in many other European countries, the upper stratum of society consisted of a completely different people with a different language and culture. Their attitudes to indigenous Estonians were overbearing and arrogant. Estonians formed a “nation of producers” which the upper classes needed for their existence. Contacts, for the Estonians, with the upper strata were limited to those of carrying out orders and serving. There was no societal mixing, let alone intellectual contacts. The indigenous people were regarded as stupid, uncouth, spiteful and crafty, and there was no point in giving them too much freedom, otherwise they would become refractory. The result was a high wall between the two peoples and the most lowly Baltic German would consider himself superior to any Estonian. The Estonians themselves lacked a national elite. The seeds for such development had been physically eliminated or assimilated with the conquerors, centuries before. For Estonians, moving from one social group to another became ever more difficult. Despite their national pride, Estonians did nurture a certain inferiority complex vis-à-vis the Baltic Germans, which inevitably led to apathy. The only way they saw that they could better their lot was to Germanise, which had, as a side effect, the loss of language and culture, and thus identity. Those few who became rich and managed to climb out from their lowly status lost touch with their language and roots. An Estonian identity had not yet become established, which means that we cannot here speak of identity as a unifying factor for the people. At the same time, the concept of “native land” was not seen in such a romantic light as we would like to think nowadays, since in the 1840s rumours circulated that free land was being handed out in southern Russia for those willing to emigrate. The governor-general at the time said there was a great keenness amongst the peasantry to emigrate in this way. And when, in the mid-19th century, large numbers of people hoped to obtain a plot of land, and were thus prepared to convert to Orthodoxy or become educated Baltic Germans, the suspicion arose amongst those few Estonians to have enjoyed an education that their people were doomed to die out or be assimilated.

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There was, however, no conscious policy to Germanize the population. The dominant German environment in the towns and cities automatically forced their cultural and mental attitudes on the indigenous population. Those Estonians living in the countryside were largely left to their own devices. All that was expected of these people was that they fulfilled their obligations and remained obedient. The church played a leading role in this latter aspiration. The message to the common people emanated largely from the pulpit and was preached for the sake of full comprehension in the language of the peasantry, Estonian. This led to the spread of education in the Estonian language. The aim was in fact a kind of missionary activity to lift the peasantry out of their spiritual ignorance. But a spin-off effect was a rise in the general level of education for the Estonian people. This let the genie out of the bottle and, over time, the quantity of education and learning amongst ordinary people reached what could be termed a critical mass which led to the restoration of our historical memory and of independent thinking. The majority of positive changes from which the peasantry benefited at the time had in fact been initiated under pressure from the central authorities in Russia or Sweden. Neither the King of Sweden, whose own peasants lived under better conditions than those in Estonia, nor the Russian Czar, whose peasants lived under poorer conditions than their Baltic Province counterparts, aimed at improving the life of the Estonian people as such, but rather had the wish to keep one step ahead of the local nobility. The largest responsibility for the stagnation or even decline in the development of the Estonian people lies with the local nobility, who cleverly made use of living under the Czarist regime, and whose extensive privileges culminated in the establishment of the “Special Order for the Baltic Provinces.” To regard this as (the legal) origin of our later sovereignty is too far-fetched. In justifying the situation in the Baltics it is claimed that conditions in other parts of the Russian Empire were even worse, and the Baltic situation prevented them from sinking down to the level of the other peasants in the Empire. What usually goes unnoticed when such claims are made is that the 18th century represents one of the largest drops in living standards for the indigenous Estonian population throughout recorded history. If we regard Estonia as belonging to the occidental legal and cultural sphere, why should we be comparing conditions in the Baltics with areas where the situation was even worse, whilst they were indeed better in Western and Northern Europe? In the light of Estonia’s involvement in the dramatic events where the destiny of the country and its people turned, now one way, now another, one

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easily obtains the impression that the Estonians themselves were half asleep, or were standing outside their own history. This however is not the complete picture. During the period we have covered in this essay, certain processes began, and key events took place which had a major bearing upon Estonia’s future self-determination, although their significance remained veiled at first. One example is Lutheranism, whose acceptance was slow at first but which nowadays is considered one of the cornerstones of the Estonian mentality. Or is our retrospective view of things selective, and does it express how we would like to see ourselves in the mirror of history? It is clear nevertheless that the time spent under the influence of German culture opened up the prospect for Estonians to emerge as part of the general civilisation of Europe. The dark shadows have not yet completely disappeared, but the light of a new dawn can already be discerned. A time of awakening is knocking at the door.

II. The National Awakening and the Building Up of an Independent State

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Ea Jansen The National Awakening of the Estonian Nation J.J. Rousseau and J.G. Herder are justifiably regarded as the grand old men of the European national movements, who represent the political and cultural concept of nation and ideology, respectively. It is understandable that in old centralised states such as France the political factor was decisive and that the unification of the country was associated with a process of democratisation. It is equally natural that fragmented peoples such as the Germans, or the politically deprived peoples of the large empires of Eastern and Central Europe, would seek support from cultural unity. From the Enlightenment onwards, the influence of Rousseau and Herder were also determining factors in the change of attitudes amongst the Estonians and Latvians, their country then being divided up into Estonia, Livonia and Courland (which was a duchy of Poland until 1795), provinces or gubernii which were regarded as the mere Baltic Provinces of Russia (Ostseeprovinzen Russlands). When, in 1710, the upper stratum of society, consisting of former crusaders and merchants, capitulated to the Russian leader, Peter the First, during the Great Northern War, seemingly voluntarily, this same Czar allowed a measure of autonomy, along with rights for the German language and the Lutheran faith. Powerful corporations of the nobility – the Baltic German knights – governed the land and represented it at the Russian royal court, and the inflexible class society, with its estates, seemed unshakeable. The Estonian (and Latvian) peasantry were the lowest stratum of that society and were not affected by the rights granted by the metropolis via the governing class of Baltic Germans. Peasant serfs had no right to buy land, and were obliged to perform corvée, a day’s unpaid work under hard conditions, for the lord of the manor. While it is true that the indigenous peoples were, on paper, freed from serfdom early on, during the 19th century, this did not initially lead to anything new: all the land belonged to the lord of the manor and was sold to individual peasants only under exceptional circumstances. In the main, the economic life of the peasants remained linked to performing corvée for the landowner. The law courts and police were under the control of the nobility, and the separation of powers was unknown. None the less, into this seemingly mediaeval society, the Rousseauesque ideas of equality and citizen’s rights penetrated, and it is interesting to note that at the end of the 18th century, Rousseau’s works were published in Tallinn. The other major influence came from Herder, who had lived in Riga, which embodied a faith in the ability of the lower strata of

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society to develop, coupled with the faith that Estonians and Latvians could bring about a rebirth of their nations, furnishing them with an identity of their own. The end of the 18th century, and the first half of the 19th, marked periods of receptivity in the Baltic Provinces for ideas from Europe and the actual manifestation of this was the seat of learning, Tartu University, which was reopened in 1802 during the lead-up to the birth of the Estonians and Latvians as modern nations. The abolition of serfdom gave rise to a debate as to the future fate of the former enslaved peoples. And although Baltic Germans at large regarded the future of such peoples as being a fusion with the Baltic Germans, there simultaneously arose an Estophile movement among some Baltic German intellectuals. There was no educated class of people speaking Estonian and of Estonian birth. In contrast to other countries where the clergy were the first educated people from among the indigenous population, it was the German Lutheran clergymen who ran the churches here. They were the stewards of their parsonages, had close ties with the German-speaking nobility, and were dependent on them, since their living was in the hands of the lord of the manor. The education of the people was the concern of the church, primarily the ability of parishioners to read the Bible in their own language for themselves. Emphasis was also placed on preaching in Estonian. From the 17th century onwards the local churches had indeed tried to advance the level of literacy in local people using their own language. Both church and nobility saw this education as remaining within the bounds of class. Nevertheless, during the Enlightenment and the first half of the 19th century, there emerged, from among the clergy, men with a mission, who tried to promote schools for the common people and broaden the horizons of the peasantry on the basis of secular knowledge. They began also to take a look at, and gain an appreciation of, the Estonian language and older folk literature. The aim was to turn what had hitherto been regarded as a language only fit for peasants into a modern written language which could be used to convey knowledge gleaned from international sources. The Estophile educated class admired the ancient culture of the Estonians and their erstwhile era of freedom (i.e. before the conquests by Danes and Germans during the 13th century) and the structure of their artistic endeavours which was shattered during those times. Old intellectual and spiritual values enjoyed a revival; myths were born out of the golden age of Estonian independence, before the seven-centuries’ long period of enslavement under the German yoke. This was diametrically opposed to the usual image which Baltic Germans had of Estonians, as wild

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tribes lacking any sort or manner of culture. Now the old culture, close to nature, began to be appreciated, and the reconstruction by the Estophiles of these myths began. It was the physician, folklore expert, and linguistic scholar Friedrich Robert Faehlmann who now created myths and began to reconstruct the Estonian epic, something for which following generations would continue to be in debt to him. In 1838 he founded, in Tartu, a society for research into the Estonian language and culture – the Õpetatud Eesti Selts, i.e. The Society for Learned Estonians. Romantic Estophiles promoted the concept of an Estonian nation. However, this idea needed to be consolidated, as up to that time Estonians had had no homeland with established borders: the boundaries of the three Baltic Provinces – Estonia, Livonia and Courland – had been created out of the spoils of war between powerful foreign states and were administered according to how they had been decided upon by the former knights, not according to where the indigenous populations actually dwelt. Estonians lived in the province or guberniya of Estonia to the south of the Gulf of Finland in the northern part of the province, or guberniya of Livonia, the southern half of which was populated by Latvians. The conquerors made no distinction between the two peoples – they simply regarded them as peasants. Climbing upwards in society inevitably meant Germanisation, the different languages being a question of status with “Estonian” being a synonym for “peasant.” The rise up into a German-speaking way of life had set a trend, the mould of which was hard to break. The romantic aspirations of the Estophiles for the future of the Estonian nation were by no means shared by all Baltic Germans. These mostly tended to regard Germanisation as the inevitable road to civilisation for the indigenous peoples of the Baltics. 1. The Preconditions for the Birth of a Nation Nevertheless, the preconditions for the development of the Estonians as a nation continued to ripen, a process that advocates of the enlightenment regard as unfinished. After the upheavals of the French Revolution, and of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, old Europe was now moving inexorably in the direction of modernisation. This modernisation involved a certain amount of lagging behind because of specific characteristics with regard to the Baltic Provinces which, in the 19 th century, were the most advanced parts of the Russian Empire, especially concerning the growth of trade and industry and the rationalisation of agriculture. Here, modernisation occurred at a

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significantly faster pace than in Russia itself. This, in turn, promoted an increase in population and a change in the social structure, but also encouraged the spread of culture and knowledge, and the replacement of all the older social structures, including the old agrarian ones. The Estonians constituted, and still constitute, a small nation. During the 19th century the population did, none the less, grow significantly At the beginning of the century there had been some 500,000 Estonians; by the end, there were around 960,000. The Baltic Germans formed but a very small proportion of this whole, a little over 5%, and by the end of the 19th century this had fallen to a mere 3.5%. Little by little, educated Estonians began to wonder why all the rights in their country belonged to a tiny minority. At the same time, the Estonian peasantry become more mobile and the number of educated Estonians increased relatively rapidly. This led to the growth of the network of elementary schools and in the number of young peasants who aspired to ever higher levels of education. The first professions on which Estonian peasants set their sights were those of Lutheran pastor, doctor or lawyer. The Germanisation, typical for the educated classes, now began to recede, and, although many adopted a double Estonian-German identity, the leaders and ideologues of the national movement sprang from this class of people. The number of educated Estonians increased exponentially at the turn of the 20th century. People were, in the main, educated at St. Petersburg University or at the conservatory or art academy in that city. Because the Baltic Germans obstructed their entry into the higher echelons of local professions, educated Estonians resorted to earning their daily bread in Russia. But such Estonians did not suffer a great deal of Russification and the main arena of conflict remained between the Baltic Germans and the educated Estonians. The growth of elementary schools led to their being a large number of elementary school teachers who, it is true, would hardly qualify as intellectuals in the European sense of the word. They had done no more than attend a teacher-training establishment for elementary school teachers, or matriculated from a parish school (i.e. a kihelkonnakool or Parochialschule). Nevertheless, they played an important cultural role in the villages. They would run the local library, social functions, the publication of newspapers, and so on. The elementary school teachers were especially receptive to ideas of national awakening, and spread these amongst their pupils.

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During the latter half of the 19th century, Estonians started moving to the towns. By the end of that century, the proportion of Estonians living in towns was 19.2%. After the First World War, this had risen to 22%. But as they rose in society, the Estonians could not compete with Baltic German capital. Towns and cities had for a long time been places where the prestige of local Baltic Germans had led to Germanisation. However, by the end of the century, the push to the towns by Estonians was so great that assimilation into local society was no longer possible for all. Urban Estonians found inspiration for their struggle against German entrepreneurs in the slogans of national aspiration. But the lift afforded by the national movement was perhaps even more strongly felt among the peasants. In the mid-19th century new agricultural laws were introduced for the Baltic Provinces which, for the first time, enabled peasants to buy the land they had been using, and pay for their purchase in money. Although the sale would depend on the landowner, and there were a number of feudal restrictions, a major change had, none the less, taken place. Alongside the large landowners from the nobility, there were now smallholders and leaseholders from among the peasants. But this stratum of society was relatively poor and the majority of farm owners were in debt to the lord of the manor. So farmers still recognised the advantages enjoyed by large landowners and the conflict between the lord of the manor and the peasantry continued. It was now easy to translate this opposition and conflict of interests into terms of national aspirations, regarding the Estonian farmers as poor smallholders whilst the lords of the manor were the rich owners of large tracts of land. Taking into account the fact that the peasants were literate and the most vulnerable element in the national equation, the influence of the elementary school teachers was large, and “modern” ideas reached the peasantry relatively easily (whilst elsewhere in Europe, the peasants tended towards conservatism). As opposed to many of the other peoples living in what was then Czarist Russia, by the end of the 19th century the Estonians were largely a literate people and thus prone to the influence of the written word. It is true that education at secondary school and university level was conducted in the German language. This state of affairs lasted until the latter half of the 1880s when the government of the Slavophile and nationalistically minded Alexander III began attempts to truly unify the Baltic Provinces by substituting Russian institutions for former ones and Russifying the language used in them. The school system thus shifted from being run in German to being run in Russian. The importance of Estonian as a teaching language was

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reduced even further, and only in the first classes of primary school were teachers allowed to “teach Russian with the help of the Estonian language.” Not until the time of the 1905 Revolution were the ethnic minorities given the opportunity to start schools where tuition was in the local language, and then only in private schools. However, active proponents of an Estonian identity began to further develop an Estonian-language communications network; Estonian newspapers, publishing and cultural societies were founded to counter the schools where a foreign language was used as the medium of instruction. So, despite all odds, the use of the Estonian language increased. At the same time, the new Estonian language institutions increased social mobility, leading to emancipation and the rise of the national and social movement. 2. The Aims of the Estonian National Movement When speaking of the general aims of the Estonian national movement – like the majority of such movements in Central and Eastern Europe which lacked their own state – these were principally the development of a national and cultural entity, i.e. the promotion of education in the local language, the development of organisations to raise the level of cultural awareness and strengthen the status of one’s mother-tongue, the broadening of horizons of the people and the furtherance of professionalism in order to create a “suitable” ethnic culture compatible with the wider European reality, instead of the previous peasant culture. Another basic aim was to create an elite culture for the Estonian nation – why, in other words, should German culture continue to dominate? The expression of the viability of a people and a guarantee of its survival was seen as residing in its “intellectual greatness.” Another aim of the movement was the development of a structure for a new society, turning its back on the old homogeneous peasant stratum. At first the goal was to achieve an Estonian educated middle class which, in effect, meant the support of processes already set in motion. Baltic German society did not accept Estonians, or did so only at the price of Germanisation. The new society, which thought of itself now as Estonian society, arose alongside the old; such a society also adopted a new organisational structure – voluntary associations and self government, though this was at first only at a low level. The third basic aspiration of the Estonian national movement was – as everywhere else in Europe – the creation of suitable political conditions for

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the survival of the nation. What was at first a claim for “equal rights” with regard to participation in the running of the province began to move in the direction of autonomy for the people and the territory. At the beginning of the 20th century, various forces in Estonian society, which was being modernised, took on board the idea of self-determination. In the Baltic Provinces, the Czarist government had relied upon a very administratively competent nobility for keeping law and order, and its police forces and system of law courts were very watchful regarding every movement of the lower strata of society. The Estonian nationalists hoped for a sharpening conflict between Czarist power and the Baltic German nobility, a feeling which was strengthened at the end of the 19th century on account of the ever-increasing policies of unification and Russification. Russian public opinion in St. Petersburg was, after the 1860s, very critical of the Baltic German nobility and their privileges. The stronger Germany became, the more the Baltic German nobility were suspected of separatist tendencies. A plan thus came into being to crush the aristocratic autonomy of the Baltic Provinces, and promote a Russian system of local government, courts and police. The Estonians hoped and waited for an expansion of rights for the indigenous population, at the expense of those of the Baltic Germans, by way of such reforms. The majority of these reforms were implemented at the end of the 1880s, but this coincided with a growing political reaction in Russia itself, something which extinguished the hopes of Estonians. However this very strict regime of oppression did not last long. With the 1905 Revolution in Russia, the concepts of political and national self-determination for the people were on the road to victory. Also crushed were the illusions of omnipotence with regard to the autocratic national policies of the Czarist regime. The Estonian nationalists were inspired by the success of movements in various European countries during the mid- and late 19th century, especially by unification in both Germany and Italy. Furthermore, neighbouring peoples provided further inspiration and hope, such as their cousins, the Finns, who also belonged to the Russian Empire and who already enjoyed a good measure of autonomy, with the peasant class represented in the Riksdag, or parliament, Estonians admired the success of Finnish agriculture and its advanced culture. Educated Estonians began increasingly to place emphasis on the similarity of the Finnish language to Estonian, and from the 1860s onwards contacts were fostered between the national movements of both countries and interests were mutual.

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The National Awakening of the Estonian Nation 3. “Cultural Nationhood” and National Canvassing

The mobilisation of Estonians into a national movement initially occurred by way of canvassing, which was initiated by those Estonians who were “already awakened” during the 1850s and 1860s, in order to promote a feeling of identity among the people. The parish clerk and schoolmaster Johann Voldemar Jannsen, himself of modest education, published Estonia’s first newspaper in Pärnu in 1857. This newspaper was later published for the following decade in the university city of Tartu, under the name of Postimees (The Postilion). This marked the start of modern journalism and, at the same time, the campaign against Germanisation. The young schoolmaster Carl Robert Jakobson, who was incidentally a teacher of German language and literature, later became one of the most radical Estonian national figures and urged peasants to take pride in themselves and their nation. He tried to refute the conviction, spread high and low, throughout the local estates that education and a career necessarily led to Germanisation. For Jakobson, belonging to the people constituted a condition from birth which could not be altered. A German remained a German, an Estonian, an Estonian, whatever career they might pursue, whatever class they might belong to and whichever country they happened to live in. The clergyman, folklore expert and the leader of several national organisations, Jakob Hurt, warned his own people in the 1870s against changing ethnic identity. Hurt had been inspired by Herder when he said that nationality was as natural a characteristic for human beings as bark was for trees, or fragrance and colour for flowers. It was the moral duty of each person born in Estonia to remain Estonian. At the same time as the written language became more widespread and the first poets were beginning to write in the vernacular, the spoken language also became a symbol. A growing appreciation by Estonians for their language and the romanticist praise which ensued were facilitated by the codification which took place during the latter half of the 19th century and led to the appearance of several new grammars. Instead of the northern and southern varieties of the language which had been used hitherto in religious works, a new written language was constructed on the basis of the central dialect of the northern variety. All writers eagerly supplemented the lexis of Estonian to now embrace abstract concepts and terms related to contemporary life. Scholars now noticed how hard it was to subject a Finno-Ugric language to German rules of grammar as had been practised for centuries. Appreciation now grew for the unique features of the Estonian language, and the Finnish language

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was used as a model for a functioning cultural means of expression. In the early 1870s, a new orthography was invented, based on the Finnish model, which replaced the previous German way of spelling. This too helped the Estonian written word to develop, because it was easier and less complex with regard to rendering the phonography of Estonian. Language became one of the most important instruments for Estonians. The intellectualisation of the language reached new levels at the start of the 20th century. From the 1860s onwards, alongside publicists and poets striving to awaken the people, there appeared works on the Estonian language and ancient folklore, Finno-Ugric runo poetry (the most ancient form of poetry with a particularly repetitive, alliterative style). An important place was taken up by national folk mythology. By way of folklore created by Estophiles and historical myths, scholars tried to make the nation more aware of itself, and breathe life into a belief in the future of the Estonian people. The principal means of instilling a sense of value and viability into the people was by creating its own epic. Estonians must once have had an entire epic in heroic runo couplets; this was something Estophiles and promoters of national values managed to convince themselves of, on account of the appearance in Finland of the “Kalevala.” But instead, Estonia had its own hero: Kalevipoeg, but he was the only prehistoric hero they could identify. This did not, however, hinder the reconstruction of the epic on the initiative of Faehlmann. Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald then conflated existing folk poetry with his own inventions which appeared in its scholarly version towards the end of the 1850s. In 1862, Kreutzwald succeeded in having the Estonian national epic “Kalevipoeg” printed in Finland in a popular Estonian version to be read principally by young educated Estonians. At the time, people paid little attention to the genuine folklore qualities of the epic but were instead enthused by its symbolism, and much publicity was made for it in the Estonian language press, school text books, poems and speeches. The “Kalevipoeg” ought to be in every Estonian household next to the Bible – as was written by Carl Robert Jakobson in his famous school reader in the year 1867. As was the case with all other “awakened” peoples, Estonian publicists and poets paid particular attention to the importance of history and historical myth. A heroic past, or one imbued with suffering, formed a pledge for a better future for the nation. The most emotional and influential expression of the cult of the past arose in the 1860s, when Lydia, the daughter of J.W. Jannsen, wrote poetry under the pen-name of Koidula. Estonians gained the concept of their native land as a symbol of the nation by way of her work.

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Koidula wrote pathos-filled hymns to her native land, songs which Estonians sing to this day. She also reminded her readers in dramatic verse of the sufferings of their forebears in the vortex of war, and under the yoke of their oppressors. Koidula – like other nationalist poets at the time – hoped that blossoms would shoot up from the blood-drenched soil of Estonia. The past not only meant passive suffering: Estonian poets and publicists described the heroic struggles of the Estonian people against the German and Danish crusaders and conquerors, and the mass uprising of Estonians on the night of Saint George in 1343. A golden age of regained freedom was predicted and it was said that this was as inevitable as the changing of the seasons. Estonian poets often praised the homeland as a collective entity which had to be served with devotion. At the same time, the native land of Estonians was a geographical concept, the area where they resided, something which needed defining. The poet and linguist Mihkel Veske wrote a song in 1870 in which the boundaries of Estonia were clearly defined as falling between the high ground towards the Latvian border and the Gulf of Finland and from the Baltic Sea in the west to Lake Peipsi where the border with Russia ran. The song became very popular and is sung to this day to the tune of the French song Ma Normandie. The borders to the territory of Estonian settlement, which at first were only sung about, gradually took on the shape of political demands by way of the national movement. One favourite theme for publicists and poets during the period of Estonian awakening was folk myths connected with the time before Estonia was conquered and Faehlmann created a mythical and pseudo-mythological pantheon which he compared with that of the Greeks. At the head of this imagined realm of the gods was the bearded Vanemuine, the equivalent of the Finnish Väinämöinen, with his kannel (folk harp) who had once lived on the banks of one large Estonian river, the River Emajõgi which flows through Tartu, and who had enthralled all mortals with his playing of the harp and singing. As with the hero of the epic, Kalevipoeg, myths of his return abounded, an event which would betoken a period of freedom and happiness for Estonians. Along with the folk myths, folk songs based on events from real life were also propagated – the regivärss style of poetry, ancient folk customs, folk costumes, folk ornaments, handicrafts, and so forth. This was all intended to strengthen an Estonian identity. National canvassing was made possible through music, which played a greater part in the promotion of a feeling of belonging and participation than merely the words themselves. In the 1860s a large number of Estonian choirs

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were started on the German model. Let it be said that this differed greatly from the previous one-voice nature of regivärss recitation, but spread quickly. The choirs were built up by schoolmasters who had, in turn, mastered the skills of church hymn singing and the reading of music in the seminaries for elementary school teachers. Nearly every rural school now had its own choir, both the pupils and parents from the district would sing in them and orchestral practices also became popular. Soon the first Estonian composers appeared on the scene and these set the poetic endeavours of the nationalist romantic poets to music. National song became a natural concept. On account of the large number of choirs in existence, the first National Song Festival was held in 1869 in Tartu. Alongside romantic myths which were intended to inspire and enthuse Estonians, raise their self-esteem and encourage them to do good works for their native land, one of the chief aims of national canvassing was to stress the importance of learning and coax Estonians into gaining a better education at any price. The prerogative of the German nobility lay not only in their privileges but in their education. The nationalists were of the opinion that those educated Estonians who knew German or Russian could also use their knowledge for the benefit of their country, while remaining true to their nation and taking part in activities for the common good. The main patriotic duty was expressed as being the promotion of knowledge of the Estonian language and spontaneous efforts arose to found a university where Estonian was used as the medium of instruction. 4. Organising the People: Initiatives Taken to Start Societies and Newspapers The aims of broadening cultural endeavours and the improvements in education, as mentioned above, began during the second half of the 19th century, thanks to the organisational efforts of the Estonians themselves. Their model was the Baltic Germans who had set up self-education societies, special interest clubs, reading rooms, musical societies, farmers’ associations, charitable organisations and so forth. In addition, Baltic Germans had their own societies based on class and membership, such as the nobility itself, guilds and corporations. Nevertheless Estonians from the lower strata of society were not usually accepted as members of Baltic German societies. The more active members of those with nationalist aspirations began to look for opportunities to become active in public life.

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Opportunities for Estonians to organise public events on their own initiative did increase to a certain extent during the second half of the 19th century. In 1866, rural municipalities, districts, the supervision of manorial estates, and local government – though only within the bounds of the peasant class – could now be conducted through district organisations. Also in 1877 the Urban Act was passed for the Baltic Provinces of Russia, which meant that the power of the merchant guilds and of the City Council was revoked, and the more wealthy ethnic Estonians gained the chance to participate in city government. Qualification for election to the City Council was set at a high level of taxation, but even these limited opportunities to determine their own lives raised the self-esteem of Estonians and facilitated the rise of a sense of citizenship and nationhood. Several important national initiatives came from non-official quarters. Those Estonians, who had found work in St. Petersburg, began to meet regularly in that city. Amongst these were a number of highly-placed individuals such as Philipp Karell who was physician to the court of the Czar, and the painter Johann Köler, who came from a humble Estonian peasant background and had become a court painter on the strength of a grant. The latter was a particularly fervent Estonian patriot and those who grouped themselves around him had serious discussions about how, as Köler put it “they could wake up from their slumber.” Promotion was effected by way of independent organisations and the Estonian printed word. At the same time, many young Estonian students from Tartu University began attending widower J.V. Jannsen’s salons where his daughter Lydia Koidula, as the hostess, stood out, not only as a poet, but through the strength of her romantic personality. A number of Finnish nationalist individuals also attended these salons. This led to the founding of the first ethnic Estonian student society, which started unofficially, but was finally registered in 1884. In 1865, the first officially recognised choral society, the Vanemuine was founded in Tartu, while at the same time the Estonia was founded in Tallinn. In the early 1870s the first Estonian trades unions got off the ground. These were agricultural societies for country people, whose official task it was to encourage the development of agricultural skills and mutual economic assistance amongst small farmers. Soon however ethnic Estonian leaders began to use these societies to foster activities of a national and political nature. In the 1870s, one mass organisation, which had support all over the country, came into being. Its aim was to collect money to start a school where Estonian was the language of instruction which would be called the Estonian

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Alexander School, in honour of the Czar. On account of the small size of the country and its small population, it became relatively easy to reach a large proportion of people all over the country. So the Alexander School Committee was established. At the head was the clergyman Jakob Hurt who proved to be one of the keenest promoters of the idea. By means of local subcommittees, the ideology of an Estonian language school was spread. Contributing to the founding of the school was regarded as a symbolic act, a sacrifice by the nation, and both rich and poor gave money. However the German nobility and the Lutheran Church began to resist the mobilisation of the lower levels of society and, although the efforts of the Estonians were quite legal, they did not make attempts in the direction of reforming the educational system, they just wanted to set up a better Estonian school. A second larger national organisation from the same decade directed its activities towards the fostering of education for the people, and the acquisition of better Estonian-speaking teachers, as well as encouraging Estonian culture at a higher level. This was the Eesti Kirjameeste Selts – the Estonian Writers’ Society, founded in 1872 on the Finnish model – this was a countrywide society whose membership consisted principally of schoolteachers. Its first task was to standardise the Estonian language and research into it, but also it involved itself with collecting and studying folk poetry. The society was the first rudimentary research centre promoting the development of the arts. The Russification programme during the last decade of the 19th century did not manage to slow down the ongoing setting up of associations throughout Estonian society. Grassroots level cultural societies in both the towns and the countryside became particularly fashionable. These worked covertly or overtly for nationalist goals. Russian law did not specifically forbid such societies or the appearance of newspapers, but all the societies and publications, including those for the ethnic minorities, fell under the stricter regime of police control and censorship of Alexander III. It was no longer the local authorities who ratified their statutes but the ministries in St. Petersburg. But these hindrances were overcome; choirs and orchestras formed the basis for the emergence of a large number of musical associations. In the 1890s, temperance societies arose, on the Finnish model, and the merits of abstinence from alcohol were promoted as a means of improving the health of the nation and as a national duty. The Estonians founded societies for handicrafts, voluntary fire-fighting associations and various mutual societies. But even at this level of practical organisation it remained

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impossible to have joint associations involving Baltic Germans together with Estonians. Despite the pressure of Russification, a number of activities of an Estonian nature took place throughout the country during the last decades of the 19th century. One example is the compilation of ancient folklore and dialects led by Jakob Hurt, who managed to involve hundreds of correspondents from every corner of Estonia and from every level of society. The collection of folk songs was described in the press, but also amongst the people, as a “patriotic activity,” this being an expression coined by Hurt himself. During the 1890s, three national song festivals were held in close succession. While there had been some 800 singers and orchestral players at the 1869 song festival, numbers reached 5,000 at the 1896 festival. An outward loyalty to the Czarist regime was inevitable at public events and the Russian Czarist national anthem was everywhere to be heard. Nevertheless songs by Estonian composers or works of folk origin were sung with true fervour. A spontaneous favourite of choirs became the anthem “Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm” (My fatherland, my happiness and joy) whose music had been composed by the Finnish composer Fredrik Pacius, whilst the lyrics were by Jannsen. Now the same tune, albeit with different words, also became the Finnish national anthem as well as that of Estonia. Now, by the beginning of the 20th century, Estonian society already enjoyed good internal organisation. But in keeping alive their aims, Estonians could rely only on their own initiative in finding gaps in the current system and exploit the conflicts and inconsistencies of the ruling regime. Another manifestation of this was economic self-sufficiency. Its rise and the rapid spread of the co-operative movement, which especially involved giving credit to small entrepreneurs, who were disparagingly referred to by some as “minicapitalists.” In the field of agriculture, and principally in dairy farming, following the example of the large German estate owners, Estonian farmers were now able to successfully breed dairy cattle, and thus afford to educate their sons and, in some cases, daughters. The more numerous Estonian intellectuals with a better education, and in various professions, were however more modest in their aims and moved in different directions with regard to both political and cultural aspirations. There arose a number of societies for intellectuals aiming to promote an elite culture for Estonians. The conservatively minded Eesti Kirjanduse Selts (Estonian Literature Society) was started in 1906, as well as Noor Eesti (Young Estonia), the movement started by young intellectuals which aspired

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to move Estonian culture towards modernisation and a radical European spirit. An art society also appeared, and under the influence of the 1905 revolution in Czarist Russia the first Estonian political parties were founded. In actual fact, the spontaneously arising mutual assistance societies were still a foreign body in the society of Russia and the Baltic Provinces, where a society based on the estates continued, at least in legal terms, until 1917. Czarism made efforts to retract the advantages promised after the revolution, and the Baltic German nobility who had adapted quite well to a market economy clung on to their superannuated privileges and institutions. At all events, in substance, the new forms of co-operation became ever more important for the direction of society as a whole. The network of connections amongst Estonians was largely shielded from the eyes of those in power, and it was this that led to the rise of a new mentality and the courage to forge ahead on their own. The network of associations ensured a feeling of belonging together among the common people, sweeping along not only the middle-classes but also the poorest in society, thus laying the foundation for self-determination. The local press played a significant role in shaping a tradition of participation and in focusing the minds and activities of Estonians on national aims. So long as there was no political freedom vis-à-vis Russia, the press was the only institution, which could mirror critical attitudes in a political climate which was still in its early stages. The Baltic Provinces, where the Baltic German political press had been in existence since the 1860s, when the first Estonian-language newspapers had also arisen, had frequently been hindered by pre-publication censorship from which the Russian capital, Moscow, had been freed. An especially watchful eye was kept on newspapers intended for the lower orders of society. The Baltic Provinces always evinced a certain amount of perplexity for Russian civil servants, because, in these provinces, all classes of society were organised into clubs and associations, newspapers were published which were politically oriented, and intended for the lower classes and were actually read by the people. In Russia where contrasts between the elite and the common people were exceptionally large, such a phenomenon could hardly have been imagined. At the end of the 1870s, the Estonian press made great leaps forward, becoming the voice of public opinion. While there had been only two Estonian-language newspapers during the 1860s, by 1887 there were 25. It had been difficult during the years of Russification to obtain permission from the authorities to start new publications, but, after the 1905 revolution,

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Estonian-language journalism enjoyed something of a boom. In the years 1906 and 1907, over 100 new Estonian newspapers were published. Estonian national characteristics included now not only the reading of newspapers but also contributing to them, which, by the end of the 19th century, exhibited a certain tendency towards compulsive writing. This was, in reality, an important way of participating in public life. In 1893, the newspaper Olevik (Present Day) stated that Estonians were a nation of readers and their favourite reading matter was “political newspapers.” 5. Politicising the National Movement The road to politicising the national movement was not an easy one, as it was necessary to navigate between two inimical forces: the Baltic German nobility and the Russian imperial government. The latter had a tendency to be guided by a messianic brand of Slavophile nationalism and attempts at ironing out differences between the regions of the empire. The search for suitable political forms thus became a dangerous and wearisome process. Step by step, the nation did, nevertheless, advance towards an awareness of the concepts of self-determination and the people associated with it – at this juncture only, of course, the indigenous peoples. The first years that politicising took place were the late 1870s, early 1880s. As has been noted, the number of Estonian-language newspapers grew during this period and the nation became organised, at least to a certain extent. In shaping Estonian public opinion, the newspaper Sakala, edited by C.R. Jakobson, was the most influential. This was named after an ancient Estonian county and started a tradition in the Estonian press of promoting equality, human and citizens’ rights and freedoms. It is perhaps symptomatic that in the very first issue of Sakala (11 March 1878) we can see an announcement in support of republican France and the assurance that “Western nations are in debt to the French for their freedoms more than they are to any other nation.” The newspaper Sakala was the first to publish slogans reflecting strivings towards reform, plus a programme for the concrete aspirations of the Estonian people. In the year 1881, these demands were published together in a memorandum, after representatives of seventeen Estonian organisations had had an audience with Czar Alexander III. The Baltic nobility reacted to this first political action by Estonians, which in fact lacked any political significance, with disproportionate anger. The nobility saw the Estonian aspirations towards self-determination as rivalling their own. The Estonian national movement

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was now criticised in the Baltic German press as a revolt, as pure Social Democracy. Estonian political maturity was tested by one particular issue in dispute, fought out in the Estonian-language and German-language press. This aroused passions from both sides and the insults flew. In the assembly of the nobility, autonomous reform was debated, mostly on account of fears of the Russian drive towards unification. The majority of them could not reconcile themselves to the thought of Estonian participation. People could not imagine clumsy peasants, in their boots, tramping the floors of the elegant assembly house of the nobility. Initially, Estonian demands for reform were very modest and the peasants made demands only with regard to agrarian matters – fixing the price of land centrally, the just distribution of taxes and duties between the large manors and the farms, and so forth. The still vague nature of the consciousness of Estonians with regard to self-determination was reflected in the Estonian press by the wish to participate in the assembly of the nobility and a general demand for equal rights. Afterwards, demands began to be raised for European-Russian style self-government in the gubernii (administrative districts) and counties of the Baltic Provinces. With regard to both possessing the qualifications to vote and the competence to do so, autonomy was very limited but, since the peasants were allowed a certain degree of participation, Estonians hoped that they could gain control of provincial government by weight of numbers. The fulfilment of these wishes would have obviously meant the dissolution of the autonomy of the nobility. By the participation of Estonians in the provincial government, an attempt was being made at getting rid of the class-bound system of courts and police and promote the cause of the Estonian language. Although the government, during the 1880s, appointed the higher-ranking civil servant Senator M. Manassein to inspect and audit Livonia and Courland, the Czarist authorities were not prepared to take Estonian demands and proposals seriously. The reforms did arrive at the end of the 1880s, but along with the Russification of language usage, their aim being solely to bureaucratise and centralise. However, the government of the gubernii remained unreformed, the nobility kept a number of their autonomous functions and their great prestige in St. Petersburg. The heightened awareness amongst Estonians of citizenship and nation elicited the same kind of belittlement amongst Czarist civil servants as had been the case amongst the Baltic German nobility. Right from the start, the Slavophiles, with, at their head, the famous Yuri Samarin, had tried to

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convince the Czarist government that the Estonians and Latvians were ripe for Russification. All that needed to be done first was to get agrarian matters in order and promote the Russian language. In 1889, the Governor of Livonia, M. Zinoviev, wrote that Estonians and Latvians were indeed necessary, but only in so far as they ceased being Estonians and Latvians and became Russians. With this, the first wave of a politicised national movement ebbed away in a climate of political reaction. Nevertheless, by the end of the 19th, and beginning of the 20th century, there was a revival. The new upswing came when, in 1901, the newspaper Teataja (The Messenger) was founded by a number of young lawyers in Tallinn, among them Konstantin Päts, later known for his political activities, plus a number of well educated radicals. This was a social-democratic publication which formed a counterweight to Jaan Tõnisson’s national-liberal Postimees (The Postilion), based in Tartu, which tended towards national fundamentalism. In Estonian public life, several political viewpoints came into conflict, this came about as a result of growing political maturity and the politicisation of the national movement. From various written sources, including the transcripts of speeches, it is clear that the ideal of Estonian national politics was national and territorial autonomy. This claim was first voiced publicly by the socialist Peeter Speek in 1905 in the newspaper Uudised (The News), where he backed the federalisation of Russia, giving Estonia autonomous statehood. The 1905 Revolution encouraged the Estonian nation to take its fate into its own hands. In the autumn of that year, in Tartu, in the hall of the Baltic German Bürgermusse club, the first all-Estonian meeting of people’s representatives, in effect a meeting of the representatives of Estonian organisations, took place. This was, in a way, Estonia’s first parliament. Estonian public life had already been politicised to such an extent, and leftwing currents had become so radicalised, that the meeting broke up. The more radical faction left and the other members resumed the meeting in the main hall of Tartu University. So, the decisions made at the Bürgermusse and in the university hall made history, the first political decisions supported by such a large number of Estonians. In the Bürgermusse, the more moderate, liberalnational wing now made clear demands for national territorial autonomy: “the people must have the right to decide their own lives.” Demands were made for the setting up of a provisional provincial government until such time as autonomous institutions could be built up by means of democratic elections. A decision was arrived at in the university hall to boycott all government

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institutions which had been set up hitherto, until a democratic republic had been set up in Russia, along with calling for a Constitutional Assembly which would be established through general and uniform elections, thus solving the nationalities issue. The importance of the 1905 Revolution for the birth of Estonian independence is well expressed by the publicist Eduard Laaman who did research into the period: constitutionally, the revolution ended with no gains for the Estonians, “but,” said Laaman, “it thus became all the greater in the minds of the people. The national awakening, which had begun a quarter of a century previously, was now strengthened by a political and social awakening” (in: Eesti iseseisvuse sünd “The Birth of Estonian Independence,” Tartu 1936, page 65). The first draft constitution for an autonomous government was drawn up in 1906 by radical-democratic Estonians in Swiss exile, e.g. Konstantin Päts, Jaan Teemant, Otto Strandmann. Estonia was to have its own house of representatives, an administration with the governor at its head, a court and senate and a secretary of state who would sit in the Russian Duma. In the perspective of what they hoped would be a democratisation of Russia as a whole, a number of Estonian left-wing thinkers also supported the idea of cultural autonomy. So it is a historical curiosity that Estonians managed to enter an all-Russian constitutional assembly before they set up their own provincial assembly. The Czarist government was obliged to make concessions towards the nationwide liberation movement, to declare basic rights for citizens, changing the country into a constitutional monarchy with a Duma and a parliament. Although elections to the first and second Dumas were held under war conditions, and did not adhere to democratic principles, six Estonians were elected to the first assembly, and five to the second. But it gained them little. The Czarist government, having new reactionary tendencies, was forever trying to limit the competence of the Duma and the franchise on which the elections were held. A new revolution was needed, if Estonian dreams of autonomy were to be carried out. In March 1917, the autonomy project to divide up the gubernii on the basis of their Estonian and Latvian populations, which had been started at the request of Estonian organisations, was ratified by the Provisional Government on 30 March (12 April) 1917. Over the next few months, the idea of autonomy made rapid progress, the crowning success being the achievement of Estonian independence on 24 February 1918. The founding of an independent nation state occurred by the consensus of all political forces in

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Estonia; only a small number of Estonian Bolsheviks did not accept the idea. The way the national movement had developed and grown formed the foundation upon which the nation state was born. It can of course be claimed that the propitious situation internationally enabled the new states in Eastern and Central Europe to come into being. At the same time, political independence would never have been achieved, and would not have lasted, were it not for the ideas prevalent in society and the preparedness of its organisations. With the proclamation of an independent republic, the programme of the Estonian national movement was fulfilled. 6. A New National Culture and a Higher Estonian Culture At the beginning of the 20 th century, Estonia had therefore divorced itself from being a peasant society and become a modern one. It is true that this was not completely the case, since a higher layer of economic power was lacking amongst Estonians. Nevertheless, there was a fairly strong and developed intelligentsia, which had been educated in either German or Russian, yet had kept their national identity. Educated people took it as their mission to develop the written word in the vernacular and develop national culture as a whole. Literacy, a written language based on the vernacular, as well as industrialisation, transformed national culture significantly; the hitherto traditional peasant culture, which grew out of, for instance, a subsistence economy and the barter system, made way for a popular culture influenced by town life and a European-style popular culture. At the start of the 20th century, those Estonians who had moved to the towns still had close links with the countryside, farmers sold their wares at market in the towns and lived their lives according to the written word, calendars and newspapers where an urban, Germanised petit bourgeois life was being promoted. People wore fashionable clothes, similar furniture was bought to that which had been seen in apartments in the city, societies were founded with urban rules of behaviour, and so forth. The Estonian peasantry seemed to be more receptive to urban culture than was generally the case in Europe. But the change in lifestyle did not bring about an assimilation of things mental and spiritual. As has been said above, after the Russification of primary education, the newspapers and societies did help promote communication in the Estonian language and strengthened the feeling of “I am an Estonian, and just as good,

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and just the same as people from other nations, even if they are perhaps more educated than I am.” At the same time, a higher Estonian national culture began to come into being, along with the rise of secondary and higher education, and the expansion of the educated classes. Right from the start, this was one of the priorities of the national movement. From the epoch of C.R. Jakobson and Jakob Hurt, national leaders had stressed the fact that the survival of the Estonian nation amongst other European nations depended on, as it was said at the time, the cultivation of the spirit, and the level of its intellectual creativity. The development of elements of higher culture, the arts, especially literature, the growth of professional journalism, a stratum of creative intellectuals, as well as their audience – all these developments, which had begun in the second half of the nineteenth century, had a clear tendency to serve and benefit the Estonian national identity. At the beginning of the 20 th century, Estonian artistic life made the leap towards modernisation. The Estonian-Finnish woman writer Aino Kallas, termed the cultural revolution, then under way, as the salto mortale of Estonian intellectual life. In their rejection of peasant primitivism and conservatism, a group of young people – calling themselves Noor Eesti, i.e. Young Estonia – united under the banner of “More culture!… More European culture!” The Young Estonians promoted aestheticism, a refined and “genuine” higher form of culture and participation in all the most fashionable intellectual and artistic movements in the Europe of the day. The fact that the older generation was shocked at their declarations is hardly surprising, since the time was ripe for a renewal of Estonian culture, for the professionalisation of an elite culture, and clear boundaries being drawn between higher culture and popular culture. More and more young Estonians managed to receive secondary and tertiary education and in so doing already acquired, while still at secondary school, a knowledge of German, Russian and French, whereas the Finnish language had to be self taught. This all led to an increase in the intellectual armoury of the individual and a broadening of horizons. The result was that German culture was no longer regarded as something of a necessarily superior value as had been the norm hitherto (when few other cultures were known to Estonians) and the mediating role of the Baltic Germans lost its previous importance. The younger and more energetic sections of the educated part of society turned directly to Western Europe, principally France, for their inspiration, and the Scandinavian countries were also powerful models. Finland too had managed

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to retain its former cultural attractions for Estonians, and many went there, either to study, or as refugees. St. Petersburg was also near, and young people went there to study general or more advanced forms of artistic endeavour. The city was regarded as rather conservative, but Estonians did manage to forge links with the Russian avant-garde and were deeply influenced by the Russian movements in the direction of socialism and democracy. It was quite normal for young Estonian people to go on tours to Scandinavia and Western Europe. This was partly due to the fact that those taking part in the Revolution of 1905 were forced into exile. The Mecca for youth was, of course, Paris where a colony of Estonian artists and other intellectuals was established. They lived in the Estonian colony La Ruche or in other areas where there were cheap lodgings. The proclamations of the Young Estonians did not remain mere hot air, new contacts were influential and flourished. In the first decades of the 20th century, a host of writers, artists, and composers arose, the renewed nature of whose work also began to influence older, more conservative artistic people. A sign of the times was to be seen in the multifarious movements and styles. On account of the powerful base, principally of Finno-Ugric languages, to which family Estonian belongs, and which constitutes a special and separate world of thought and imagination, this yearning for Europe did not lead to a levelling, or to the loss of the essence of Estonian national culture. Borrowed elements were interwoven with authentic ideas and traditions to form a new whole. Even the Young Estonians, and there were a good number of cosmopolitan figures among them, did not deny the national nature of culture. In politics, as in culture, they remained only in opposition to the old nationalist fundamentalism, considering the nation to be a natural entity comprising people which there was no need to shout about: in one way or another, it would set its stamp on creative endeavours as well. The Estonian language, one of the most important symbols of nationhood, which had always been praised in a spirit of romanticism, was improved upon and became a subject of research during the latter half of the 19th century. Up to then, the source used by all those interested in the Estonian language and writings in that language was Ferdinand Johann Wiedemann’s large academic Estonian-German dictionary (1869). At the same time the first attempts were made to provide a scientific grammar for the language, plus a description of its history and dialects. The most radical innovations in the Estonian language at the turn of the 20th century came from the Young Estonian Johannes Aavik who founded a movement advocating the fundamental renewal of the

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Estonian language, by formulating the general principles of his approach, and by exposing a theory on lexical creation. Another linguist, who would figure prominently, belonged to this period: Johann Voldemar Veski, who sought to delineate the principles of correct usage and technical terminology. Estonian folklore formed the basis for national romanticism and successful research into its ethnographical themes. By collating folk poetry on a large scale national awareness was enhanced, but even more importantly was the large corpus of volumes of authentic folk poetry, collected thanks to the active participation of the general public, and which gave rise to publications and research. Between 1888 and 1906, Jakob Hurt managed to fill 114,696 pages with folk poetry, and this collection is now kept in the Estonian Literary Museum in Tartu. It was inevitable that an educated Estonian culture had its initial defects. This could not have been otherwise, in the context of a country which was not free politically, and where the national minority – which belonged to the lower orders in the eyes of the ruling class – could not count on state support or rich sponsors and could only develop thanks to the enthusiasm of individuals and initiatives taken by the people themselves within their clubs and societies. The new revolution in 1917 opened up many new avenues for initiative in the Estonian nation, but it wasn’t until Estonia became an independent republic that favourable conditions prevailed for the creation of a genuinely higher culture.

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Eero Medijainen Estonia and the World The rise of new nations is one of the central issues in the contemporary world. It is, however, difficult to find a clear and unequivocal theory that would satisfy all, and exhaustively explain a process as complex as that referred to as the birth of nations. Nationalist thinking is considered to possess certain characteristic patterns of thought or even dogmas, the most important being the belief that the division of all mankind into nationalities is a natural phenomenon, and that nationality is even, in global terms, the most important factor. Nationalists believe that every nationality has its own special and unique character that should be highly valued. Their worldview reflects the opinion that every person must identify with a certain nationality, because such an identity is indispensable for the achievement of freedom and the realisation of one’s potential. Nationalists are certain that the development and strengthening of nation-states is a precondition for the achievement of freedom and harmony. In this worldview, nationality is not defined merely by external features (language, customs, food, drink, etc.). The nature of a nationality only becomes apparent upon closer examination, in the same manner that in the natural sciences the determination of an animal’s species takes place, or, in linguistics, the investigation of different languages. Belonging to a nation must be a conscious act; one must awaken, and become aware of, and develop that membership. The 19th century is known as the century of national awakening and the formation of nation-states. In the second half of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, another important feature, or so-called ethical aspect was added to the list of factors that shape national identity. This meant that each individual not only belonged to a particular nationality, but also faced certain obligations arising from that affiliation. There developed a conviction that the nation-state was the precondition for the survival of the nation, and that loyalty to the nation-state stands above man’s other obligations. The origins of the idea of the Estonian nation-state can be found in the works of important figures from the era of national awakening, for instance Lydia Koidula. They are even clearer, however, in the poem “Lark’s song” by Andres Dido from 1882: “… and now we awaken from the slumber of serfdom, and must together rush off to war, as freedom shines before us, illuminating the Republic of Estonia.” Unfortunately, Dido’s fate was arrest

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and persecution, culminating in decades of exile in France. He was, however, able to witness the fulfilment of his dream. Just before his death in 1921, Dido welcomed the first representatives in Paris of independent Estonia. At the end of the last century, the poet Juhan Liiv had unequivocally predicted the birth of the Estonian state, although that remained merely the dream of a prophet or madman: “Life is like a swing: some day – providing the poet is sane – there will be a Republic of Estonia.” Only a very brief window of opportunity existed for the creation of an Estonian nation-state. This period lasted less than 18 months, from autumn 1917 to spring 1919. It was at this time that several necessary prerequisites for the birth of the Estonian state culminated. Of these, I would like to emphasise the two that were most important: the changes that took place in the balance of power between the great powers and the triumph of the idealistic worldview directly after the First World War. 1. Power Vacuum In the above-mentioned period, the contest between Russia and Germany, which in Estonia, and in fact all of Eastern Europe, had lasted for the whole of the last generation, and had at times become a matter of life and death, ended in a peculiar stalemate. From the beginning of the 17th century, Europe, which had been constructed on the principle of the balance of power, came increasingly to revolve around centralised states. The unification and westward expansion of the Russian state created tension and fear in Europe. In the opinion of proponents of realpolitik, the strengthening of nation-states that had just begun in Europe, and above all the respective processes of unification in both Germany and Italy, altered the balance to Russia’s disadvantage. Russia was thus forced to choose a similar path and attempt to establish, through further consolidation, a more homogeneous nation-state. This began in the 1880s and 1890s with intensified Russification. Due to the constant expansion of the empire, by the mid-19th century ethnic Russians’ proportion of the population of the Russian Empire had fallen below 50%. With its ethnic diversity and unstable domestic politics, Russia was unable to keep up with the new and rapidly modernising nation-states. It was also feared that Russia was not a sufficiently attractive partner either for France or Britain, with which it sought closer contacts at the beginning of the 20th century, in order to halt the rise of Germany. The Russification that began in

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this period was thus less an objective in itself than a pattern of behaviour forced upon Russia by international developments. Estonians did not constitute a significant obstacle to Russification. One reason for this was that in the period of national awakening and the development of national identity, it was the German, primarily the Baltic German manor owner who became the enemy figure that united Estonians, instead of the Russian government official who only carried out orders from above. Russians instead became political allies in the struggle for power in local government institutions. Any danger to national identity was seen as coming more from the west rather than from the east. Estonia’s intellectual, economic, and developing political elite devoted its greatest efforts towards the further democratisation of Russia, especially after the events of 1905, the assembly of the State Duma and the beginning of Stolypin’s reforms. In 1899 Jaan Tõnisson, the leader for Estonian nationalism, which was then just beginning to become politically organised, believed that the czar could calmly lay his head in an Estonian’s lap and fall asleep. Even in 1905, Estonians’ most radical demands did not go beyond requests for a federal system of government and general democratic freedoms. According to a widely held belief, it was, above all, necessary to struggle for the strengthening of Russian democracy, and only then could one hope for the achievement and strengthening of autonomy for Estonia. Estonians’ hopes appeared to be justified by the transfer of the management of local governments – cities – to Estonians: Valga in 1901, Tallinn in 1904, Võru in 1906, Haapsalu in 1909, Pärnu in 1913 and Rakvere in 1914. The ethnic and political affiliation of the representatives elected from Estonia to Russia’s first State Duma also appeared to be very promising. There was not a single Baltic German among them, and the more influential representatives, of Estonian descent, gathered in the liberal wing of the autonomist-federalist faction. It is quite understandable that even liberal politicians who had managed to flee to Western countries after the 1905 revolution, in order to escape persecution by the czar’s gendarmerie, proposed only an autonomy project, and did not mention Estonian independence. They too were convinced that the transformation of the Russian autocracy into a constitutional monarchy was under way, and that this process should not be hindered by the presentation of radical demands. Thus, in the emerging great struggle between west and east in Estonia, the most favourable position was held by forces oriented towards the east, i.e. Russia. Roughly 200,000 Estonians worked and lived in Russia, the main

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migrants being from provinces bordering on the Baltic Sea who sought land or a better job. Economic migrants from other parts of Eastern and Central Europe went principally to America. Estonians felt tied to Russia mainly for economic reasons. Thus when independence was declared, nearly 40% of Estonians possessing higher education were living elsewhere in the Russian Empire. Russian educational, cultural and career opportunities attracted a relatively large proportion of the Estonian intelligentsia. The Russian Empire unfortunately lacked time, room and skill for manoeuvre. The emerging conflicts in Europe led St. Petersburg to increase the pace of Russification. The greatest possible degree of control had to be achieved over the state before the outbreak of a large-scale war. Merciless pressure, however, led inevitably to counter-reactions on the part of the Empire’s national minorities, and the Estonians were no exception. Such reactions included the intelligentsia’s change of orientation towards the alternatives, Western Europe and mainly France, Italy and Scandinavia, in order to find an intellectual balance to growing German and Russian influences, and also find some alternative identity. Noor-Eesti was apparently the most influential movement to be concerned with Estonians’ opportunities to take their place in the family of civilised European peoples. Gustav Suits called upon Estonians to complete more rapidly those stages of development that had long ago been completed in Europe, denying that there could be some path of development more characteristic of smaller nations. Estonia had to be integrated with Europe, and no dangers to Estonians’ nascent identity were perceived. Thanks to the members of Noor-Eesti, Europe was no longer just a distant dream. Europe came to be seen as a place to which Estonia belonged quite naturally. To what extent did Noor-Eesti’s yearning for French culture conflict with the aspirations of the Russian Empire and St. Petersburg? It should not be forgotten that the Russian economic, military and, for some time, even the intellectual elite had been interested in good relations with France. Contact between Russian subjects and the French was apparently favoured. Estonian intellectuals were no exception, despite the fact that the bohemians in Paris from the Baltics came to include an increasing number of revolutionaries with socialist leanings. There was also significant concern in France about domestic political developments in Russia. The demand for the self-determination of national minorities was essentially approved of, but it was not to be allowed to jeopardize the military capacity of a potential ally. Paris did not desire unrest

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in the Baltics or in its vicinity, or for the region to gain too much autonomy. The best solution was to encourage active Estonians to involve themselves solely in the quest for cultural identity. The idea of the self-definition of the Estonians as a nation-state was not even remotely compatible within the context of international relations in that period. The outbreak of the First World War opened a new channel for the spread of separatist ideas in the Baltic States. Germany actively began to support both Russian socialists and the aspirations of ethnic minorities. Plans for a future new Europe, which, during the war, had been suggested from both sides, also included a utopian vision of a Greater Estonia. This was, however, only the fruit of a couple of dreamers headed by Aleksander Kesküla, who had connections with the Russian right wing and some of the German General Staff. With the success of the German forces in the Baltics in 1915–1917, it became increasingly clear that the local nationalities could expect no benefit from these developments. Estonians were therefore influenced by official Russian propaganda, which called them to defend the common homeland against German imperialism. In Estonia, which had barely a million inhabitants, nearly 100,000 men were mobilised. They remained loyal to the Russian state until the overthrow of the autocracy. Their loyalty was sincere, and by no means solely motivated by the desire for some reward, although some Estonians spoke of the debt the Russian state owed Estonians for the blood shed during the war. No Russian political group, however, wished to discuss expanding autonomy, and rumours took the place of real action. The overthrow of czarist rule in March 1917 created a peculiar situation on Russia’s ethnic periphery. The central authorities, which sought the restoration of elementary order and the stabilisation of power, were forced to expand the autonomy of national minorities and even concede the right of certain regions to break away from Russia. Both the Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks, who had carried out a putsch in the capital in October 1917, were willing to take such steps. At the same time, the implementation of the principle of national self-determination led to further decentralisation, and soon the central government expressed no opposition to ceding some border regions in order to retain power. Whereas the Provisional Government still had the support of the Western countries, the Bolsheviks had no other means of escape from their foreign policy isolation. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed with Germany, gave the

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Bolsheviks the chance to remain in power, but at the cost of having to lose the Baltic States. Ants Piip, who was one of the best-known Estonian statesmen of the 1920s and 1930s and several times was foreign minister, asserted, even as late as the summer of 1918, six months after the proclamation of the Independence Manifesto: We have never been separatists, and have remained loyal to Russia for longer than possible – even when it no longer existed. It should not be forgotten that Russia left us; we did not leave Russia. And Russia, the Russian people, were the ones that intended to save their skin by selling us to the German barons – first at the time of the Peace of Brest-Litovsk, and then again in June… our desire for independence cannot be explained by enmity towards Russia, but as our last effort to do everything possible to free ourselves of the Germans… The only possibility to save the Baltic Sea for Russian trade and keep Germany as far as possible from Russia’s former capital… was to support Estonian independence, and make it a reality, although perhaps with the condition that in five or ten years the question of independence would be once again reviewed by the people in a democratic vote. Ants Piip was certain that “Germany would never return the Baltic States to Russia, even if it now promises this in the course of negotiations.” In this matter he was correct – Germany did not return the Baltic States. It was not, however, able to hold on to them itself. The events of the First World War took care of that. Thus the Bolsheviks’ relinquishing of the Baltic States and Germany’s inability to annex the region created a governmental and realpolitik power vacuum that could be filled by a new entity. The realisation of that opportunity, more precisely the explanation of the situation to Russia’s former allies France and Britain, continued during the whole of 1919. During the Paris Peace Conference, the Western countries, led by France, were still utterly unable to come to terms with the fact that their former ally Russia could not be restored to the form it had possessed before the war, and the formation of new small states in Eastern Europe would have to be taken into account. Another cause for concern was that Germany had indeed lost the war, but this was seen as a temporary situation. Despite the severity of the Versailles Peace Treaty, the prevailing antagonism, and Germany’s economic and military potential, still seemed too threatening.

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The Bolshevik terror fortunately made it easier to accept the inevitable. The independent Baltic States could be hoped to form a buffer to halt the spread of Bolshevism into Western Europe, especially after they had become able to co-operate among themselves, and for instance conclude a military alliance. Thus in Paris in 1919–20, and also later, the countries of the Entente sought to assign the Baltic States two somewhat similar roles – to serve as a buffer against Bolshevism and at the same time as a replacement for France’s former ally, Russia. In Western Europe, as a result, it was considered that the new countries were to serve as a barrier, separating Germany and Russia. Such a solution could only be temporary, and thus there was opposition to immediately recognising the Baltic States’ full independence. Neither of these roles actually appealed to Estonian politicians, or else they were considered to be beyond Estonia’s capabilities. The vision of Estonia as a bridge between East and West was altogether more attractive, and coincided with the Wilsonian or liberal understanding of international relations. 2. The Fruits of Idealism On the initiative of exiled Baltic politicians, a Peoples’ League was founded in Paris in 1912. The group’s mouthpiece, the journal The Chronicle of Nationalities (“Les annales des nationalités”), set as its objective the distribution of neutral information about Russian minority nationalities and the promotion of co-operation between them. There were even plans for a distinctive palace of nationalities and museum to be built. One of the organisation’s important work formats was to hold regular conferences of nationalities. One can consider its greatest achievement however, to have been the introduction of the national question into the sphere of international relations, as for instance the message that was sent to US President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, in which support was requested for the minority nationalities of Russia. 3. A Favourable Environment Due to the formation of new centralised nation-states, and the emerging economic problems in Europe, also accompanying pressure that was exerted on ethnic minorities, emigration to the USA increased significantly during the second half of the 19th century. These immigrants came mainly from Eastern

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and Central Europe. Before the First World War, Jews, Romanians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Finns, Lithuanians and, to a lesser degree, Latvians and Estonians constituted a significant proportion of the American electorate. They were also relatively well organised, and thus could exert considerable influence on the domestic politics of the United States. US politicians, and especially presidents, had to take the interests of these nationalities into consideration. One such interest was concern for their compatriots in their former homeland. The principle of national self-determination was, of course, known even before the United States entered World War One, although it had, until then, seemed to be only an intellectual venture for white European and American liberals and, most of all, the academic elite, a group that was not well suited to considerations of realpolitik. The USA, and especially President Wilson, needed some kind of positive programme in order to become involved in the war. Even before the 1916 elections, he had promised to keep the country out of the war, and now, in order to justify his actions, he needed some solution with which to end the war and ensure a more stable peace in the world. At the end of 1917 and the beginning of 1918, the principle of national self-determination was almost simultaneously declared, by both Lenin and Wilson, to be a universal means for solving Europe’s problems. This meant that, whereas earlier federations, confederations and cultural autonomy or regional special rights for minorities had been seen as possible within the Russian Empire, and especially within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the last year of the war the only option became the complete independence of the nationalities living in those empires. The future World Order and peace were henceforth to endure, thanks to the realisation of the principal aspiration of all peoples – self-determination. Wilson apparently sincerely believed that after the satisfaction of that main requirement, all nationalities would be interested in co-operation, which would, in turn, be made possible by a corresponding international organisation – the League of Nations. This attitude, supported by the authority of Wilson and the USA, unfortunately prevailed in Europe for only a very brief time – for practical purposes, only at the end of 1918 and during the first months of the Paris Peace Conference. Wilson’s first and main goal in coming to Paris was the creation of the League of Nations. This grand idea was not, unfortunately, fully implemented. First, the concept was geographically restricted, limited only to continental Europe. The colonial system outside Europe remained, and was even consolidated. This

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soon led to a great many new tensions. Second, the implementation of the right of self-determination did not guarantee peace, as had previously been idealistically assumed. Even the delineation of the new borders in Europe led to numerous conflicts and bloodshed. Military intervention was not ruled out, even on the relatively short border between Estonia and Latvia, and the entire process lasted 10 years, although the Estonians and Latvians inhabited their territory more compactly than was the case elsewhere in Eastern and Central Europe. In conclusion, the independence of the Baltic States could be considered the last fruits of Wilsonian idealism in Europe. It is quite possible that this fruit was not very much desired by some, but it indeed ripened just before it became too late. 4. An Independent Estonia The most accurate date of the birth of an independent Estonian foreign policy is 7 September to 25 August 1917 when future foreign policy perspectives, or so-called questions of orientation were first discussed in Tallinn. This was also done in the summer of the same year at the session of the representative assembly of Estonians, the Maapäev [Diet], where an attempt was made to harmonise the attitudes of various political forces (parties) towards the recent attack by German forces and the subsequent occupation of the larger of the Estonian islands. At that time the most realistic (or desirable) option appeared to be some kind of union or federation between the Baltic and Scandinavian states. It was a matter of creating a new identity. One factor behind this was the intensification of the rapprochement between the Estonian and Finnish intellectual and political elites that had taken place over the past decades, as well as the firm conviction that Finland would undoubtedly soon achieve independence. A second factor was the good memories of former Swedish rule. Together with the development of a national historical awareness, history came to have an increasing influence on politics. A third factor was the influence of the ideas that politicians from the Baltics had been actively discussing in Stockholm and elsewhere in Europe during the war years. The practical implementation of the idea, however, still seemed to be very distant. Future relations with Russia and Germany appeared to be much more topical concerns. On the same day it was decided, in principle, that a diplomatic delegation would be formed of Estonia’s most prominent

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politicians, to be sent out into the world to obtain support and recognition for the fledgling state. The implementation of this decision was spurred by the Bolshevik coups d’état, first in St. Petersburg and then in Tallinn. The Maapäev granted official authority to the diplomatic delegation in December 1917. In these documents the words “diplomatic representative” were first used in reference to Estonians. From this point on, Estonia turned towards the world as an integral entity with its own identity and clear national interests in defining itself as a sovereign state. The diplomatic delegation was given room for manoeuvre. Sovereignty could be limited in some manner, either through union with Finland alone, or within a broader BaltoScandinavian union. The British Commonwealth was considered as the prototype. At that time the restoration of a democratic Russia had not yet been ruled out, and thus Estonia’s membership in an equal union of the peoples of the former Russian state remained a possibility. The activities of the first diplomatic delegation (J. Tõnisson, M. Martna, K. Menning, A. Piip, K. R. Pusta, E. Virgo, F. Kull) were successful, its main objective achieved, and as early as in the spring of 1918 the great powers of Western Europe granted Estonia their de facto recognition. Unfortunately, their ulterior motive was more the weakening of Germany, which had completely occupied Estonia in February 1918, rather than a sincere desire to actually support a country that had declared independence. Estonia’s final fate was to be decided later, at the peace conference. At the end of the First World War, the above-mentioned foreign delegation rushed back to Estonia through Scandinavia and Finland in October and November, since the Estonian Provisional Government had become active in Tallinn. In November 1918 a letter was delivered to the British and French consuls in Helsinki, containing a request to the governments of their countries to send arms and prevent the German occupation authorities, on their way out of Estonia, from taking property and foodstuffs with them. This was the first official document prepared by the independent Republic of Estonia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which had just begun operating. The substantive work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs began with the preparation of the Tartu Peace Treaty at the end of 1919 and its signature at the beginning of 1920. Before that time the new diplomatic delegation sent to the Paris Peace Conference, and of course Jaan Poska, the head of the new representation and the first Minister of Foreign Affairs of the independent Republic of Estonia, had held the principal role in the foreign policy of

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Estonia. Other government agencies had also already begun work by November 1918. Elections to the first Estonian legislative and representative body – the Asutav Kogu (Constituent Assembly) were held in spring 1919. The War of Independence from 1918 to 1920 and the policy of War Communism in Bolshevik Russia drew a clear but also bloody line in Estonia’s search for identity. Any form of federation whatsoever with Russia and Russian identity was now out of the question for Estonia. Most of the Estonians, who had until then lived in Russia, attempted to return to their homeland, and tens of thousands succeeded in doing so. Many became the victims of persecution, and the Bolsheviks set a limit on repatriation to Estonia. But there was also a limit to the ability of a small, newly independent country, to accommodate all the people wishing to move in. In the ensuing period, cultural contacts with Soviet Russia were minimal, whereas the role of Russian emigrants in Estonia expanded. Unfortunately, many of them were unable to cope with the reality of an independent Estonian state. Estonia clearly perceived the dangers posed by the activities of some Russian emigrants. Contacts between Russian emigrant organisations with monarchist leanings, and similar circles in Germany, caused particular concern. The Republic of Estonia and its foreign policy were conceived at a time when there was a sincere hope that the principles of liberal democracy would prevail in the world. It was believed that the main instrument of the new democratic diplomacy would be the peaceful resolution of problems through negotiations at international conferences. Estonia hoped to receive significant assistance from the League of Nations, especially those articles of the organisation’s charter that required members to offer each other military assistance. The Baltic States were accepted as full members of the League of Nations in 1921. In 1920, however, there appeared the first serious signs that the international situation was not particularly stable. The main foreign policy problem facing the states that arose in the aftermath of the First World War was how to defend their independence and sovereignty. Estonia’s foreign policy concept provided for the safeguarding of the country’s security, and naturally also the maintenance and further improvement of good relations with all neighbouring countries. This vision of the most important foreign policy tasks remained almost unchanged in all of the programmes of the governments, which changed quite rapidly in the 1920s. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the ten or so embassies that little Estonia was able to

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maintain during the 1920s and 1930s also implemented this concept. In the period between the two world wars, Estonia had diplomatic representatives in a total of 24 countries, and by 1940 the number of consular representatives had increased to almost 160. 5. The Priorities of an Independent Estonia The Estonian public hoped that a liberal and democratic way of thinking would prevail in Europe. At the same time, the country’s foreign service was expected somehow to be able to find a guarantee for the vague hope and belief, characteristic of the 1920s and 1930s, that some European great power would come to the rescue of Estonia if its independence were in some way threatened. The future prospects for the Baltic States were not very appealing. Its larger neighbours were unsatisfied with the situation, and their objective was the revision of the system set up by the Treaty of Versailles that had been created after the war. Germany and Soviet Russia soon found common ground, and after the conclusion of the 1922 Rapallo Agreement, close cooperation between them developed in all areas, including military matters. This naturally created anxiety in the Baltic States. It was fortunate for these states that the unstable domestic politics of both Russia and Germany made it difficult for them to concentrate on foreign policy matters. The French and British desire to preserve and strengthen the belt of buffer states in Eastern and Central Europe was also a relief for the Baltic States. Comparing the dangers from East and West, the opinion of the government in Tallinn was that the pressure from Moscow was nevertheless more serious and imminent. Although Estonia’s radical land reform largely spoiled relations with the Germans, Estonians felt a closer affinity to Germany, a European country, than to the Soviet Union as the successor to the Russian Empire. Estonia’s distrust of its Eastern neighbour was increased by the coup attempt perpetrated in Tallinn on 1 December 1924, which was launched from the USSR. The situation became menacing for the young Baltic States at the beginning of the 1930s, when the two most important factors, until then supportive of independence, disappeared. First, militaristic regimes founded on one-party and one-man dictatorships arose in both Germany and Russia, which also signified an increase in the activeness of those countries’ foreign policies. That in turn increased pressure on the Baltic States. Second, the

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independence of the Baltic States was indirectly connected with the Versailles system, which the aggressive foreign policy of Nazi Germany was quickly able to destroy. The countries that had been victorious in the First World War found it increasingly difficult to defend their positions. It proved impossible to create a new system to replace the old. An old Bismarckian and a new Eastern, i.e. Stalinist realpolitik was once again becoming increasingly important in a Europe built on Wilsonian idealism. The unified Europe that Estonians had valued and yearned for at the beginning of the century was no more. The reality was that independent Estonia had to find its place on a continent that was torn asunder in terms of economics, politics and ideology. The admiration felt by Estonians towards Europe and their identification as Europeans was in crisis. Now Estonia had no option but to further reinforce its position. This was no longer the Europe that the Young Estonians, writing at the beginning of the century, had yearned for. It became apparent that Europe was no longer prepared for democracy or vice versa. Thus there was no longer a place for a democratic Estonia in this Europe. Concern for state security was perceived with growing concern. It goes without saying that Estonia intensively sought possibilities and guarantees to alleviate this concern. Security guarantees can tentatively be divided into two categories, direct, i.e. military (“hard”), and indirect (“soft”), and these remain topical for Estonia to the present day. As is the case today, Estonia considered both direct and indirect possibilities. Security problems between the two world wars depended mainly on the general security system operating in Europe, and to a lesser degree on the actions of local politicians or diplomats. In Estonia a number of options were seen as direct guarantees, the first of these being a bilateral defensive alliance with a great power. In the 1920s hopes were primarily staked on British interests in the Baltic States. In the name of securing an alliance, Estonia was prepared to offer the British Navy auxiliary bases on Saaremaa and Hiiumaa. The politicians and diplomats of the Baltic States did all in their power to attract attention, and co-ordinated their foreign policy and economic actions with London. Unfortunately they were outside the main sphere of interest of the British government. London was indeed interested in stability in the Baltic region, but not to the extent of guaranteeing it by military force after English forces left the region in 1919. This lack of interest in the Baltic States was demonstrated quite clearly after the events of 1 December 1924, when Estonian diplomats sought in vain to persuade the British Navy to make a demonstrative tour in the Baltic Sea. In

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the second half of the 1930s, Britain lost all interest in the small countries in this region. Instead, Britain concluded an agreement with Germany in 1935 that legalised the latter’s fleet and practically gave Germany control of the Baltic Sea. There was even less hope of a bilateral agreement with France, although the latter’s treaty ties with Poland and Czechoslovakia offered encouraging examples. The objective of Paris was more to improve its own security through defensive alliances than to offer it to Eastern Europe. Several higherranking Estonian soldiers and diplomats did, however, receive additional training in France in the 1920s and 1930s, and for that reason interest in cooperation with the French persisted. In Western governments there was, however, a widely held conviction that in the near future the Baltic States would in one way or another inevitably be reunited with Russia. Thus the attempts by the leaders of the Baltic States to guarantee their security were treated with understanding, but little action was taken. Larger investments in this region and even the sale of military equipment were considered risky undertakings, and perhaps even a waste of already scarce resources. In the period directly following independence, the Baltic States sought opportunities for closer military co-operation. That aim was even considered the main means with which to increase security. Primary attention was devoted to defensive military alliances, but also to co-operation without the conclusion of formal agreements. The years 1919–1925 witnessed great activity in this area, although in a few cases such attempts continued to be made, unofficially. In 1923 the Estonian-Latvian Defensive Alliance was concluded. The papers were indeed signed, but interest in substantial co-operation did not develop. A minimal number of joint manoeuvres were conducted, and weapons were purchased separately and from different manufacturers. The alliance was created with the objective of pleasing Europe, so that Estonia would be noticed and taken into consideration. At the moment of its signature it was hoped that the Estonian-Latvian Alliance would become just an intermediate link in a broader military co-operation, soon to be completed, between all the Baltic States and Poland. Baltic identity was, however, alien to Estonia. The alliance was primarily a geopolitical inevitability and, to a certain extent, due to a feeling of solidarity arising from a similar history. The latter, however, was sensed more keenly outside the Baltic States than within. Despite all efforts, Baltic identity

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remained culturally alien to Estonia. In questions of domestic and foreign policy, there were many differences of opinion, which larger neighbours attempted to magnify to even greater proportions. Tallinn did not have a very high opinion of the prospects of the EstoniaLatvia bilateral military alliance. Estonia attempted more actively to tie itself to Finland. The latter was on several occasions invited to conclude a defensive military alliance, and even the sharing of governmental institutions was not ruled out. Yet Finland was unwilling, as it considered its strategic and geographical position to be somewhat better than that of other countries in the Baltics. It was impatiently waiting to be accepted as one of the Scandinavian countries. The only more successful matter was co-operation between Finland and Estonia in patrolling the Gulf of Finland. Thirdly, the Baltic States could join a collective security plan safeguarding the great powers’ security. The birth of such a collective pact appeared to be most realistic during the years 1934–1935 in connection with the so-called East Locarno (Eastern Pact) negotiations between Moscow and Paris. These coincided with the development of mutual assistance agreements between the Soviet Union and France, and the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. The plans unfortunately appeared to consist increasingly of a military alliance with Moscow, which Estonia did not desire. The Eastern Pact was an attempt to create a regional collective security system, and also a last desperate attempt to tie increasingly active dictators to some international agreement. The Baltic Entente, as the prerequisite for the planned Eastern Pact, was born in September 1934. It was a political agreement of a consultative nature between Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that offered no direct guarantee of the Baltic States’ security. Military security was not provided for, and the parties continued to have specific problems and relations with neighbours, in which the other contractual partners did not interfere. Lithuania’s disputes with Poland and Germany over Vilnius and Klaipeda remained its problem alone. Behind the façade of formal unity, the great powers retained the possibility of manipulating and concluding agreements at the expense of the Baltic States. Thus the Baltic Entente was also ineffectual in guaranteeing indirect security. The understanding, which had become established in Europe, of a homogeneous union of Baltic States was more detrimental than beneficial to Estonia’s sense of security. In the years 1936–1937 there was a certain crisis of Baltic identity in Estonia. Representatives of governing circles, and especially of soldiers, spoke out against an alliance with Latvia and Lithuania. These views were,

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however, expressed even more resoundingly by Ilmar Tõnisson, son of the renowned politician and member of the opposition Jaan Tõnisson, who shared his father’s views and belief in Estonia’s place in the Western countries’ cultural sphere through Finland and Scandinavia, but not the Baltic States. 6. Indirect Means of Ensuring Independence In the name of ensuring Estonia’s independence, Estonian politicians offered several options in the years directly following independence. It was hoped that indirect support would be obtained, above all from European public opinion, on the calculation that once a country has been admitted to, and integrated into Europe, it will not be abandoned so easily. It was believed in Estonia, as in Europe, that signatures on a piece of paper, or an agreement, were of intrinsic value. It was believed that once an agreement had been reached, it would come to life of its own volition, and thereby guarantee security. As mentioned above, the Baltic States were even prepared to accept limitations to their sovereignty and join some alliance or federation, the most important of these being the so-called Balto-Scandinavian alliance, and different variants of it. Later these attempts were repeated over and over, although in somewhat different contexts. This kind of federation was not always seen as including a direct military alliance and the responsibilities arising from it, although in the longer term it was naturally hoped that the members of a possible federation would also offer mutual support in the event of a military threat. At times this option constituted a kind of fata morgana, and those writing or speaking of it were unable to see the specific form of federation that might in reality be implemented. It was more of a dream. Such structures were based on the idealistic view of international relations as an area characterised by countries’ will to co-operate. In the 1920s the Baltic area indeed witnessed very close co-operation, from reciprocal visits by heads of state, to events held by various societies and associations. Communication aimed at co-operation was never as intensive in any other European region. However, it was not possible to implement the idea of a common economic area as the foundation of Balto-Scandinavian regional identity. The financial systems of the Baltic States remained different, and despite numerous attempts, it proved impossible to conclude a customs union.

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In the 1920s it was attempted to tie Estonia as closely as possible to all the countries of Europe, developing economic and cultural contacts with them, and participating as often as possible in important international conferences, exhibitions, and multilateral agreements. One of Estonia’s most renowned diplomats, long-time ambassador to Paris, Karl Robert Pusta, for instance, became one of the most active leaders of the Pan-European Movement. On his initiative a corresponding association was even created in Tallinn. Estonia appeared to be ready to build not just its own state but also a united Europe. There is no doubt that in the 1920s Estonia was more prepared for a European Union than Europe itself. Unfortunately, plans for a united Europe soon subsided, and the members of the Pan-European Association in Tallinn also stopped gathering. Indirect security guarantees were seen to lie in the promotion of international trade in order to generate greater international interest in Estonia. That is the reason why Estonia attempted, directly after independence, to keep trade routes with Russia open at all costs. At the beginning of the 1920s Estonia hoped to be the foothold for Western countries, or point of re-entry into the Russian market. Later, Estonia attempted to be as open as possible and above all to guarantee itself access to the markets of Western countries. Initially prospects were attractive, the large Western countries also dreamed of the Russian market, and Britain and Germany even competed over the right to use Estonia and Latvia as gateways to Russia. The Bolsheviks were unable to rebuild war-torn Russia in the foreseeable future. Chaos was simply replaced by dictatorship. The category of indirect security guarantees also included non-aggression treaties, which were very numerous during the period between the two world wars. Estonia concluded non-aggression treaties with two potentially dangerous neighbours, Germany and the Soviet Union. The influence of the non-aggression treaties during the 1920s and 1930s was, however, peculiar. The idea of such treaties was essentially to help increase state security, while in actual fact they often had the opposite effect. The corresponding negotiations and eventually the signature of agreements took place in the context of tense international relations, so that their benefit was often negated. The latter was particularly true of the negotiations held in Moscow, which on several occasions were used to destroy the nascent unity between the Baltic States. Every small country wishes to avoid becoming embroiled in confrontations and conflicts, and to foresee and prevent them. Thus its foreign

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policy objectives often involve non-alignment or neutrality. It was unfortunately impossible for the Republic of Estonia to be created as a neutral state, although that was initially attempted. The Estonian Independence Manifesto affirmed that Estonia wished to maintain complete neutrality with regard to all neighbouring countries and peoples. In the Western countries, such an attempt at declaring neutrality was, due to the ongoing world war, seen as an expression of excessive friendliness towards Germany. Paris and London were outwardly correct. Independence was declared on 24 February 1918, but Estonia was then occupied by German forces. Thus it would have been more logical to refer to a state of war than neutrality. Estonia’s desire to achieve neutrality was reiterated in the Tartu Peace Treaty signed on 2 February 1920, which did not please the Western countries. Estonia’s decision to make peace with the Bolsheviks and thereby recognise the latter took place somewhat earlier than the Western countries deemed fit. Estonia’s action was a bold step that somewhat ignored, or rather anticipated, the Great Powers. In the Peace Treaty, Estonia expressed the hope that its neutrality would find international recognition. That hope was not destined to succeed. The Baltic States’ principle of neutrality actually balanced on the boundary between the achievement of direct and indirect security. This underwent several stages of development in the 1920s and 1930s. From the initial idea of neutrality, they reached neutrality, safeguarded by international guarantees. However, when these became unrealistic, Swedish and Finnish neutrality plans were adopted and then adjusted to the situation in the Baltic States. The events in Czechoslovakia and the signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938 accelerated the approval of neutrality, also in the form of legislation. The neutrality laws of Estonia and then the other Baltic States were completed by the end of 1938. At that time international relations had reverted to the traditional policy of a balance of power between the Great Powers, in which each significant initiative was seen as a step that was either beneficial or detrimental to some great power. Moscow took a very bad view of the strivings of the Baltic States for neutrality, and in their opinion this was mainly a question of Tallinn’s desire not to consider Moscow’s interests. Bolshevik propaganda accused Estonia of shifting to a German position. The main means of increasing indirect security were the safeguarding of Estonia’s internal security, the development of national culture and education, and thereby also the reinforcement of Estonian identity. It is self-evident that Estonia belonged to the Western European cultural area. In the 1920s and

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1930s there were five or six societies in Estonia that sought to mediate relations with France, for instance. Of these, the French Academic Institute in Tartu and the Tallinn department of the Alliance Française were probably the most important. The former was dominated by academics, whereas wellknown Estonian politicians set the tone in the latter. Independence definitely signified greatly increased opportunities for Estonian soldiers, to whom the doors of the best French military academies were now open. Fifteen officers from Estonia were studying there in 1926. By 1940 nearly 10% of all doctors practising in Estonia had also studied in France. The opportunity to study at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques was highly valued by young Estonian diplomats. The role of French in everyday diplomatic communication was indeed decreasing, but in the 1920s and 1930s it still competed successfully with English, and Estonian diplomacy also took into consideration the need to know French. In some aspects, the great transformation brought by independence did not lead to considerable change. Thus in the years 1905–1914, roughly two dozen Estonian artists were able to visit Paris, later becoming known as the first generation of “Parisians.” In the 1920s and 1930s, nearly another 60 artists studied in Paris or went there on shorter excursions. Johannes Aavik, the greatest Estonian linguistic innovator of the early 20th century, also took inspiration from the French language. He attempted to raise Estonian to the same level of clarity, precision and expressiveness as that which he considered French to possess. Acquaintance with the works of French linguists encouraged Andrus Saareste to become involved with Estonian dialects. As with French culture, several associations were also founded in both Tartu and Tallinn for the development of relations with England. In the 1930s English supplanted German as the first foreign language taught in schools. The mid-1920s was the beginning of the heyday of Estonian-Swedish relations. Although Estonian diplomacy had not hoped for more than moral support from Sweden, Estonia nevertheless attempted to make maximum use of Sweden’s modest interest in Estonia. A great enlivenment in relations between the two countries was noticeable as of 1928. Trade increased significantly, and there was a great influx of Swedish capital into Estonia and the other Baltic States. Ivar Kreger’s match company purchased the Estonian match factories, and achieved a monopoly in the local market. Swedish interest in oil shale increased, and the press began reporting the need for a regular ferry connection between Estonia and Sweden. The most notable

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event was Swedish Archbishop Nathan Söderblom’s visit to Estonia. He arrived in Tallinn in 1928 as the Swedish King’s special representative. He also participated in the unveiling of the Gustav II Adolf monument in Tartu and in the Song Festival. In Tallinn he opened an exhibition of Swedish art that could be described as the largest foreign exhibition that had reached Estonia at that time. The culmination of relations between Sweden and Estonia came with the visit to Stockholm in September 1928 of Riigivanem (Head of State) Jaan Tõnisson to visit Swedish King Gustav V, who had just celebrated his 70th birthday. The public, however, was much more interested in the Swedish King’s return visit the following year. In the press, the idea of BaltoScandinavian regional unity and solidarity was recalled in connection with these visits. For instance, in June 1929 General Johan Laidoner undertook an extensive trip through the countries around the Baltic Sea. In interviews given in several places, he spoke of Baltic and Scandinavian co-operation. Laidoner alluded that Estonia did not wish to publicly force plans of a defensive military alliance for fear of aggravating Russia and frightening Sweden. The general hoped, however, that it would be possible to create the alliance even without it being laid down on paper. The Swedish government and public continued to have a positive attitude towards Estonia. This is confirmed by the visit of Crown Prince Gustav Adolf to Tartu University in 1932 for the 300 th anniversary celebrations. It goes without saying that Sweden did not wish to retreat from its official policy of neutrality. Relations were mainly limited to the expansion of economic and cultural contacts. In politics and military matters, co-operation was extremely modest. Officials in Tallinn were not so naive as to expect anything more. In Estonia it was simply believed that cordial relations with Scandinavia would ultimately promote the development of relations with other neighbours, and also mark Estonia’s continuing aspiration to a democratic and liberal Europe. 7. Crisis in International Relations As of 1934, the gulf between the needs of Estonian domestic and foreign policy had widened. Important events occurred abroad, especially the increase in the foreign policy activity of the Soviet Union, and of course Hitler’s rise to the position of Chancellor of Germany. In that period, more opportunities should have been sought for co-operation with the democratic Scandinavian

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and Western countries. In domestic politics, however, there was a shift in March 1934 towards an authoritarian regime. The role of the military increased significantly in the country’s domestic politics and matters involving foreign policy. It is difficult to say what factors eventually became decisive in Estonia, finding itself alone in the search for its place and identity in international relations. Desiring to distance itself painlessly from the crisis in international relations in Central and Eastern Europe, the Scandinavian social democrats were quite well suited by the pretext that Sweden did not wish to have anything to do with an authoritarian regime in the Baltics. Estonian representatives thus spoke mainly of specific cultural and trade matters when in Stockholm and Finland, and avoided topics involving political or military co-operation. Investigations of the Northern dimension indeed fit in with Estonia’s search for identity, but they were alien to Finland and Scandinavia. At the same time, in Tallinn there was less and less faith that closer cooperation among the Baltic States alone could in any way increase national security. There were, unfortunately, no alternatives to the Baltic dimension, narrow in terms of economics and culture. A common Baltic identity did not, however, develop. Like many of their colleagues elsewhere in Europe, Estonia’s leading politicians and soldiers hoped that the ideological conflict between the Nazis and the Communists would persist, despite the outward similarities between the two. Therefore greater expectations were placed on the hope that (despite the Nazi ideology dominant in Germany, and alien to Estonia), Berlin would retain interest in preserving the independence of the Baltic States, of course first and foremost that of Estonia. Many soldiers had good personal relations with Wehrmacht officers. There was also relatively close co-operation with Berlin at the level of the general staffs. Germany’s action increased considerably in the second half of the 1930s. Relations became very close in the first half of 1939. Several high-ranking German soldiers and Abwehr men, headed by Admiral Canaris, visited Estonia in the early summer of 1939. The frigate Admiral Hipper arrived for a visit in Tallinn, which was also politically meaningful, regardless of the fact that the German seamen were beaten up in the cafés of Tallinn. Estonia attempted to find a political and military counterbalance to the Soviet threat, which was becoming dominant, while the dangers of an agreement between Hitler and Stalin were ignored, although corresponding warnings had been heard both at home and abroad. Unfortunately however,

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no one offered a worthwhile alternative as to what should be done if such an agreement were indeed to be made. England and France consistently distanced themselves from the Baltic region. There was even a perceptible desire to do away with the buffer zone between Germany and Russia altogether. This independent chain seemed only to attract Berlin and Moscow to continue their co-operation. With the removal of the buffer, it could be hoped that tensions would rise and thus an agreement between the dictators could be ruled out. In Paris and London however, there were increasingly strident voices demanding, out of fear of Hitler, co-operation with Stalin at any cost. Both dictators were considered evil and dangerous, but Hitler and Germany were simply closer than Stalin. Germany’s demonstratively benevolent attitude towards Estonia itself caused criticism in democratic countries, and indirectly further justified their distancing themselves from the problems of the Baltic States. 8. 1939, Fateful Year On 28 March 1939 Maksim Litvinov, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, delivered a note to the Estonian and Latvian governments. The note contained the assurance that the Soviet Union would not permit the curtailment or restriction of the Baltic States’ independence or the surrender of political, economic or other sovereignty to a third country. Moscow confirmed that it could not remain an indifferent bystander in the event of an overt or covert attempt to destroy the independence of the Baltic States. That note was viewed as a quite clear formulation of Moscow’s interests – henceforth Moscow, and Moscow alone, would be permitted to make decisions concerning the independence of the Baltic States. That was the reward Stalin expected to receive in return for a trilateral alliance with the western countries against Hitler. The price was stated directly and clearly. Stalin offered the West assistance, at a certain cost, and demanded that Eastern Europe be incorporated into his sphere of influence. The abovementioned note was aimed less at the Baltic States than at the Western countries. On 4 April Litvinov cynically commented that Britain and France could not manage without the assistance of the Soviet Union, but that the later they asked for that assistance, the greater the fee they would have to pay.

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Why did the Western countries refuse to enter into military co-operation with the Soviet Union? Why did they not immediately agree to give their blessing to the incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence, so as to obtain an agreement they found suitable? The curtailment of the Baltic States’ independence would most likely not have been much of a price to pay to avoid world war. In addition, much greater concessions had earlier been made to Hitler. The behaviour of Britain and France has been explained by the argument that the general public in those democratic countries would not have consented to such a transaction. It has mainly been thought that Stalin’s desire to regain the three Baltic States for Russia was generally known, but English and French democratic traditions, which prohibited the sacrificing to Stalin of independent states in the name of an agreement, was the main obstacle to this. It does seem, however, that in 1939 the situation was reversed, and public opinion in the Western countries instead demanded an agreement with Moscow at all costs. It was of course complicated for the democratic states to betray the Baltic States too directly, but it would have been completely possible if concealed behind suitable wording. It is naive to see this refusal as a sign of some special affinity with the Baltic States. The authoritarian regimes in this region could not have motivated the Western countries to go to war for them. They were relatively indifferent to the fate of the Baltic States. One may assume that the diplomats and politicians of the Western countries were unable to pursue a consistently realpolitik-based approach. The attempt to tie itself to Moscow without paying the price demanded by the latter was not an example of great diplomatic capability. In 1939 the Western countries still attempted to defend the (now already non-existent) Versailles system that they themselves had created at the Paris Peace Conference 20 years earlier. As has been mentioned, the Baltic States were at least indirectly a part of this system. One cannot, however, completely rule out the possibility that some Western diplomats were guided by Machiavellian teachings and concealed realpolitik tactics behind an ostensibly idealistic approach. In accordance with this, it was desired to keep Poland and the Baltic States in reserve until the last moment of the trilateral negotiations being held in Moscow between Britain, France and the Soviet Union, as bait with which to lure Stalin into entering the war against Hitler.

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There is certainly much truth in the assumption that the trilateral negotiations failed due to ideological prejudices, miscalculations, doubts and the absolute absence of mutual trust. One cannot rule out the possibility that the Western countries were held back by justified fears of the Kremlin’s insincerity. The West had taken note of the simultaneous negotiations taking place between Moscow and Berlin, and feared that Stalin was using those merely to seize Hitler’s attention. At the same time, the Western countries were unsure whether the Red Army, having survived the Great Purge, was indeed capable of occupying anything more than the Baltic States. It would not have been very sensible for them to have given their blessing to that. The Baltic question became one of the most painful and also decisive topics at the trilateral negotiations. It became clear that London and Paris did not want to be tied to the Baltic States, yet at the same time could not force them to surrender, like Czechoslovakia. Some kind of agreement with Moscow was sought, but they shied away from a public military alliance that would give Stalin a free hand. Moscow demanded, with increasing persistence, that help to the Baltic States should be left to the great powers alone to decide. They were offered guarantees from three great powers, but in actual fact this reverted to more of a unilateral guarantee by the Soviet Union, and implied a right to interfere in the internal affairs of the Baltic States at a time that was suitable to Moscow. In justification of its demands, the Kremlin adopted the principle of socalled indirect aggression. In explanation of the demands, it was argued that a pro-German coup d’état was possible in the Baltic States, and that this would endanger the Soviet Union. This was, in the Kremlin’s opinion, possible either through a direct coup d’état, an agreement targeting it, or simply a change of government in Tallinn. Stalin demanded the right to decide what kind of change in the domestic politics of the Baltic States could be considered dangerous, and then to go to their assistance to “safeguard independence.” In June 1939 the Western countries agreed that the Soviet Union could automatically assist the Baltic States in the event of direct aggression. In the event of indirect aggression, however, they only offered to begin mutual consultations. By the end of July, the great powers’ positions with regard to the question of the Baltic States and Poland had been clarified. Britain and France were prepared to make concessions to Moscow. The price of this, however, was to be a military alliance and an obligation on Moscow’s part to assist Poland and

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the western countries in the event of war. That meant that the Soviet Union could automatically be drawn into war. At the same time, German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop sent a telegram to Moscow removing the last obstacles to an agreement with Stalin. He confirmed that there was no problem between the Baltic and the Black seas that Moscow and Berlin could not resolve. Ribbentrop emphasised that National Socialist Germany and Stalinist Russia had common enemies – the capitalist western democracies, which were attempting to lure Moscow into war. Berlin thus offered the resolution of all open questions without the Soviet Union having to go to war. It was also willing to accept Moscow’s proposal for the joint “safeguard” of the Baltic States. 9. The Consequences of the Hitler-Stalin Pact The second stage of the implementation of the Hitler-Stalin Pact began directly after the joint Wehrmacht-Red Army parades in defeated Poland in September 1939. Estonian Foreign Minister Karl Selter and then the representatives of the other Baltic States were called to the Kremlin. In Tallinn and other capitals, it was decided not to resist Moscow’s requests, and to permit the establishment of Soviet bases here. At least 25,000 Red Army soldiers arrived in Estonia, and their numbers increased continually. At that time, Estonia had an army of roughly 16,000. Estonia’s capitulation without any resistance can be explained by different factors. These are often attributed to cowardice or indecisiveness, because a great many perceptive Estonians were able to foresee what allowing foreign troops into Estonia would lead to in the near future, and that Estonia’s soldiers, for instance, demanded resistance. Unfortunately, the government decided otherwise. The fateful decision to admit the Soviet troops can also be explained by alienation from the people, or even treachery. The authoritarian system that was in power in Estonia ruled out democratic elections, and thus those in power perhaps were not held sufficiently accountable. The main justification is indeed that Estonia received no support from Berlin or closer neighbouring countries, and as a result fell into a foreign policy isolation. One must recall, however, that the western countries assumed no obligations with regard to the Baltic States during 1939. Guarantees were granted to Poland, but not to the Baltic States. In addition, the said guarantees were initially meant only as a prerequisite to co-operation with Moscow.

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After Germany’s invasion of Poland, the western countries declared war on the aggressor. After 17 September, when the Red Army marched across the Polish border, it would have been a logical and just continuation to declare war on the Soviet Union. Directly after the Red Army’s invasion, British and French diplomatic representations recommended not declaring war. In the House of Commons there was indeed talk of Britain’s moral duty, and Polish bravery, but the need to consider so-called national interests was also emphasised. In the Western countries opinions were expressed that the Russians were indeed legally entitled to the areas east of the Curzon Line, proposed in 1919–1920 as the border between Poland and the Soviet Union. There were even accusations that it was the Western countries themselves which had forced the Soviet Union into an alliance with Hitler and were thus indirectly responsible for what happened. In Western capitals there was a general view that obligations assumed under treaties and agreements had to be honoured, but not at the expense of national interests. It was impossible for the West to offer Poland real assistance, yet there was also a desire not to fall out with Russia. The overall assessment of the Hitler-Stalin Pact in the Western countries was that it was not a strong and enduring alliance. Such an assessment was indeed based more on belief and intuition than hard facts, but the Western countries also did not have the option of engaging in simultaneous war against both Germany and the Soviet Union. In addition, public opinion polls showed an uncertain attitude to Russia’s actions. Nearly half of English respondents were convinced that a British government representative should immediately be sent to Moscow to discuss future relations with the Soviet Union. In any event, it was decided to avoid the severing of diplomatic relations with Russia. Instead, trade negotiations between England and the Soviet Union soon began. The justification was simple, strained relations and Western actions hostile to Moscow would have forced Stalin into even closer military and economic co-operation with Hitler. As it was, it was feared that the economic potential of the Soviet Union would fall into Hitler’s hands. In this situation, Moscow’s “benevolent neutrality” towards Germany suited the Western countries. The Western countries had little opportunity to influence the future fate of the Baltic States. It is unlikely that any effort was made to that end. The above-mentioned countries accepted Soviet Ambassador Ivan Maiski’s explanation, given in London, that the Red Army’s westward shift was a

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purely defensive step, and also his justification that the Baltic States were indeed too unstable a region, whose friendship could not be relied upon. The Western countries were not interested in a new military conflict between the Soviet Union and its neighbours. The weeks or even a couple of months of Red Army hostilities against a united Estonian-Latvian front that optimistic Estonian soldiers considered realistic, would have led to great international problems for the Baltic States. The foreign policy benefit would, on the other hand, have been doubtful. It is unlikely that hostilities in the Baltic States would have forced the Western countries to take firm steps with regard to Moscow, and thus against their national interests. In the event of the outbreak of war between the Baltic States and the Soviet Union, it is more likely that it would have been the Baltic States that would have been criticised. In addition, Moscow offered the Baltic States the Treaty of Mutual Assistance that, for the whole of 1939, the Western countries had also called for. The treaty offered was clothed in the noble phraseology of friendship, peace and mutual assistance. The acceptance of such a pact even permitted the hope that the Baltic States could later serve as intermediaries in a rapprochement between Moscow and the Western countries. Few believed in a lasting friendship between Stalin and Hitler. Winston Churchill, as a member of the British War Cabinet, announced on 1 October in a radio broadcast: “We could have wished that the Russian armies should have been standing on their present line as the friends and allies of Poland instead of invaders.” That line was, in his opinion, necessary for the safety of Russia, considering the threat from Germany. Thus the Western countries were prepared to consent to the occupation of Polish territory by the Red Army, if Moscow were to enter the war with them. Churchill’s opinion can definitely also be extended to the Red Army units that marched into the Baltic States in the following days. They were not seen as a force preparing an occupation, but as one potential anti-Hitler force that had now significantly improved its position. In such circumstances, the Baltic States were deprived of any choice. In other words, they had either to succumb or resist. The latter would definitely have meant war. Many officers, the army and part of the population were perhaps even prepared for that. How long resistance against the Red Army could have been sustained was irrelevant. More importantly, was the Western countries feared that hostilities in the Baltics would likely have caused the continuation and intensification of Russo-German joint operations.

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A war in the Baltics would certainly have complicated the Western countries’ situation. It would have forced them to take some position of their own. Regardless of other considerations, conflict with Moscow was not in the interests of Western countries. The Baltic States had to take this into consideration, and they were prepared to grasp at straws. In conclusion, in succumbing to Moscow’s pressure in September-October 1939, Estonia was following its old principle, dating from the birth of independence, of always and in all matters considering the interests of the Western countries. Unfortunately this was no longer in Estonia’s own interests. The formal liquidation of the Republic of Estonia followed somewhat later, concurrent with the demise of the 3rd Republic in France. In March 1940 the Red Army tired of fighting in Karelia. Losses were great, and also the Western countries, with which Moscow was attempting to maintain its already fragile relations, had threatened to come to the assistance of Finland. The success of the German forces in Europe in spring and summer 1940 encouraged and also frightened Stalin. Moscow’s attention was increasingly focused on the area south of the Gulf of Finland, because it did not trust its friend and co-signatory of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Or perhaps it was hoped that soon it would be the Red Army’s turn to march into Europe and light the “Stalinist torch of peace.” On 17 June 1940, simultaneously with the accusation that Estonia had lost control of its domestic situation as well as of its foreign policy, additional Red Army units were brought into Estonia, and on 21 June 1940 the nascent occupation was rendered official by a coup d’état. Most of Europe was oblivious of Estonia for the nearly 50 years that followed. Not only Estonian national identity, but indeed the physical existence of an entire people was called into question.

III. The Soviet Period (1940–1988)

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Andres Tarand The Soviet Period According to the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed on the eve of the Second World War, Estonia effectively lost its independence by signing the military bases agreement dictated to it by the Soviet Union in September 1939. The annexation became official as a result of false elections and of joining the Soviet Union in July 1940 “by the will of the people.” At once, Stalinist terror set to work. To start with, people simply “disappeared” (they were arrested without attention being drawn to the fact). In June 1941, one week before the German attack on the Soviet Union, the first mass deportations were organised in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. By September of that year, most of the territory of Estonia had been occupied by German forces and by October 1944 the Estonian mainland had been reoccupied by the Red Army. In actual fact, the war in Estonia continued for a further ten years with a resistance movement known as “the Forest Brothers” on one side and the continuation of the Stalinist terror regime on the other. In total, Estonia lost approximately one fifth of its population during the war and as a result of acts of repression. “Approximately” is used here in the sense that it is not possible to state the number of victims with any great degree of accuracy due to the wide dispersion of information, because of the falsifications made by the occupying forces and, in some cases, due to the fact that the information simply does not exist. But the general proportions are known. The largest group is made up of people imprisoned in or deported to Siberia (actually, the expression “to send to Siberia” also denotes prison camps or colonies of deportees in the European part of Russia). This group is followed by those who fled to the East or West, those who were forcibly incorporated into the Red Army or the German Army, and those who died or were executed during the war. During dinner at a conference in Linz a few years ago, a former Polish minister, Michael Wilczinski, who happened to be my neighbour at table, asked me with genuine interest, “How is it possible that you, the Estonians, although there are so few of you, managed to stand up to the Russian regime for so long?” It is a familiar topic for Poles because they have themselves been subjugated by their neighbours on more than one occasion over the course of the last couple of centuries. I had not prepared an answer but, when speaking with a companion in misfortune, even a fumbled answer produces some kind of result. It is harder to get people to understand if they come from

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countries where there has been a more or less stable democracy for a long time. Even during the Brezhnev era, a joke did the rounds in Estonia about Sweden, the country to which most of the Estonian war refugees fled in 1944. During the 1960s, a few people who had remained in Estonia were fortunate enough to be able to visit their close relatives in Sweden. And so they would sit down and talk about all the horrors which had happened back at home, including the deportations. About how there would be an unexpected pounding on the door, how you would be given an hour to pack your essential things, and if you were lucky you could also take your sewing machine with you, and how you would then be put into railway cattle wagons. A Swede had been listening to the conversation and then finally, amazed, asked, “But then, why on earth didn’t you call the police?” In his book Imperium, the Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski describes the Soviet concentration camps he visited at the beginning of the 1990s when prisoners were no longer deported there. He lists the greatest horrors of the 20th century as Auschwitz, Treblinka, Hiroshima, Vorkuta and Magadan. In a hotel in Magadan, he meets three Japanese from Sapporo who are trying to sell textiles. They do not know where they are. They are conducting business and bowing – courteous, clean, efficient. They want to sell their textiles; that is what brings them here. But while they arrive here laden with elegant fabrics, one can also come with an utterly different type of baggage, that is, the baggage of knowledge – about the place in which I now find myself talking with the Japanese. The fact is that we are standing on top of human bones. And even if, as a result of this awareness, one were to spring back a step or even run several hundred metres, it would not matter: everywhere it’s just cemeteries and more cemeteries. Those good little Japanese, who had no idea of the meaning of Magadan, would have had no difficulty interpreting Hiroshima as a symbol. In Western Europe, almost everyone has heard of Auschwitz but those who are able to draw a parallel between it and Magadan, Vorkuta or Norilsk are few and far between. People used to living in countries where the rule of law takes precedence tend to ask, “What were you punished for?” In general, that kind of question is misguided. For the Bolsheviks, it was a matter of liquidating the kulaks as a class, of removing the officers of the suppressed people, while in reality it was a matter of liquidating independent-minded people. The

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totalitarian system does not follow the same logic as a country under the rule of law. At this point, I will allow myself to quote just one passage from the recently published book Eesti elulood. Sajandi sada elulugu kahes osas [Estonian biographies. One hundred biographies of the century in two volumes]. The elderly teacher Mrs. Helmes Tungal writes: Interrogations. Why was I not dismissed from my teaching post during the German occupation? Why was I the leader of the “Daughters of the Homeland” (Kodutütred)1? Why did I teach the Estonian national anthem at school? (I was a singing teacher.) Why, when I signed up as a teacher at the department of education in 1930, did I swear to be an honest and loyal Estonian teacher? Why was my brother an Estonian officer, a naval lieutenant? Why did my parents have a large farm? (My older brother, the owner of the farm after our father’s death, was arrested in 1944.) Why were my mother and sister deported to Novosibirsk? Etc. etc. It is impossible to explain all this or even to remember it all. So the guilt accompanies you right from birth. This is where one of the difficulties lies in explaining Estonian history to Western Europeans: we did not want either Germany or the Soviet Union and in the war we did not choose either side. As Estonian Major General August Traksmaa, a graduate of the École supérieure de guerre in Paris, said shortly before the start of the war, “If you are asked if you would prefer to contract smallpox or the plague, then the answer is – neither.” But here in Estonia, the victims of Stalinist terror far outnumber those of Hitler’s regime. While it is true to say that Stalin’s followers had longer to carry out their acts of terror, it was the horror of the first year of Soviet occupation (1940–41) which was the decisive factor and which led to the arrival of the German forces in 1941 being initially hailed by the majority as the arrival of a liberating army. It was only after some time had passed that it became clear that the Germans were not about to take any steps to restore the independence of Estonia and that the new occupying force had also set up its own policy of repression. The political elite then began to search for a possible third way, that is to say the restoration of independence with the support of the Western allies. But this remained a theoretical attempt as the war followed its own logical path. There were more important problems to be dealt with in the West and the borders of post-war Europe were put in place at Yalta. Although the majority of western countries did not recognise the incorporation of Estonia into the Soviet Union

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de jure, the issue of independence was no longer on the agenda. This solution and the Second World War in general had a considerable effect on the Estonian conscience. For the first time, Estonians had been split into antagonistic groups, such as kulaks and those who obtained land from the state, Forest Brothers and members of the destroyer battalions, those who had been evacuated to Russia in 1941 and those who had fled to the West in 1944, and so on. The number of people who embraced communism or National Socialism because of their existing ideological convictions was remarkably small. It even seems as if the class hatred which accompanied the Russian October Revolution was significantly weaker amongst Estonians than amongst the neighbouring Finns, where the revolution set off an intense civil war. However, the Winter War, which started at the end of 1939, was the first step towards overcoming the hatred which had built up during the civil war in Finland, where even the majority of those on the left of the political spectrum fought against the foreign enemy. It was at just this time that Estonia began to split internally. Individual choices were often affected more by historical force majeure than by convictions or wishes. This was also the first occasion on which the question of collaboration was raised to such an extent in Estonian society. Attitudes towards the Germans, who had long represented the upper class (the Baltic nobility) and who, during the period of National Awakening in Estonia, had been presented as the main oppressors, went through a radical change. In spite of the 1919 land reform which awarded the land of the German landowners to Estonian farmers, the Estonians, including some of the intellectuals, still suffered somewhat from an inferiority complex. Carl Mothander, a Swede who tried to take on the role of mediator between the Estonians and the Baltic-Germans while living in Estonia after the War of Independence, quotes in his book Landlords, Estonians and Bolsheviks (1943) the Estonian architect Hanno Kompus, who explained the impossibility of social relations in the early years of the Estonian Republic as follows: We, the men, would gladly come. We enjoy the company of the Baltic gentlemen very much… But our wives are against it. You know that we are the first generation of Estonians to have received an education. This is not a particular problem for men, but the ladies of our leading circles are mainly from an extremely modest background. They have often started out as milkmaids or as servants of those very Germans with whom you now wish to put us together… I have a feeling that your intentions are

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laudable but that you are one generation too early. And anyway, there are not many Baltic-Germans who would take this seriously. It would be too much to hope that they would already have forgotten the land reform. Maybe our children will join hands across the gulf which separates us, and it is certain that our grandchildren will. Without being able to say that I belong to the generation of the children or grandchildren of Hanno Kompus (there are 50 years between us), I can confirm that there is no longer a cultural gulf. Of course, at the time this conversation took place, no-one knew that the Second World War would almost totally eliminate the Baltic-German and Swedish minorities in Estonia (before the war they had made up 1.5% and 0.7% of the population respectively). This has had a dual consequence on Estonian attitudes. On the one hand, the lack of an Estonian aristocracy has forced people to cast a critical eye over the attempts of some of their compatriots to demonstrate their success. The appearance of a new economic elite on two occasions during the century has led primarily to the creation of a nouveau riche tier. On the other hand, the absence of a class system has enabled democracy to win the day and is reflected in the fact that the Estonian parliament has always had just a single chamber. After the Tartu Peace Treaty was signed (2 February 1920) and the areas on the far side of the Narva River and in the South-East were joined to Estonia, the Russian community became the largest minority in Estonia (8% of the total population). As not everyone in these areas was literate, the Estonians began to feel a sense of superiority with regard to them. After the front was breached in the autumn of 1944, in addition to the Russians who had been assigned to various posts in Estonia, there was an influx of people from the bordering regions of Russia who were fleeing from the destruction of the war and searching for a better life. The best-known of these were the “bag boys” who travelled on the roofs of railway carriages (they were mainly homeless teenagers who had not been mobilised) and who made a living by pick-pocketing. In reality, there were no tensions between civilians at that time and this can be explained by several factors. After any war, everyone is busy trying to restore normal living conditions. Strange or foreign customs always arouse a degree of opposition but clearly at that time any possible inter-ethnic tensions were hidden by the dominant state terror. In order to see if this theory held true, I checked the aforementioned Estonian Biographies and, indeed, against the backdrop of the tremendous losses which had

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occurred, there is no mention of any problems in relations between Estonians and Russians at the time, even though in popular speech the term “Russian” also designated those responsible for state terror. There is a long tradition of this kind of usage in Estonia. A popular way of dividing the periods of Estonian history is to use such expressions as “the Swedish era,” “the German era,” “the Russian era” and “the Estonian era” (although there is no Danish or Polish era, despite Estonia having been partially ruled by both of these countries in the past). This was soon realised by the local ideologists of the Communist Party and the word “Russian” disappeared from the officially permitted language. How? The censor took care of that. For example, it would be said that in Tallinn there were Estonians, Ukrainians, Tatars and representatives of the Russian nation, but not Russians. Small peoples often have a somewhat exaggerated interest in whether anyone in the wider world has heard of them. This is something more than the phenomenon, also apparent with larger peoples, of turning a sporting victory achieved by a compatriot into a collective victory for the whole nation. It is essential for the national conscience of a people that there are these sporting victories from time to time. But a small nation occasionally has problems in finding competent people to perform more important functions. This is compensated for in its own way. Estonians love to quote (incorrectly!) Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not (1937) to foreigners: At pier four there is a 34-foot yawl-rigged yacht with two of the three hundred and twenty-four Esthonians who are sailing around in different parts of the world, in boats between 28 and 36 feet long and sending back articles to the Esthonian newspapers… No well-run yacht basin in Southern waters is complete without at least two sunburned, salt bleachedheaded Esthonians… By “incorrectly,” I mean that according to current Estonian folklore Hemingway actually wrote that you will certainly meet at least one Estonian in any port in the world. Ten years after Hemingway’s novel was published, a considerable number of Estonians, bearing in mind the size of the total population, had settled in all five continents and not just in southern yacht basins. However, this was, of course, not of their own free will. We can perhaps say that 1956 was the final year of Stalinist terror. This was the year in which the mass return to Estonia of those deported to Siberia began. The release of deportees and exiles was one element of the so-called

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“Khrushchev Thaw.” I remember it well because, as a boy of sixteen, I saw my father again for the first time in eleven years. He arrived from Vorkuta, without the permission of the authorities, but even a father on the run is something. After that I saw him with many other returned prisoners and the impression that I got is one that has remained with me ever since: that in some way prisoners were freer and, vice versa, than that those who were free were more captive. By this I mean to say that, when it came to formalities, prisoners were not ashamed of addressing each other using the titles “sir” and “madam,” nor of telling the truth in a normal voice. People who had not been sent to a prison camp, that is to say those who lived in constant fear of being sent to one, used the title “comrade” in public or tried to avoid using titles altogether and, before uttering any kind of a truth that could be deemed to be of a political nature, they would go to check that no-one was listening behind the door. The technology used by “Big Brother” was still on the primitive side, but nonetheless people still whispered at home, just in case. One important element of Khrushchev’s reforms involved the kolkhozes (collective farms). In Estonia, they were created in 1949 during the course of a massive campaign at the time of the deportations and they were a symbol of economic misery. The rise of the Estonian kolkhozes actually occurred in the 1960s and it had its roots in two factors: the industriousness of the people who had come from farms before the war and the use of the apparently unending supply of cheap energy resources from Russia. As Moscow had decided to turn Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into a farm for Moscow and Leningrad, a peculiar kind of feudal system developed where the director of the local kolkhoz could apply for certain privileges provided that production targets were met. As repayment, and as long as he toed the political line, he was given extensive power over his fief (the kolkhoz). The system had its harmful sides but the first visible effect was actually that living conditions in the countryside improved. Within ten or fifteen years, Estonia became the only Soviet republic where, according to the official statistics, average wages in the agricultural sector were higher than those in the towns. The fact that a relatively uneducated tractor driver in the countryside was paid three or four times the wages of a teacher brought about a change of sorts in people’s attitudes (and because of the high number of women teachers, marriages between teachers and tractor drivers were quite commonplace). At the same time, a start was made on setting up centrally-planned heavy industry, which promoted Russification of a mechanical nature. Whereas during the immediate pre-war period it had been Estonians fleeing their

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homes in fear of repression who had been taken on to work in industry or the mines, the new industries were principally being supplied with people specially recruited from the East. There were places (the town of Narva) where Estonians were allowed to live only in exceptional circumstances and others (Kohtla-Järve) from which Estonians left voluntarily because the concentration of non-Estonians there exceeded their threshold of tolerance. The year 1956 may also be considered to be effectively the end of the Forest Brothers. This armed resistance movement, which had essentially operated as a prolongation of the Second World War, was dealt a huge blow by the deportations of March 1949 and the accompanying enforced collectivisation which deprived the resistors of their main support (the farms). In fact, on a much wider scale 1956 marked the end of the direct struggle against the Soviet empire with the brutal suppression of the Hungarian uprising by Soviet tanks and then with the Suez crisis. These events shattered the illusions of even the greatest of optimists that the Soviet Union would be forced to retreat from the territories it had conquered during the war. While the Khrushchev Thaw did indeed bring about some internal reforms, there were no substantial changes to the structure of the empire. The effective end of the Forest Brothers (although the last of them, August Sabbe, was only shot and killed in a raid as late as 1978) is probably associated in the collective conscience with symbols which are difficult to explain. Over the centuries and under the combined influence of Estonian nature and Estonian history, the forests (and in particular islands situated in peat bogs) have been used as hiding places for those trying to flee from occupying forces. Moving around in a peat bog needs a certain know-how which, although mostly forgotten by today’s urbanised Estonians, is still mastered better by locals than by foreigners. And so fleeing to the forest (and the Forest Brothers) has become a synonym for survival and liberty. It is hardly likely that it would be discussed in this way consciously, but the recent story of the Voitka brothers and its coverage in the Estonian press points to the connection. The two brothers hid themselves in the forests for around ten years to avoid being conscripted into the Soviet army. The re-independence of Estonia, which soon followed, did nothing to change their attitude and instead of coming out of the forest and returning to normal life they decided to make their living by going in for petty and slightly more serious crime. When the police finally caught them, the forest-romantic sympathy which had been felt towards them and which had been kept aglow by the press was suddenly set ablaze. The humorous aspect of all this is that many of the people who

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sympathised with the two brothers and denounced the activities of the police in trying to catch them have themselves been the victims of crimes against property (break-ins, car theft and pick-pocketing have been one of the scourges of the period of transition) and have decried the police for their inability to prevent or expose such crime. The press sensed this “secret chord in the soul of the people” and, for purely economic reasons, blew the whole story up out of all proportion. What I am trying to say is simply that these sentiments find their resonance in centuries past. For the most socially conscious part of the population, this period resulted in a fundamental change of attitude which was brought about by the events in Hungary and, on the domestic scene, by the change in direction from a policy of terror to a relative increase in what was permitted, as well as an improvement in the standard of living and the continuation of organised immigration. Until then, joining the Communist Party or Komsomol had, for the majority of people, meant collaboration with the occupying force. Now, however, a movement began to grow to encourage Estonians to join the Communist Party en masse in order to “take it into their own hands.” The example to follow was Lithuania where the workforce needed for industry did a much better job of providing for their own heartland (the villages) than was the case in Estonia and Latvia, giving “national” communists better opportunities to occupy or apply for leading positions. In Latvia, the Kremlin crushed this new national orientation to the party very early on. In Estonia, attempts were made to patch up the defence of the nation by relying on the modernisers of Marxism who had appeared in the West in the sixties. However, the “modernisation” of literature had much greater significance. The functions of praising the great leader and teacher and of ideological brainwashing were again replaced by the artistic function and, thanks to the polysemy of language, many writers were able to send messages of a type which were necessary to keep the conscience of the people alive. In fact this became an art form in its own right. It can also be noted that Estonia was the only one of the Soviet republics to succeed in starting up a periodical publication of literature from around the world (including Estonian literature) which, although modest in appearance, was most impressive in terms of its contents (Loomingu Raamatukogu). It continued to be published throughout the Soviet era and was one important reason as to why, at the time of the upheaval of the system, Estonians as a whole were generally better informed of what was going on in the world than people elsewhere in the Soviet empire.

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The period starting in 1956 was also the time when Estonia began seeking contacts on the other side of the Iron Curtain, even though their real effect would only become evident much later. It is difficult to get people who have grown up in freedom to imagine the excitement when the first large group of foreigners (from outside the Soviet empire) arrived in Tallinn. I would not even believe it myself now if my schoolboy memory had not stored the event away so well. The first visitors were the players in a Swedish football team and I saw them on the street near the only decent hotel left in Tallinn. It was 1957 and I was working during the summer holiday as a helper at the stadium, which meant that I was again in a very privileged position during the friendly match – I was able to see real live Swedes close up! In 1965, after a break of a quarter of a century, shipping traffic recommenced between Tallinn and Helsinki. Although tourism was kept under strict control, direct contact between people still proved possible as the similarity of the Estonian and Finnish languages meant that there was only a small language barrier to overcome. This fact also played a decisive role in the growing audience that Finnish television was obtaining in Estonia. As opposed to the authorities in East Berlin, the authorities here turned a blind eye to this for a long time and only in 1980 when the Russification process intensified was an aborted attempt made to remove Finnish television aerials from people’s roofs. Finlandisation also meant that the Finns did not include any material in their radio or television programmes which could have been interpreted by their large neighbour to the East as being anti-Soviet. Nevertheless, for the majority of Estonians, world news in pictures and a reflection of the general standard of living along with the then popular detailed political and cultural programmes were undoubtedly a great antidote to the Soviet propaganda machine. Some mystics have pointed out that important events in the Soviet empire tended to happen regularly every twelve years. I am not a mystic but I cannot escape the fact that the next number is 1968 – the year of the “Czechoslovakian events,” as they were named by the official terminology of the Brezhnev era. The tanks in Prague signified the end of the illusion that it would be possible to reform the Bolshevik phase of the Russian empire into so-called humane socialism. This was a bitter disappointment to those in Estonia who were in favour of “doing it ourselves” and for the others it meant a triumphal victory for cynicism and hypocrisy. Life had to go on and the duration of the empire seemed to be infinite compared with that of a human life.

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The so-called sauna culture developed in Estonia to an unprecedented degree. While the sauna was really a place for washing, it soon took on a second, no less important, function: entertaining leaders with the objective of obtaining privileges for an enterprise or establishment. In Estonian Biographies, Asta Luksepp wrote the following: In the 1970s, Finnish saunas began to pop up in Estonia like mushrooms. Their objective was entirely economic. At that time there was a deficit of many of the resources which were necessary to develop production. It was imperative to be on extremely good terms with the officials who were responsible for distributing the available resources. I was also sometimes involved myself in laying the table for a reception or cleaning up afterwards. Once, we were again expecting some important leaders from Tallinn. One agricultural leader had ordered his driver to make sure that he took him home at the right time, but this proved extremely difficult as this comrade decided to stay and party on. The driver asked for our help. We coaxed him into the car for a cognac. And the driver quickly drove off, with his boss and a bottle of cognac in the car. In Moscow too you could prove your allegiance to those bosses who were actually fairly low ranked but thought a lot of themselves by bringing them Vana Tallinn (a local liqueur) or Saaremaa eel. The fate of the eel was even reflected in the statistics of the period of transition: in 1989 there was officially very little eel caught but just a couple of years later the catch had increased several thousand-fold. In reality, in the Soviet system eel was simply given to the bosses undercover and the catch was never reflected in the statistics. Factory directors, kolkhoz directors, commercial directors, directors of scientific institutes, they all took eel to Moscow. Amongst the Estonian working masses (that was the official Soviet term), work ethics fell to an unprecedented level. In a society based on the uncertainty of the empire and on extremely wasteful administration, the old Estonian saying “the rope of the manor, let it trail” (you work well for yourself but not for others) led to petty crime against the state becoming the norm. Of course humanity is not so wretched that everyone followed this particular path. It was simply one of the symptoms of the decline of the empire. In Estonia as elsewhere, the more creative or artistic part of the population continued their hidden resistance, the focal point of which was the Writers’

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Union. The theatre played an important role offering as it did the opportunity of certain lines being stressed according to the events of the day. It could be said that the theatre played out politics while the political situation itself was a theatre. Another important role in the passive resistance was played by movements for the protection of nature, the environment and heritage, not just as the preservers of former values but also as barriers to new devastating projects. It has to be said that Estonia did not have a well-known dissident like Solzhenitsyn or Sakharov, Michnik or Havel. But in the seventies, a small group of dissidents dedicated themselves to clarifying the consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and to sending appeals to various international organisations. An illegal magazine was even printed to publicise the group’s activities and any other activities which could be classified as anti-Soviet. The publications of Estonian emigrants were distributed alongside Russian samizdats and other forbidden literature. As later became evident, this kind of material did not reach a very wide audience at all due to the need of the distributors for complete discretion and the fear felt by the general public in terms of having anything to do with anything illegal, but also because of the language barrier or a lack of interest. The fact that a limited number of people were well supplied with banned books, from the Bible to George Orwell’s Animal Farm was thanks to the increase in contacts with the West. In the middle of the seventies, over 100,000 foreign tourists visited Estonia (in 1965 the figure was less than 10,000) and the KGB could no longer manage to check everyone and everything thoroughly. A small number of Estonians also had the opportunity to visit the West. The idea that each Estonian who was granted permission to travel abroad was immediately recruited by the KGB and turned into an obedient underling of an informer would be an underestimation of the powers of the KGB. For starters it would then have been extremely easy for normal people to work out who the spies were, and secondly the system would then just have been idling. In summary, it would seem that during the Brezhnev era, also known as the period of stagnation, the conditions were put in place for the downfall of the empire during the following decade. The main negative effect for Estonia came as a result of the economic and political circumstances and was the fragmentation of society into various groups which were all diversely informed of the Soviet reality. I admit that this too only became clear a dozen or so years later as there was no public debate on important political questions and any real information regarding the state of society would probably mainly

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have been at the disposal of the KGB. The uniting force and defence was culture. The year 1980 also brought about changes here, specifically to the status of the Estonian language. On an international scale, it was the year when hopes were again raised that reforms of a more substantial nature would begin. The basis for the triumph of the Solidarity movement in Poland was that the Bolsheviks were attacked using their own favourite weapon – the proletariat – even though the theory of the proletarian dictatorship was no longer in use in the official propaganda. In Estonia, a domino effect was hoped for as it would have been extremely complicated to imitate Solidarity here due to our small size, the continuing influx of the non-Estonian workforce and the substantially weaker position of a Soviet republic compared to that of the people’s democracy in Poland. In the autumn, the new school language curricula were announced and this left no doubt of the arrival of a new wave of Russification. Up until then, Moscow had not wished to attack openly, right in front of the window of Europe, the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian languages which were written using the Latin alphabet. Now an attempt was made to do just that by introducing Russian into the school curricula on a very large scale. The corresponding secret document from Moscow, dated December 1978, was leaked from the central committee of the Estonian Communist Party. These circumstances led to demonstrations by school pupils in Tallinn. After the demonstrations were broken up brutally, a letter of protest dealing with national questions was written and signed by forty intellectuals. The so-called “letter of the forty,” which many considered to have been worded too mildly, and which it certainly was compared to the declarations made by dissidents, achieved its aim precisely because of that: it was copied and distributed widely without fear of retribution and the people were able to pick up the signal that not everyone had given up yet. This was followed by the deaths in quick succession of several Secretaries General of the Soviet Communist Party and the rise to power of Gorbachev. The Phosphorite War of 1987 (the battle against Moscow’s planned new phosphorite mines and industry in Estonia, which united the Estonian people) marked the beginning of a new era in Estonia. This time, Estonia was the first to recognise that dramatic changes were on the way. I assure you that this is not merely self promotion. Of course, in comparison with the activities of some of the other nations dependent on the Soviet Union, speaking of Estonia in this context may seem rather boastful. In terms of energy deployed, the difference is like that between a match and a

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blazing forest fire. But a match lit at the right time and in the right place can be the start of a forest fire. So what was it that kept the matches dry throughout half a century of violence and misery? Above, I tried to give a brief outline of the world events which had an effect on us and of changes within the empire itself. It is undeniable that those five decades brought about a change in the mentality and attitudes of Estonians. But some things still remain the same. The Swedish sociologists Karl Erik Rosengren and Lennart Weibull summed it up as follows in their book Return to the Western World (1997): From previous studies of basic values and the conditions of value change, we know that the value structure of a given population tends to be rather static, changing only comparatively slowly. It is no great surprise that this is what we find for the Swedish value structure. A more striking result, however, is the fact that the Estonian value structure also seems to have been rather static. As a matter of fact, Estonians seems to have been characterized by a Western value structure even before the Singing Revolution. This fact, in its turn, may well have been an important factor behind the astonishingly rapid change of the very basis of Estonia: its economic structure. Even though the Soviet Republic of Estonia had been under Moscow’s sway for decades, the basic value structure of Estonia’s population had not. Thus when political conditions changed, the return to democratic conditions and a capitalist economy could be a surprisingly quick affair… It is true that a significant part of the Estonian population had been socialized under societal conditions very different from those prevailing under the Soviet occupation. But it is also true that, in spite of the Soviet dominance of officially visible social culture, the older Estonian generations seem to have been able to transfer a basically WestEuropean value structure to their children and grandchildren. I believe that, in addition to this, there is something else, something, which is difficult to grasp scientifically and which can perhaps be summed up with the phrase “geographical determination,” a notion which was not much in vogue in the second half of the 20th century. We should not take this idea of Montesquieu’s too literally and most definitely not as the sole factor affecting peoples, but it would be irresponsible to deny the close connection which exists between material culture and natural conditions. Maybe the Nordic sky with the aurora borealis or with its light summer nights arouses

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somewhat different emotions in people than tender tropical nights, and these emotions may, over the course of the centuries, turn into natural attitudes. This has nothing to do with racism as long as we do not declare one people to be better than others but simply agree that they are different. Northern Europe is unique in that the climate at these latitudes on other continents is rather harsh while we are kept warm by the Gulf Stream from the Atlantic. These days the Nordic identity is no longer a quasi-theory to be discussed around the coffee table but rather a fact which has to a certain extent been confirmed by sociological research. Anatol Lieven (Chechnya, 1998) views it on the scale of the Soviet empire as follows: First of all, there are behavioural norms. Beginning at opposite ends of the spectrum, take the Estonians and the Azeris. It is impossible to spend any length of time in Estonia without being impressed by the extreme emotional coolness and self-restraint with which most Estonians relate in public, coupled with an avoidance of physical contact. My own strongest arguments with Estonians have been conducted by them in terms of icy politeness… Of critical importance therefore in the Baltic States – and something which does the very greatest credit to the Baltic peoples and their national movements – was the fact that the Russian minorities knew they did not have to fear physical attack. It was discovered decades ago that the distance between two people in conversation with each other differs on average between different peoples. I stress “on average” because, according to my wife, when I get very engaged in a conversation and start waving my arms around I tend to violate the physical space of my compatriots. To illustrate Lieven’s idea it would be possible to use the example of the continual forced mass migration into Estonia and how this caused a state of increasing stress for Estonians as they were deprived of the physical space and distance they needed around them. Again, it was not the case that the sense of space felt by the immigrant Russians was any worse or better, it was just different. There is a saying that if an Estonian enters a bus or railway carriage where there is only one other passenger, he will go and sit as far away as possible whereas a Russian will go and sit next to the first passenger. This example is just one of the many small details in how people understand “us” and “them.” These contradictions can be overcome with the ability to adapt. In the opinion of the

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aforementioned Swedish sociologists, “there are clear signs of convergence between the value structures of Estonian Russians and native Estonians – although some basic differences may still be discerned.” Numerous surveys carried out in Estonia have shown that Estonian Russians who visit their old home towns in Russia often admit to not feeling accepted as one of their own there. At any rate, I would like to finish with a critical observation about the Estonians. While writing these lines, an article written by Mel Huang, Baltic editor for the Central Europe Review, was published in one of the daily newspapers. It was entitled “Estonia must believe in itself.” I am entirely in agreement with his observations about the uncertainty displayed by Estonians in recognising their own feelings and presenting them to the world. For them to reach that point successfully, it is necessary that they enjoy a longer period of independence than that which was granted to them in the 20th century. It is in this direction that we are heading. Notes 1

Kodutütred: a patriotic scout organisation founded in 1932.

Jaan Kaplinski, Jaan Kross, Paul-Eerik Rummo, Kalev Kesküla Resistance, Scepticism and Homo Sovieticus An exchange of opinions Participants: Jaan Kaplinski, Jaan Kross, Paul-Eerik Rummo. The discussion is chaired by Kalev Kesküla. Kesküla: Let’s begin with the arrival of Soviet power in Estonia. Did Estonia, in 1944, have any chance of returning to the family of Western nations? Kaplinski: In Europe, the military power of the Soviet Union was overwhelmingly great. I have read that as early as 1944, the Russians had, by way of Swedish mediation, offered to make a separate peace with Germany. Russian sources claim that they were interested in an armistice, since they did not trust their Western Allies. We do not, of course, know how sincere the offer was. Perhaps it was simply a way of applying pressure on the Allies. At any rate, the Western powers had to reckon with the likelihood of the Germans and the Russians arriving at an agreement, and that a second Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact would ensue. For that reason, they could not react with indifference to Soviet demands. Rummo: Clearly, Estonia had no choice. If the Russians intended making a separate peace, the West would have been aware of such moves. In my opinion, they knew more or less everything that was going on. Kross: As I see it, they knew laughably little. They still swear to high heaven that they had not known the true nature of Stalinism… Rummo: They would prefer, in the eyes of history, to prove to have been fools rather than scoundrels. Kross: I too think that Estonia had no choice. But the reality of the situation only became clear to us later. It had been thought that we were sold down the river at Yalta, when in fact this had already occurred with the Treaty of Teheran. There is trustworthy evidence that Roosevelt asked Stalin to keep quiet about their agreement – i.e. the Baltic and other East European states

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remaining in the Soviet sphere of influence – until the presidential elections had taken place in the United States. He feared losing the votes of Americans of East European extraction. Kaplinski: Such behaviour is perfectly suited to the European tradition in politics. The year 1944 was a continuation of 1914… We are convinced that it was we who created our own republics in 1918, whereas in fact the West was interested in creating a cordon sanitaire around Communist Russia. Without the support of the Western powers, such a large number of small states would not have emerged in Eastern Europe. As Russia was an ally in 1944 and had to be given something, it was decided to end all this nonsense. People clearly didn’t think there was a serious chance for the small states to survive. Besides, Stalin and Soviet war heroism were very popular in Western Europe after the war. So no one had the will, nor the possibility, to stand up for the Baltic countries. In France and Italy, people feared that power would fall to the Communists. Nobody knew anything about the Baltic states and simply didn’t want to know either. Kross: No one knew, or wanted to know – that is again something of an exaggeration and a simplification… Rummo: In the parliamentary election campaigns in European countries, the question of the Baltic states was simply not an issue. Kaplinski: Poland was, to an extent, a fashionable issue but no one did anything concrete to help it… Rummo: At the same time, let us not forget that the Western countries had not de jure recognised the incorporation of the Baltic countries into the Soviet Union. But it would perhaps have been too much to expect them to have been able to wrench us free by force. Kaplinski: My virtual godfather, Indro Montanelli, wrote once in the Corriere della Sera about the war in Chechnya, saying what do you expect the West to do, start bombing Moscow? The tragic issue for me is whether, if the Estonian political elite had not been annihilated in 1940–1941, anything wiser could have resulted in 1944. I have difficulties putting myself in the place of Jaan Kross and people older

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than him, but I am troubled by the question as to whether, if something had been attempted in 1944, it would have been so clear cut that nothing could have been achieved… Kross: You have reproached someone – I’m not sure precisely who – of doing nothing in 1941. In order to neutralise that accusation, let us remember that three years later something was attempted. I am thinking of the Estonian National Committee and the Tief government. Kaplinski: I’m not reproaching anyone. But I do think that people with political experience could have warned people that joining the Estonian Legion (an Estonian organization linked to the Waffen SS) was not a very clever move. Rummo: I don’t think it was a particularly stupid one. A large number of men joined, in what could hardly be called a voluntary manner, though not too reluctantly either. This in itself amounted to some form of action. Kaplinski: In 1939, Estonians were very anti-German and many felt like going to Poland’s aid. But what turned people against Soviet power was its sheer insane inhumanity. In one year, Stalin managed to create a situation such that the Germans were greeted as liberators, with flowers. Kross: But the Germans very soon messed up their chances. For instance when physical punishment was used against Estonians for breaches of work discipline on the railways. When people in Germany heard about this, the practice was naturally forbidden and later on the facts were simply denied. Kaplinski: I have always thought that if there had not been this first year of Soviet occupation in between, people would have been as indifferent as they were to the Jewish Question and would maybe even have helped. Kesküla: For you personally, what aspect of the Soviet regime did you find the most unpleasant? Kross: One question of principle which made Soviet power unacceptable in my view, was that they reacted in a symmetrical way to our striving for independence, as did the Germans. A complete lack of understanding from

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both quarters. So the only thing to do was to create the Third Way, however hopeless this might have seemed as a way out. At least from a moral perspective this was the least irreproachable way. My father was arrested in 1948 and was sentenced to ten years incarceration. I wrote about him in a short story: the character is about to be awarded a medal for having saved a factory from being blown up, the factory having been mined with explosives by the Germans. But all of a sudden, it was remembered that the same factory had already been prepared for destruction in 1941, and therefore should have been blown up before the arrival of the Germans. Because of that, the character is locked up for ten years. Kaplinski: What is most unpleasant is that power revealed itself immediately in its absolute physical and mental violence: it was ready to kill, rape, burn books and stifle freedom of thought. I remember infamies which I read about in the newspapers, being a young child who had just learned to read. It was disgusting and frightening at the same time. These traits of the power structure were in place until Gorbachev came along. This endless sadism and the warping of individuals. I myself know of people who were beaten to death in the army. The Gulag existed in the time of Khrushchev and Brezhnev as well. Sometime during the 1970s I wondered how I could come to terms with this regime, but I have not really succeeded. It was a regime which believed that power ought always to be hideous violence. The Soviet elite pretended that it was normal, on occasion, to show its brutal face as a bear in order to keep the West in check. Rummo: Thank heavens that power did not hide its face but was openly brutal. Otherwise the illusions could have lasted even longer. In my opinion, the most idiotic crime committed by the Soviet power or its most dire consequence, was the total blurring of all ethical criteria. The Soviet occupation lasted long enough for people to have to get used to it in one way or another. I think that in our little group here, all three of us have received some ethical baggage from childhood onwards. Younger people could end up in the same situation as umpteen generations of descendants of circus bears who know nothing of the rules of life in the forest. Such a criticism of totalitarian power is, of course, acceptable only if we regard the Western democratic mode of thinking and the concomitant practices in

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society as inalienable values. To my mind, it is the collapse of such a system of values which is criminal. Kesküla: Is the Soviet power which put Jaan Kross in prison in 1946 and made him a People’s Author in 1980 the same, or had something changed in the meantime? Kross: This is a question of the shaving off of beards. Soviet power and also the power of Russia today have never been fully disassociated from Stalinist power. Consequently, we have to take into account the fact that this power wishes, right up to the present, to remain identical with that power which committed all the crimes. Why should we look for ways of letting it appear in a more attractive light, only because this would be more convenient or easier for us? It is the same power which marched across our border and brazenly strutted on the streets of our towns. Perhaps exposing what was termed Stalinism for what it was, was an attempt at change, but this was done with much circumspection, avoiding kicking them where it really hurt. Kaplinski: I am, none the less, of a slightly different opinion. When you compare the various leaders of the country: Lenin in 1920, Stalin in 1940, Brezhnev in 1970 and Gorbachev in 1990, there has been a significant shift in this development. My grandfather knew Lenin, they used to visit one another’s homes in Zürich, and mixed in a quite normal way. But I cannot imagine that he would have had ordinary relations with Lenin once he’d become the leader of the proletariat. Even less so in the case of Stalin or Brezhnev. He would have presumably been able to talk with Gorbachev. Evolution can introduce a new quality and in my opinion Gorbachev had that quality, by force of circumstance, of course. He had become a cornered animal who could have done much worse things. I think that the present attempt of Russia to assert itself as a superpower will not amount to very much. Kross: Even in Gorbachev’s time, a statement by the Central Committee of the Party had appeared covering relations with the Baltic states which warned that the behaviour of these countries could present a threat to the physical existence of those living there. “Things have gone too far. The Baltic peoples should know over which precipice their nationalist leaders are pushing

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them…” Where is the liberal strain in that? Of course, the text could have been published without Gorbachev knowing, but he did not distance himself from it. Kaplinski: Perhaps these are the same kinds of threats as France used in Indochina or Algeria. Imperialism is an international phenomenon. Any system which cannot adapt, tends to collapse. Kross: Colonial France with respect to their colony Indochina, and colonial Moscow with respect to Tallinn. Precisely. Kesküla: Did Soviet power manage to create some kind of homo sovieticus in Estonia, or did Estonians in an occupied Estonia always remain European? Rummo: They did manage, to a limited extent, to create homo sovieticus. People who were much better informed than, for instance, myself did not foresee the collapse of Soviet power. As recently as the 1980s, the man in the street still thought that the Soviet system was inevitable and eternal. Kross: But you never made any conscious attempt to become a homo sovieticus… Rummo: But let us define what homo sovieticus is. Perhaps a Soviet person was such that he understood the unpleasantness of the system and the powers that be, but underestimated the existential danger, simply trying, from his limited perspective, to make life as pleasant as possible for himself, trying to wriggle out of whatever he could. Kross: Wriggling out of things is undoubtedly the most pragmatic way of existing. In my view, the attempts to create a veliki sovetski narod (great Soviet nation) met with little success, here in Estonia. Rummo: It depends what you take such a person to be. Perhaps it is significant that on this dangerous road to losing oneself, even those who had gone furthest tried to keep a haven for themselves, from which they could observe what was happening around them.

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Kross: Only a few people actually accepted it. In the main, it was therefore easy to shrug off such influences. Kesküla: Is the Western system of democracy the only conceivable one for Estonia? Kaplinski: I don’t believe in making such categorical distinctions and setting up such diametrical opposites. I have the feeling that that very same Western liberal democracy contains dangers lurking within, and is turning into a game, an empty husk. Power is taken over by undemocratic forces, money for instance, which has pushed political power into the background. Rummo: I would claim that democracy also contains the means to counter such dangers, so that their rise is not an inevitable one. Kaplinski: I am no longer sure it can resist. The hypocrisy and obfuscation, which are currently meted out by advertising or by entertainment, have become extremely powerful. Rummo: It’s possible that democracy has grown weary, but making money is no doubt part of the Protestant work ethic. Economic skill is one of the prerequisites of democracy. Kaplinski: On account of the stupidity of Soviet propaganda, we have, maybe now, gone to the other extreme and believe too much in Western propaganda. It would have been a good thing had we managed to be critical of both systems. A crocodile that wants to gobble up your enemy may be a very nice beast, but an old African saying points out that you shouldn’t regard the crocodile as your friend. When I see the destruction of ecology and culture in Estonia, then… No, I don’t want to return to Soviet times, but… We were immune to Soviet propaganda, but we have not become immune to Western propaganda. Rummo: Some theologian said that creating heaven on Earth is an entirely illusory aim; let’s try instead to avoid making hell on Earth. The concept of democracy will not bring about heaven on Earth, while totalitarian regimes, among them the Soviet one, do create hell on Earth.

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Kaplinski: I can see the emergence of new totalitarian traits. In the Estonian Republic today, the press is not entirely free. We do not have newspapers, we have advertising news-sheets, publications which struggle desperately to obtain advertising. Newspapers which live on adverts cannot make an objective analysis of the actions of the people who place those adverts. Rummo: One basic trait of totalitarian regimes, and especially the Soviet one, is that they lack their own ideas, a mythology of their own. They are parasites on the mythologies of those social formations which they were fighting against, and perpetuate them without intellectual content – in the way that Marx was a parasite on Hegel. Christmas traditions (jõulud) are a good example – the way they were turned into New Year traditions (näärid). With regard to the bringing up of children, they aped the Boy Scouts and substituted the Pioneers. A system, hollow on the inside, was built up on emptiness, it lacked its own roots and creativity. And of course there was a comical brand of hypocrisy linked to this. Former things of value remained basically the same, but underwent distortion. It is a kind of distorting mirror effect: there’s a mirror, but at the same time there isn’t. New generations, those born in a distorted society, get distorted themselves. While at the same time, in the rootlessness of such systems lies concealed the hope that they are doomed to collapse on account of their ephemeral and superficial nature. Kaplinski: What I see is the masochistic way we take on board Western imbecilities, in the firm belief that this is the best and only way. Rummo: It’s not only the environment which is to blame if people are stupid. Free will always does exist. Kross: What is termed “Americanism” is definitely dangerous. Boring and dangerous. But I believe that it is rampant over here only as an infant ailment. People who feel it their calling to do so ought to provide prophylactics against such diseases, in the upbringing of children and especially of young people. Kesküla: Did Soviet power make culture more accessible? Rummo: Such a statement contains a paradox. Undoubtedly, a great deal of beautiful art became more accessible than before. But this also meant that a

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strict and abominable choice had to be made, “the re-evaluation of one’s cultural heritage.” Kross: Did the destruction of 26 million books in the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic really help foster the reading of books? It was a most rapine way of moulding erudition. Rummo: In Soviet times, people tended to think that all people connected with culture were very much loved by the people. But once, in the course of a training period during my university days, I met a tractor driver, a rather superficial young chap, whose foulest oath would be: “a bloody Looming reader.”1 This opened my eyes to another side of the cultural policy of “Socialist in content, national in form.” A large proportion of the Estonian people undoubtedly thought of writers as collaborators, as the cosmeticians of the crimes of those in power. Another personal experience was when many of the older-generation of “real” Estonians regarded the artistic endeavours of my generation as a betrayal of “real” Estonian culture. They regarded the Modernism we flirted with as playing along with the Soviet authorities and against the Estonian cause. Similar clashes occurred on the street, in the bus, in the pub. It is a sign of a blurring of standards. Kesküla: What role has the resistance to foreign power played in Estonian culture? Kaplinski: I have thought at times that Estonian culture, in its role as a manifestation of the Estonian people, is one huge act of resistance, resistance against the Baltic German, and later, Russian power. During the period of the former Estonian Republic between the wars, a clear Estonian identity wasn’t really able to emerge, the pressure is simply never there in a free society. But, during Soviet times, national opposition movements were given a new boost. I have written somewhere that in Soviet times, the Estonian people, from tractor driver to Secretary of the Communist Party, formed one huge conspiracy. No one could really stand Russian rule. Everyone tried to manage to compromise somehow, but no one fully identified with it. There was no one who said: this is my government, this is my country. Opposition kept the Estonian people on their toes. It is quite hard to say what, in Estonian culture, has arisen purely in opposition to something else, and what is autonomous.

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Rummo: Did the Estonian nation emerge as a result of always putting up such dogged resistance to the Baltic Germans? I think that the nation and its model for culture is to a large extent thanks to one aspect of Baltic German values, i.e. the enlightened branch. A large part of our Estonian identity is inherited from Herder and the Hernhütters. Kaplinski: The situation is an ambivalent one, on the one hand all models came from Germany, on the other, it was also a protest against Germanification. Rummo: The fact that we based our culture on Western models confirms the trivial thesis that we have always been Europeans. Kaplinski: We have never been such, nor are we now. Kross: I remember how I felt embarrassed when the German historian Angermann once explained to me that we ought to give Bishop Albert the Maarjamaa Cross because it is thanks to him that we are in Europe today.2 Kaplinski: I am a Finno-Ugric Jew, I don’t wish to be a European. Kross: I’ve nothing against being European. One can always become a Finno-Ugrian but it is beyond my powers to become a Jew. Being European is no doubt a bad thing, but being European belongs to the kind of phenomena Churchill once encapsulated: it’s a dreadfully bad system, but a better one simply hasn’t been discovered. For me being European is self-evident. I have carried my bubble European world view with me to far beyond Europe and kept it with me. Or, rather, been kept in it. Kaplinski: The establishment of the Maarjamaa Cross was for me a breaking point, since which I have never been able to have normal relations with President Meri. Rummo: Take it easy. It’s more of a joke, and it works well politically. Kaplinski: You can always do things in several ways. It’s a question of style. Le Style – c’est l’homme, as Buffon says. On account of his style I have a great aversion to that man and his conception of the state. The American

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Indians could perhaps be thankful to Columbus for a number of things, but they would never think of establishing a Columbus Cross or anything similar. Kross: It is a slightly exaggerated act of piety to identify Lennart with our country. Kaplinski: In my opinion, the Estonian state will, in the near future, turn into a burden which can no longer be borne, which must not be borne. It would be much more pleasant to live in the European Union as a region, much like Catalonia. Then you wouldn’t need a navy or an air force. You could use your energies in much more profitable ways. Rummo: Joschka Fischer does indeed say that such things could occur in our lifetime. Kaplinski: We are so short of people. Where should we take them from to fill the posts in the civil service? Kross: Getting rid of the state is an oxymoron. Hopefully… Kaplinski: I’m trying to be a bit of a Devil’s advocate. Kesküla: To what extent has your own work been an act of resistance against Soviet power? Rummo: The kernel of Estonian identity has always been our language, and whatever is written in it strengthens that identity. For that reason everything connected with it is clothed in the garb of missionary work. It is a proud business, but a far from positive one: whatever occurs, even voluntarily, does tend to curb spontaneity and need not necessarily bring out the best in creative endeavour. And the other harmful aspect of such missionary work is that anything then, written in the Estonian language is endlessly considered as valuable, irrespective of content. This is a paradox which has haunted our lives for long periods of time. We have tried to express matters in our work which could not be expressed via other channels and this brought with it ghastly allusions, and became an Aesopian game. Writers today are in an entirely different situation.

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Kaplinski: In my opinion, resistance against such power is part of a wider resistance against oppressive power in general. I wrote poems about the resistance of the Gauls to the Romans, about Lembitu’s resistance to the Knights of the Cross, the Estonians’ resistance to Soviet power. My poem about Vercingetorix was taken as an allegory of the Estonian situation. Political pressure gave literature little room for interpretation. I was not always thinking of an allegory at the time. When I wrote my poem about the American Indians “We must tread very softly,” this was interpreted as also referring to the Estonian people. In fact, Estonians are the same kind as American Indians. Estonians want so much to become Europeans and kill the American Indian in them, but seldom succeed. Soviet power was nothing original. It was a generalisation of something, a continuation and a special case of something. Such power has been in this world before and I fear such will come again. I have also written things which, for some strange reason, slipped past the censor, things which really happened, such as how the deporters arrested their neighbours’ sons, how men hunted children, but here I was writing about the boys of neighbours, not American Indians. Kross: In my opinion, I too have promoted the Estonian language cause. This started when I came into conflict with my editors. I used a vocabulary which went beyond the five hundred usual words. And maybe that was in itself a form of resistance. I tried to expand the gallery of characters in our literature a little, something which would be of use to the reader. That is perhaps my most important contribution as a writer. And of course I played with analogy within the bounds of possibility. My “The Czar’s Madman” was thought out in this way. It was of course impossible to guarantee that the reader would make the associations, but I did try to draw parallels. My aim was to make the reader aware of conflicts in the past which would help him to understand the present. Kesküla: Has the role of the writer changed nowadays? Is there still any reason to be in opposition? Kross: Certainly! Kaplinski: I have already spoken a good deal about commercialisation in many fields, against which one ought to fight.

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Rummo: Our experience of Soviet times is that it is always possible to resist and so there is always a chance of survival. At the same time, I do not think the main characteristic of art should be struggle and resistance. This is like someone, Rostropovich I think, who said of Russian violinists: they play with a great deal of energy, but I can’t understand against whom. Their style was so combative that classical chamber music gave the impression of a battle. There are situations where the only thing decent people can do is to resist, but you can hardly set resistance up as an ideal. Freedom is always a fine thing. It is better simply to sing rather than sing against someone. Kross: When you’ve no other means of resistance, then you have to sing against people. Kesküla: What is the value of what Estonians have gone through? Kross: I would like to mention my own wish which, perhaps doesn’t hold water, is perhaps passé, and probably never existed. Namely, that Estonians are in one way a remarkable people and Estonia is an ideal country: Estonians make the lousiest audience and Estonian territory is the most hopeless space for propaganda. We have our own in-built sceptical way of rejecting all prattle and have had plenty of chance to hear such. This fact is comforting. In my view it is a quality which is worth cultivating and maybe it could succeed in spreading over the map of Europe. It is one of the most primitive ways for self-protection, but history has given us the perfect opportunity to develop it. We have seen shrill propaganda posters with contrasting messages within the same week. I remember how in 1941 I entered a bank in Town Hall Square in Tartu, which was then known as “Adolf-Hitler-Platz,” later known as Soviet Square. Next to me, on the customers’ side of the counter stood a German in uniform who asked me, pointing at a portrait on the wall: “Aber was heisst – Hitler Bestia?” Under the portrait was written – in Estonian – “Hitler – päästja” – “saviour” in the Estonian language. We have always derived strength from making ideologies look ridiculous. Rummo: I’ve also heard a variation on that theme: “Hitler – Juut” (“Hitler – Jew”: this is how Germans tend to pronounce the Estonian word “juht” (“chief”).

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Kaplinski: Our tradition of scepticism is indeed a powerful one – for instance with regard to the Church. For me it is a big question whether we ought to accept the consumer society as our own. Sometimes I think that the consumer society has tricked us into losing the immunity which we had acquired during Soviet times. There are, none the less, some hopeful signs. Last year, sales of our locally produced type of kvass actually exceeded those of Coca Cola. For me, Coca Cola is a symbol of the idiocy of the consumer society. One sign of resistance is that Estonia refused to go over to summer time and stuck to Estonian time. Nowadays, in the summer, Tallinn and Paris share the same time. Unexpectedly, Estonians have gained something obstinately independent which is now regarded as something natural to Estonians. May this way of thinking grow and flourish, then everything will be easier for us. Rummo: A sideways glance is a characteristic of the human species. Scepticism is, of course, a valuable quality but it can have its negative sides since you lose motivation to act. For instance, it wasn’t possible to find anyone to take on the job of President of the Bank of Estonia. Some thought everything had already been sewn up, others that Estonia was too small a stake to play for but that they stood no chance in a bigger game. Kross: The most important thing is to have children! In order to be able to bring them up as humane social beings. But before you can bring them up, you must, in the first place, conceive them. Notes 1

Looming (Creative Endeavour) is the cultural monthly, founded in 1923 by Friedebert Tuglas, which still appears today, having survived the Second World War and the German and Soviet occupations. (Translator’s note). 2

This is a reference to Bishop Albert von Buxhoeveden (died 1229) from Bremen, Germany, who subdued the Estonians, Livonians and Latvians from his seat in Riga during the first years of the 13th century. The Maarjamaa Cross is an Estonian medal created in 1995 by then President Lennart Meri, and which is awarded to foreigners for services rendered to Estonia. (Translator’s note).

Jaak Allik The Strong People of Kalev Remained… An opinion May the strong people of Kalev remain And our homeland stand firm! Never will our valour fade from suffering, Through the centuries you stand unbroken.

Jää kestma Kalevite kange rahvas ja seisa kaljuna me kodumaa! Ei vaibund kannatustes sinu vahvus, End läbi sajandite murdsid sa.

In the ears of any foreigner these words would sound like praise for the brave struggle for freedom on the part of the Estonian people and could very well serve as a motto for, or even the title of, a book about Estonian identity. Every Estonian, however, will have a wry smile when reading these lines, since everyone knows that they come from the anthem of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, and that the anthem continues: “… and will rise to be a flourishing Socialist state, so our dear sun may shine upon your days.” Yet even the worst proponents of Russification, and KGB officers would stand to attention on hearing these lyrics by Johannes Semper, once President of the Estonian PEN Club, with the music of Gustav Ernesaks, much loved by the Estonian people. This paradox is a vivid reflection of the contradictions and cynical refinement of half a century of Soviet power in Estonia. There is a prevalent view in the West that Russia occupied Estonia and that the Russians committed genocide in order to get the Estonians to assimilate, and to destroy their language and culture. This idea has been helped along for decades by the attitude of exile Estonian political organisations which would condemn all contacts with their native land, even between family members, as betrayals, and as an attempt to legitimise the occupation regime. Such attitudes are reflected in the way people were

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surprised that we, over in Estonia, actually printed material in the Estonian language, and that teaching took place in our schools and institutes of higher education in that language, which caused clashes with those Estonians from Soviet Estonia who happened to go abroad, a fact which was used as a sweetener by Soviet propaganda. For half a century, the treatment of what was occurring in Estonia as genocide did however raise more questions than it answered. The repressive apparatus under Stalin and Brezhnev was shown in a poor light by the fact that, after three generations of repression, certain objective indicators (e.g. the editions of works of fiction and poetry, the number of university students, the size of theatre audiences) were at a record level per head, even on a world scale. The Estonians were also seen as being a mysterious and heroic nation who, after such a long period of blind suffering, managed, in a few months to rise, like the phoenix from its ashes, a strong nation state which had restored its culture and had developed a healthy economy. Something which was also incomprehensible was how a nation doomed to genocide could conform to such an extent with the murderers themselves. Formally and legally Estonia was ruled for the whole of this period of occupation by Estonians, however the odd traitor can always be found within any nation. What is a more complex issue is the fact that those directing the genocide, i.e. the Communist Party, had 60,000 Estonian members, among these many top names from the world of Estonian national culture. When, including members of their families, those linked voluntarily to the apparatus of genocide were anything up to 20% of the Estonian nation, and it is an unfortunate truth that not even all those who applied to join the Party, from among the intelligentsia, were allowed to do so. These are unpalatable truths that people wish to avoid mentioning, even today, but when researching into the identity and independence of the Estonian people one should try to give honest explanations about what happened, rather than wallow in myths and propaganda clichés. Nor can I overlook the facts afforded us by ten years of independence. When answering the question “Would it pay to die for Estonia?” asked in the periodical Luup (The Magnifying Glass), the Radio Free Europe correspondent Ülo Mattheus summed up the new experience as follows: “The most powerful owners of Estonia are foreigners who are hardly likely to wish to sacrifice one drop of blood for Estonia.” In the edition of the cultural weekly Sirp (The Sickle), for 17 March 2000, the young academic Priit-Kalev Parts says:

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You have to admit to yourself that national independence is not inevitable, nor necessarily a natural state of affairs for the nation… It would be shortsighted and dangerous to the preservation of the Estonian nation and its culture, even hypocritical, to consider that the development of Estonia can only occur in a state of “freedom.” Because the logic of history shows that we will one day lose our independence anyway! In the light of the above, it would be quite appropriate to look into what actually happened during the era of genocide when there was no state sovereignty for Estonia. The first paradox to strike one is that freedom under the state was not lacking, even in those days, in a formal, legal way. The anthem quoted above also includes the words: Amongst the Union of peoples, you, Estonia, will be in the first rank. As well as the anthem there was also a constitution, a flag, a coat-of-arms, a parliament, prime minister and government. Estonia even had a Foreign Ministry, and the idea was mooted from time to time that not only the Ukraine and the Republic of Belarus, but also the other member republics of the Soviet Union should have their seat at the United Nations. Let us remember that it was also written in the Soviet constitution that member republics enjoyed the right to leave the Union. We know, however, that this was in fact rhetorical and mendacious. Elections, for those candidates selected, were held under the watchful eye of the KGB. People who spoke seriously of seceding from the Soviet Union ended up in labour camps or, in later years, in psychiatric institutions. It is important to mention, in the context of the subject under discussion in this book, i.e. the Estonian struggle for freedom, that formally these rights did exist. Because there is a difference between the psychological situation, where a person (or a people) begins a struggle and tries to achieve something hitherto forbidden, or something entirely new, but quite another if one is fighting honestly for something which exists on paper in the constitution (even the Party programme). While the former is a struggle against something, e.g. a government, political regime and the like, the latter is a struggle for something; for the “good,” which had actually been written down, for an improvement in life. This is the key to gaining an understanding of the rapid and surprising success of the Estonian struggle for independence. In the ESSR, Estonian nationhood as such was not forbidden, only nationhood outside the Soviet Union. Nor was the Estonian flag forbidden, only the blue, black and white flag of the independent nation between the

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world wars. Preserving the flag, let alone raising it, was promptly punished. Information about the independent Estonian state from 1918 to 1940 was virtually forbidden, and, if found, was destroyed. For that reason contacts with exile Estonians were regarded as the most dangerous and suspicious of all activities, which the authorities (rightly) regarded as fostering the memory of the independent Estonian Republic. Paradoxically, in this respect, the aims of the exile Estonian organisations and those of the KGB objectively coincided. Both regarded the meeting of exile Estonians with Soviet Estonians as a dangerous source of contagion, a recognition of the “Estonian state” represented by the other side. This fear was taken to absurd lengths. I remember in 1983 how the Vanemuine Theatre of Tartu went on a guest visit to Sweden where many of us were given albums from the ESTO festival (organised by the worldwide exile Estonian umbrella organisation) as a present. While travelling back home through Finland by train these beautiful albums flew through compartment windows, a couple of kilometres before the Soviet border, without anyone giving the order to do so. We knew that there were KGB agents in our midst who would keep an eye on those in whose luggage there were albums (which were quite innocuous, but did have the colours blue, black and white on their covers). These albums were regarded as far more dangerous than any anti-Marxist philosophical tracts or fiction describing how pleasant life in the West was. However, at the same time, since Estonia was allowed to have its own flag, it proved impossible for the Soviet authorities to explain verbally to what is termed the third generation, without sounding ridiculous, why these colours should be blue, red and white, and under no circumstances blue, black and white. So, in February 1989, the leaders of the Communist Party themselves raised the blue, black and white flag to the top of the mast on the Pikk Hermann Tower in Tallinn. Formally, this was not against anyone in particular but in order to improve Soviet Estonia, strengthen Socialism, and support Gorbachev. Also in November 1988, the Estonian declaration of sovereignty was proclaimed, which started off the “sovereignty parade” leading to the crumbling of the Soviet Union. This happened under the leadership of the Supreme Soviet which was not established as a result of free elections but had been put together by the Central Committee of the Communist Party, presided over by Vaino Väljas, the First Secretary of the ECP. When the central authority finally collapsed completely during the Moscow putsch, it was not any new representative body which declared the independence of Estonia on 20 August 1991, but the Supreme Soviet, which had been elected on the basis of the old soviet

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socialist constitution – true, this time, having alternative lists of candidates – but where the majority of seats were still won by Communist Party members. Just as schizophrenic as nationhood, there was also the situation in the Soviet Union with regard to nationality. What is termed the Singing Revolution made popular the phrase from a song “eestlane olla on uhke ja hää” – being Estonian is noble and good. This sentiment had, in fact, proved true to an extent, even in Soviet Estonia. Of course the republic was ruled by Moscow and the Russians, but all representative organisations had to have an ethnic Estonian in all leading functions. They even gave medals and places on trips abroad to a larger proportion of ethnic Estonians (in official terms the “indigenous people”). It would have been unthinkable for a Russian choir or a Russian theatre group to represent Estonia abroad. The sign of a stringent policy of Russification was seen as the fact that many Russian were brought here swiftly in an organised manner, which of course reduced the chances of Estonians obtaining flats. But I would dare to say that this did not reflect the policy of nationalities of the Soviet Union, but that the economy of the empire took precedence over all other considerations. It was a misfortune for Estonia that we had oil shale, phosphorite, uranium and of course ports. Here, a large foreign workforce was necessary which acted as a primer for immigration policy. The policy of nationalities was however, the same throughout the union and does not explain why, for instance, immigrants to Estonia reached a level of 30% whilst only 5–6% in Lithuania and below 2% in Georgia and Armenia. The new wave of Russification, which started in the late 1970s, was more linked to the new Party boss Karl Vaino, and the toadying ambitions of his subordinates, than to quickening the policy of erosion from the central leadership. The appointment of a woman who spoke poor Estonian and had a Russian surname to the post of Minister of Education and the celebration of the 40 th anniversary of the Estonian SSR where not a word of Estonian was spoken, in fact ran counter to the superficial dogma of Moscow’s national policies. Such stupidities led to spontaneous student unrest in the autumn of 1980 which, in turn, led to the protest by Estonian intellectuals, now termed the “Letter of 40.” Let us not forget that this document, courageous at the time it was drafted, was written for publication in the organ of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, Pravda, i.e. as a plea to the good central authorities in Moscow. Like the majority of such campaigns at the time, Vaino’s intended Russification had the opposite effect to what was intended. When, in 1979, the census had shown that the number of Estonians

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who knew the Russian language well had in fact dropped, the 29-point plan for the improvement of Russian language teaching, drawn up by the Central Committee of the Estonian Communist Party, merely resulted in the total aversion and opposition to learning Russian, on the part of the generation born in the ‘80s. The identity of immigrants was also a complex one. In 1972, I had the opportunity of travelling to the All-Union Komsomol Building Project in the Central Russian town of Lipetsk, along with 40 other young Estonians. A banner was sewn for the group on which the word “Estoniya” was written in large Cyrillic letters. Ninety percent of the young people involved could not speak one word of Estonian and the majority were ethnic Russians. But once they had crossed the bridge at Narva into Russia proper, they suddenly identified themselves completely with Estonia, and in Moscow, where they met with similar groups from all the republics of the Soviet Union, the Latvian Russians were proud of being Latvian and the Estonian ones of being Estonian. The same was also true in Lipetsk itself where, for instance, the Georgian group consisted of real Georgians, whilst the Estonian group was made up of “so-called Estonians.” These young Russian people were proud of being regarded as Estonians and no doubt felt themselves to be so. In order to fully understand what happened in Estonia, it must be pointed out that, unlike what occurred in Czarist Russia, the official ethnic policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was not straightforward Russification, let alone the destruction of the Estonian language. The programme adopted by the Soviet Communist Party in 1962 had a phrase in it, which stated that “the flourishing of national culture and the strengthening of sovereignty, plus the free development of all their languages and cultures was to be fostered.” But alongside this, the rumour spread of a policy involving “a bringing together of all the [Soviet] nations and a move towards their complete assimilation.” The aim stated by the Communist Party was to achieve a new nation, a Soviet nation, a challenge which was solemnly described as “the new historical unification of the people.” So, although this new entity was to use the Russian language, this policy also meant, to an extent, the erosion of the specific nature of the Russian people themselves, along with their historical traditions. The white, blue and red flag of Czarist Russia thus became the equivalent of the blue, black and white flag of the Estonian Republic. Just as, in the same way that Estonians were not allowed to know anything about Päts or Laidoner, so the house in Yekatarinburg (Sverdlovsk) where Czar Nikolai II and his family were murdered was razed

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to the ground in 1985. What is more, while the Estonian Communist Party and the Estonian Writers’ Union were necessary adjuncts to the maintenance of a national façade, Russia was not allowed its own Communist Party or Writers’ Union, which, on the one hand, would have been too strong a catalyst for the preservation of the Russian people and would, on the other hand, have consolidated the dominant position of the Russian people in AllUnion organisations. We should remember however that the rise of an independent Russian Communist Party under Boris Yeltsin, and the declaration of the sovereignty of the Russian Federation speeded up the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Obviously, the Russian language and Russian people had a privileged status in the Soviet Union, and the national anthem stated that “the great Russian people had created an unbroken union of peoples for all time.” In official ideological terms, this leadership did not, however, reach further than the emphasis on being the “first among equals” and tried always to show, in a ludicrous way, that everything Russian was superior to anything coming from the West, whilst at the same time rejecting and banning Dostoevski, Berdyaev and others, who were truly Russian. It is indisputable that in the Soviet Union whole peoples (the Chechens, Kalmyks, Crimean Tatars) were destroyed or deported in revenge for so called collaboration with Nazi Germany. However, the deportation of 3–4% of Estonians to Siberia during the 1940s was not aimed at destroying the Estonian nation (though there is no doubt that this would have been achieved had Stalin stayed in power longer), but in order to instil fear and loyalty in the people. This operation was dressed up as a class struggle, and was aimed principally at targeting those richer and more educated, who had achieved success during the years of Estonian independence. On Moscow’s orders, and with the help of soldiers’ bayonets, the deportations were carried out by the poorest, most incapable and most craven Estonians, as those who had had nothing previously hoped to gain something from the new rulers, as is promised in the anthem of the Communist Party, the “Internationale.” Compared with what happened to Estonians (arrest, deportation, murder and having to flee abroad), the sufferings of Russians living in Russia were, relatively speaking, less harsh during Soviet times. For this reason, what happened in Estonia by way of Russification and what is thought of as genocide is more difficult for people to grasp. (I would dare to say that Estonia was saved from true genocide in the 1940s by Päts and Laidoner, who had decided to let Estonia be overrun without putting up any resistance.)

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What in fact started out as a bloody brand of Sovietisation, as experienced by the peoples of the Soviet Union, later became the foolish, even comic utopia of the creation of a new nation. For Stalin himself, this provided the cover for strengthening his own hand and that of the Soviet empire; only later did those carrying out his orders begin to believe in what they were saying. In the light of the events that followed, it is quite astonishing that in the programme of the Soviet Communist Party for 1986, this sentence could be found: “The national question that the Soviet Union inherited has been successfully tackled.” The main reason for Mikhail Gorbachev’s defeat was that he seemed to be sincere in thinking that a united and friendly Soviet nation had been created, and was awaiting an enlightened monarch to lead it into the bosom of European civilisation. In fact, the Soviet Union was the same prison of nations as Russia had been in czarist times. As in the case of statehood, the issue of nationality was again crucial for us Estonians, in that the utopian and humanist verbal froth differed markedly from the reality. In starting, during the 1980s, to struggle for a free space to develop our own culture and language, we were not getting ourselves into a dangerous struggle against something, but could, singing joyfully you could say, pick up slogans and aims (the free development of our mother-tongue, the growth of national culture) from the programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself, and thus speak of our wish to see the programme implemented. It soon became evident that the quickest way to achieve all this was to destroy the system from within. Estonians understood quite early on that one way for resistance to further the aims of the national culture was to hollow out the system from the inside, using the schizophrenic difference between objectives and methods, slogans and the reality, words and deeds to expose the difference between the Socialist utopia and what was termed real, existent Socialism. This fact, not just the desire to make a career for oneself, explains why so many educated Estonians in fact joined the Communist Party. Former Communists who were in the majority as key figures during the struggles for independence between 1988 and 1991 also later became leaders of the country (Arnold Rüütel, Edgar Savisaar, Marju Lauristin, Ülo Nugis, Tiit Vähi, Mart Siimann, Toomas Savi, Siim Kallas). In Estonia, there were unfortunately very few genuine underground freedom fighters – dissidents – and such brilliant intellectuals as Lennart Meri and Endel Lippmaa had been successfully integrated into the Soviet career structure, thus rising to high positions within the system. It was understood that the brutality and stupidity of the Soviet state apparatus and

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the alienation of the people could be explained with painful accuracy using Marxist points of view, Russification could be resisted using quotes from Lenin, when he spoke in defence of the self-determination of nations, even of secession from the Soviet Union. In both Estonian social thinking, as in art, this “Švejkification” had its clearly defined place, also among the people themselves, so when censorship finally collapsed, the desk drawers of Estonian writers were rather empty of hitherto unpublished texts. I dare say the difference between the utopian ideals of Communism and the denigrating reality all around was expressed on the Estonian stage in the form of Soviet classical plays. These included: Voldemar Panso’s staging of Gorki’s Mother, Karl Ird and Evald Hermaküla’s version of The Bells of the Kremlin by Pogodin, Mikk Mikiver’s How the Steel was Tempered by Ostrovski, Kalju Komissarov’s Optimistic Tragedy by Vishnevski. At the same time, Mati Unt and Kaljo Kiisk, made a hero of the underground Estonian Communist leader Viktor Kingissepp who, in their film A Hundred Years after in May, was sentenced, by court-martial in 1922, to be executed by firing squad. A chamber choir, conducted by Tõnu Kaljuste, sang texts by Vladimir Lenin set to music by Veljo Tormis. This and only this explains why these artistic endeavours enjoyed relative success among the general public, whilst they were received rather lukewarmly by the Communist Party ideologues. Herein also lies the key to an understanding of the Song Festivals during Soviet times. In order to hear songs about Lenin, the state paid out large sums of money, and tens of thousands of people sewed up expensive national costumes for themselves and travelled to Tallinn. When, however, the people began, towards the end of the festival and under the same conductor, to sing “My Native Land, my Love,” then the organisers of the festival began to try to remove from the stage the very people they had invited, and send them back home. This game was repeated year after year. The Estonian people had already understood, back in czarist times, that when you render unto Caesar what is due to him, you may take for God and yourself that which your heart desires. In attempting to answer the question as to how the Estonians have managed to retain their national identity, even under Soviet conditions, it becomes apparent that, having been established and developed during the centuries of struggle against the Baltic German barons and the czarist empire, the national identity of Estonians had never been really associated with statehood or a nation state, even at the level of a clearly defined objective. During the brief period of national independence, national identity and

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national culture were given a strong fillip, but later on, with the destruction of statehood, Estonians lost neither their national aspirations nor identity. The small population, the nature of the nation and its geographical location, all these factors explain why resistance to foreign oppressors in Estonia has always occurred, more in cultural than in physical forms. This way was soon adopted again after World War II. The Soviet Union, Communist ideology and its slogans, which promised a paradise on Earth, demonstrated the schizophrenic contradictions which made society susceptible to revolt (compared with the dominant ideology of, for instance, czarist Russia or Nazi Germany). Objectively speaking, it was the reincarnation of the Russian Empire, and, as it contained within itself the highest principles of Great Russia’s chauvinism, Communist ideology could not allow such imminent goals to be made public, nor for them to be subjectively made aware of. 1 This was substituted by a froth of words about the free development of the people, friendship between nations, socialist content, national form, and the union of independent states built on a voluntary basis. Estonians used the façade, officially allowed, to ensure survival for their culture and, in fact, the further development of their education, culture and history, both pragmatically and creatively. In fact, when the development of the economy inevitably moved towards the collapse of the Socialist utopia built on the foundation of state capitalism, the empire built on this fell into political chaos. Under these circumstances it was relatively easy for the Estonians to move on from words to deeds, and restore their nation state. Notes 1

In this context, we can mention a tragicomic episode from November 1990 which took place in the Kremlin when cultural workers met Mikhail Gorbachev. I was allowed to take the floor in this important forum and suggested that Gorbachev forget the idea of forcing the republics into a union, but to offer them immediate independence, with a kind of economic and military alliance similar to the Warsaw Pact. In the tense domestic political situation, with his back to the wall, Gorbachev could not hold back from an emotional outburst, in his final words making a personal attack on me, shouting something like “a state which has taken thousands (!) of years to build up, which some young lad from the Pribaltika now wants to have disintegrate.” No speech writer would have dared put such words into the mouth of the First Secretary of the Communist Party, words which

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momentarily tore away the mask of “Socialist internationalism.” Alas, this was precisely the way things turned out after the putsch, but of course without the “Pribaltika,” i.e. the republics of the Baltic littoral.

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Raimo Raag The National Identity and Culture of Estonians Living in the West 1944–1991 1. Points of Departure The process of membership in society starts during childhood and continues for the rest of one’s life. With little exaggeration, it can be said that there are six key aspects to the socialisation of the individual: home and family; relatives; friends and acquaintances; education; work; everyday life. The outcome of this process of socialisation is self-sufficiency of the individual, and finding one’s place, to a greater or lesser extent, amongst those nearby, in the midst of other human beings and groups in society, as well as the behaviour resulting from such relationships. The way people determine their own lives and relate to their environment does not go unchanged over time. Such changes are especially noticeable when an individual ends up outside the environment he is used to, and moves his place of residence in order to, for instance, seek work or education. In such cases the individual must inevitably be clear about his attitudes to, and relationships in, this new environment. After World War Two, especially towards the end, tens of thousands of Estonians found it suddenly necessary to clarify and resolve such attitudes and relationships, as they fled Estonia and found refuge abroad. Although by no means all Estonian refugees were aware of the fact, they would have to make a choice in their new homelands: either to adopt the new language and culture or not, and, in so doing to abandon, or attempt to preserve their own culture and language. John Widdup Berry identifies four courses of action undertaken by emigrants in their new environment. If a person preserves his old culture, but at the same time enters the new society around him, then this is termed integration; if he preserves the old culture but rejects the new one, this is termed separation; if he abandons the old culture and embraces the new one, this is termed assimilation; and if he rejects both the old and the new culture, this is termed marginalisation (Berry 1990: 243–246). Those Estonians who moved to, or ended up in the West, during World War Two, and their descendants born in the West, have often been characterised as successfully integrated. Below I shall briefly describe the

180 The National Identity and Culture of Estonians Living in the West integration of the refugees in their new countries, their desire to retain their national identity and culture and hand it down to the next generation, and the means they created for doing so. I will, however, try to add some nuances to the basic pictures of successful integration, because along with integration there has also been the occurrence of assimilation as a case of clear integration, and integration itself did not occur without leaving some traces. The established literature has not yet been able to compare exile Estonian identity with that of present-day Estonia itself. In this paper too, that aspect has been left outside the discussion and I merely add a hypothetical model in my closing remarks whose validity can be tested, and accepted or rejected in the course of future research. When Estonian refugees arrived abroad during World War Two there were already a handful of places where Estonians had built up communities in some significant numbers, which, despite their scattered and sparse nature, had managed to organise themselves to some extent. Before the war, there were regular activities in Estonian communities in, for instance, São Paulo, San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, New York, Ontario, Sydney, Harbin, Paris, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Helsinki and Riga. These Estonian communities were relatively small, if taken individually. Before World War Two these involved, in Western countries, around 25,000 or 30,000 at the most. These “Old Estonians” as these émigré Estonians were often called, were added to, during the war, so that the number of Estonian exiles rose to between 70,000 and 75,000, mainly in Sweden, Canada and the USA. For the Old Estonians, such refugees were, of course, regarded as “newcomers” or “New Estonians.” The largest Estonian community outside Estonia itself was in the Soviet Union, mainly in Leningrad (now again called St. Petersburg), the area on the Russian side of Lake Peipsi, in Western Siberia, and the Northern Caucasus. The majority of these were emigrants from czarist times or their descendants, and were estimated, according to the Soviet census in 1926, to be a little over 154,000. Both in the West and in the Soviet Union (“Soviet Estonians”) before World War Two, these were not political refugees, so they were in an entirely different situation from those refugees who came during the war. For this reason, they will not be examined in this study, although the identity problems of both types of Estonian migrants deserve further research.

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2. Estonian Refugees during World War Two The first place where very many Estonian refugees came to be housed at the end of World War Two was in displaced persons’ camps in the Western Zone of Germany, where numbers were estimated at between 35,000 and 40,000, or in Sweden, where official statistics from 8 June 1945 give a total of 28,369 former residents of Estonia. From the camps people went to find work in different places and in different walks of life. People were especially keen to flee Germany, which had been destroyed in the war, had high unemployment, and the proximity of the Soviet Union made it too close for comfort. Various countries began to accept refugees, such as Belgium, the United Kingdom and Australia, and later on, Canada and the United States of America. People also moved to South America, South Africa and even further afield. There were not, however, immediate prospects for moving on. The last refugee camps in Germany were not closed down until the early 1950s. On the other hand, the time spent in refugee camps in Sweden was relatively short compared with Germany: by August 1945 all the camps had been closed. People tried to move on from Sweden, too: the reason for this was, in the first instance, the fear of Communism, and the fact that Sweden had, in January 1946, extradited to the Soviet Union, some 2,700 former soldiers who had fled, wearing German uniforms, of which 146 were from the Baltic countries, chiefly Latvians. Statistics show that 6,449 Estonians left Sweden between 1949 and 1951, mostly to go to Canada, but that some two to three thousand refugees from Germany took their place. We can thus identify three periods of emigration: first the refugee camp period (in Sweden up to August 1945, in Germany until the early 1950s), a period of seeking work and one of unstable living conditions and those for integration (up to the mid-1950s), and after that a period of greater stability. The social background of the Estonian refugees was quite varied. There were people from all walks of life and social strata in the pre-war Estonian Republic. There were rural and urban dwellers, workers, farmers, civil servants and academics, men and women, children, young people and old people. Although no research has been done into the social, economic and geographical background of these Estonian refugees as a whole, available information points to the fact that the average Estonian refugee had a secondary education, was of working age, and came from the islands, the coastal region, or from fairly near the sea or a town. The vast majority of war

182 The National Identity and Culture of Estonians Living in the West refugees ended up as urban dwellers, as tends to be the case with immigrants in general. One crucial factor in the development and maintenance of a functioning society in exile was the fact that as well as farmers and coastal dwellers, there was a sufficient number of educated people, cultural workers and politicians, who were able to establish Estonian clubs and cultural events on foreign soil. Very many people however became just a passive audience for Estonian culture abroad. A kind of Mini-Estonia was created in exile, with all its various political, cultural and social associations, as well as publishing houses, newspapers and periodicals. A number of these associations stemmed from a particular city or a specific section of society. Alongside these arose societies and clubs of a broader scope, covering whole provinces or even Estonia itself; and some even became international in their sphere of activities, and spanned continents. So, when regarding Estonian organisations and clubs in exile, one can distinguish between local, regional, and national levels of association. Existing associations, or those created abroad included associations for youth, principally Scout and Guide troops, sports clubs and student societies. It must be emphasised that those fleeing Estonia and arriving in the West during World War Two were political refugees. Even those who moved from Germany and Sweden to Canada, the United States or Australia, or ended up elsewhere, must be regarded as refugees and not economic migrants seeking a better life. The fact that those fleeing Estonia were political refugees also coloured their attitudes to living abroad. At first they were convinced that their sojourn abroad would be a temporary one and that soon they would be able to return to their homeland, freed from oppression. So one thing to be avoided was that Estonian children would have major problems adjusting back to life at school, should they return to Estonia. For this reason, it was necessary to give children additional education. As a result, a general system of education was set up in the host country, including tuition in the Estonian language, and other subjects through the use of the Estonian language. Even when it became evident that their time in exile would perhaps be long, attitudes remained the same: children were obliged to learn Estonian, and be given instruction about Estonia and Estonian culture because these were areas for which the host-country’s educational system did not cater. Language tuition was regarded as especially significant. It was, and still is, the base on which an Estonian identity is built, as well as the most important expression and symbol of being Estonian.

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3. The Social and Economic Integration of Estonian Refugees Economic growth following World War Two, and the consequent need for an expanded workforce, enabled refugees to rapidly find employment. So finding employment for Estonians of working age presented no great problem. However, many refugees were employed at a lower level than the education they had received in their former homeland would lead them to expect. This applied mainly to the earlier period in exile and to educated Estonians. The majority of adult refugees had to find work in manual labour, for instance in factories or in the construction business. In Belgium, some worked temporarily in the mines, and in Sweden, forestry, while, in Australia, they often worked on chicken farms. One notable fact is the high number of women who were also employed, especially compared with the women of the indigenous population. Over time, a number of Estonians managed to become civil servants or entrepreneurs, and in a few instances, even managed to start what became well-known or successful large companies. The results of this were soon felt. By the mid-1950s some of the former sub-tenants and others living in substandard accommodation amongst the refugees had managed to acquire better places to live, even real estate and a car. It can even be said that some refugees even lived better now than they had ever lived in their former homeland. This was helped along by the general post-war improvement in the standard of living, which was prevalent in the countries to which Estonian refugees had fled. While this generation of refugees did obtain work, it was unsatisfactory and did not correspond to their level of education, or the work required retraining or moving to entirely new fields of enterprise. At least, during the initial years, the second generation of Estonians in exile made great efforts to educate themselves. The significantly higher level of education of the second generation can be compared favourably, not only to the first generation of refugees, but also to that of the indigenous population of the host country as a whole. This has been described for Canada and Sweden, but is valid for other countries where Estonians ended up. In this area too, such a rise in the standard of education can be attributed to the general improvement of education following World War Two. It has, however, been claimed that the generation of refugees invested the fruits of their manual labour in the education of their children. This plays a role in the more recent experiences of refugees: they may have had to abandon their native land and move abroad, leaving behind their material wealth; but no human power could take away

184 The National Identity and Culture of Estonians Living in the West that which they brought with them in their heads, or could make with their own hands. From the mid-1950s onwards, refugees in several countries began the process of naturalisation and became citizens of their new countries, e.g. in Canada and Sweden; one exception is Brazil. The reasons for adopting citizenship tended to be practical. The status of a citizen of the country could be compared more favourably with that of a foreigner living in that country, enabling those who chose citizenship, to enjoy better jobs and other perquisites including state protection when travelling abroad. For this reason a change in citizenship should not be interpreted as turning one’s back on Estonia. 4. The Desire to Retain One’s Identity From the very start of their period of exile, the desire, amongst Estonians, to keep their culture, in the broadest sense of the term, was great, but this did not mean that retaining “Estonian culture” was in any way “intensively ethnocentric.” Nevertheless, Estonians in exile tended to read their own literature or newspapers, rather than, for instance, Swedish ones. The explanation for this could be that, at the time (the research was done before 1953) the older generation had a poor command of the Swedish language. While the younger generation had a significantly better command, none the less they regarded the reading of material in the Estonian language as a prerequisite for retaining their identity as Estonians. The perceived barrier between Estonians and Swedes which emerged from results of earlier research conducted in Sweden no doubt strengthened the wish to retain their Estonian identity. At economic, social and political levels, there were certain paradoxes with regard to differences between exile Estonians and the indigenous working populations. This can be seen, at least in Sweden, where the workforce tended to be Socialist or even Communist, and the trade unions were linked openly to the Social Democrats. These oppositions tended to strengthen the efforts of Estonians to keep their identity. The strong desire to retain all aspects of being Estonian, including the language, also emerges in later surveys, amongst both the refugee generation and among Estonians born outside Estonia. Ann Walko, who researched the identity of Estonians living in Lakewood, New Jersey, found that those young Estonian people, born abroad, had just as

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strong an Estonian identity as did their parents and, when organising their lives, the Estonian national movement took a significant place in it. Handing down Estonian identity from one generation to the next occurs, to a large extent in the home, because of the language spoken there. This is supported by the activities of schools where the medium of education was in Estonian, Estonian circles of friends and societies. Parents take part in club and social activities in order to help foster an Estonian identity in their children. In mixed marriages, where the Estonian stimulus at home can be weaker and thus needs special support, active participation beyond the home can, to a certain extent, compensate for such gaps in the Estonian upbringing. 5. Teaching the Estonian Language and its Culture The fact that the Estonian language is one of the main aspects of Estonian identity meant that starting Estonian schools in the exiled community was especially important for the teaching of the Estonian language and Estonian culture to young people. The question of education was solved by self-help. If there happened to be a schoolteacher amongst refugees in the camps in Germany or Sweden, it was he or she who would then arrange school teaching, either on his or her own initiative or at the request of the parents. So already, during the first few months of exile, Estonian schools arose in the refugee camps in Sweden and Germany which were termed “camp schools.” This school system grew rapidly in scope. In German displaced persons’ camps there were 48 primary schools, 16 grammar schools, 15 “people’s universities” and 34 language schools. In Sweden there were 43 camp schools in all. Organisations were created to draw up curricula, help teachers arrange supplementary training and produce and distribute learning materials. These were the Eesti-Rootsi Õpperaamatute Fond (Estonian-Swedish School Book Fund) and Eesti Õpetajate Keskühing (Central Estonian Union of Teachers), which publishes the periodical Bülletään starting in 1952. Around 200 different school textbooks were published in the West for use in such schools between 1944 and 1996. After the refugee camps had been closed down, Estonian children continued to be taught, chiefly in what were termed supplementary schools, as well as primary schools, secondary schools, grammar schools, play schools and crèches and kindergartens. Supplementary schools (täienduskoolid) were evening or weekend schools, where the Estonian language and its culture were taught. In every town or city throughout the world where there were

186 The National Identity and Culture of Estonians Living in the West sufficient numbers of Estonian children, such schools were started and some survive to this day, with the exception of Sweden where there is nowadays only one supplementary school, in Lund. At one time there were 60 schools in Sweden, 25 in the United States, 13 in Canada, 10 in Australia (the first one founded in Sydney in 1929), 5 in Great Britain and 22 in Germany. Apart from the supplementary schools, Estonians also started private primary schools, secondary, and grammar schools. Of these, the ones that lasted the longest were in Stockholm, which lasted until 1995, there was also one in Gothenburg. In the USA there were schools in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Connecticut, Lakewood, Los Angeles, and New York; also in Hamilton, London, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, all in Canada, and Melbourne, Australia. The reason for the diminishing number of such schools in present-day Sweden is that those pupils who speak Estonian at home but attend ordinary Swedish schools are able to receive what is termed homelanguage tuition, or mother-tongue tuition. The obligation for local authorities to provide (and finance) provision for home-language tuition in Sweden dates back to 1976 and is also the reason for which the widespread system of Estonian supplementary schools, rapidly came to a virtual close over such a short period of time. The fact that the majority of Estonian schools were developed without financial aid from the host country, at least during the initial years, led to the setting up of an organisation, the Friends of Estonian Schools. This is an echo of activities and traditions dating back to the beginning of the 20th century when throughout the Estonian-speaking gubernii of the Russian Empire, financial support was collected to keep Estonian language medium schools, kindergartens and libraries alive, to enable Estonian children to receive at least some education in Estonian in the prevailing climate of Russification. Also in exile, people followed those same principles. At first, Estonian schools in the exile community were naturally Estonian language schools, since Estonian was their mother tongue, and the everyday language for both pupils and teachers, but this situation changed significantly over time. Over the decades, a generation has arisen where young people have been born with the Estonian language, and use it with their parents, but undoubtedly speak the language of the host country better as native-speakers. This development has been the result of a confluence of factors: the fact that Estonian could no longer be widely used, that social life was limited, and owing to personal choice of language. None the less, Estonian schools in exile have given very many of these young people an Estonian education, have

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developed their knowledge of the language and kept alive their Estonian identity. 6. Estonian Cultural Life Abroad While Estonians in exile maintained their cultural focus principally in Sweden, their political activities (which the refugees termed “the struggle abroad”) tended to take place in North America. The most important factor in such political activity was the Soviet occupation of Estonia, which key Western powers did not recognise de jure, which meant that during the whole period of occupation, Estonia could, for example in the United States, maintain an Estonian diplomatic presence. The most important Estonian centres outside the home country were in New York, where the United Nations headquarters is located, along with Toronto and Stockholm. There were, of course, exceptions to the rule of “culture in Sweden, politics in North America.” For instance, one of the longest surviving Estonian émigré publishing houses “Orto” was located for years in Canada. This was founded in Finland in 1944, operated in Sweden between 1945 and 1951 and then in Toronto from 1951 until 1973. Furthermore, one of the leading exile Estonian cultural periodicals Mana appeared in North America for a long while. Between 1957 and 1964 it was published in Sweden, after that it was edited in the USA and printed in Toronto. There were also members of the exile government living in Sweden (the book published by Nõu in 1990 carries details and a bibliography of these activities). Sweden was helped along in its role as a cultural centre for exile Estonians by the fact that it was the first state to which Estonians came to live on a permanent basis. During the refugee camp period in Germany, a good deal of literature was published, and this was varied, sometimes published on a grand scale. However, Estonian life there began to ebb as the camps were closed down and refugees moved on to other countries, principally North America. Very few Estonians stayed on in Germany. People also moved from Sweden, but not in such great numbers as from Germany. The written word, especially books, have been important symbols and bearers of culture for Estonians. This can be explained by the fact that Estonian publishing houses were started as early as 1944 in Finland, e.g. “Orto” as already mentioned. Then in Sweden there was “Välis-Eesti & EMP,” “Eesti Kirjanike Kooperatiiv,” “Vaba Eesti,” “Eesti Vaimulik Raamat” and others which formed the backbone of the exile Estonian book

188 The National Identity and Culture of Estonians Living in the West market, though publishing activities did also occur in the United States and Canada. However these could not compete with the global lists of customers for publishing activities in Sweden. Publishing was run principally on a book club basis. Nowadays, there is no longer any Estonian publishing house active in Sweden, and émigré Estonian authors publish their works in an independent Estonia. Of those authors who had joined the pre-war Eesti Kirjanikkude Liit (Estonian Writers’ Union) approximately half fled Estonia. A score or so professional writers went into exile, plus about the same number of people who had produced belles lettres back in Estonia. Among those fleeing to the West were a number of top writers who pursued their activity, despite financial difficulties. A whole generation of young writers brought out their first books in exile, of whom a proportion had postponed writing and publishing their works on account of the war and the occupation. In exile, authors writing in Estonian could only proceed with their activities on an amateur basis, alongside a paid job, without, in the main, any hope of receiving a fee for their writing; some authors even paid to get their books published. They were aware that their works would only reach a small number of readers, spread far and wide. Apart from the urge to publish one’s own books, plus the mission mentality, the only other factor and incentive for writing was receiving recognition from the émigré community for writing in the Estonian language. In Estonian exile circles, writers were treated with reverence. In exile, themes could be examined which were taboo in Estonia for political reasons, or which would undergo self-censorship or pre-publication censorship by the Soviet authorities. In exile, people wrote about the events of the recent war, about escape abroad, settling down and adjusting to their new host countries, exile attitudes and mentality and the question of identity. However, religious themes and other general human problems were also tackled. One important genre was the memoir, especially those by politicians and leading cultural figures, and quite a few publications of this sort appeared. The Soviet Estonian reader could, only on rare occasions, manage to get hold of such publications because the official attitude towards the émigrés and their writings was a negative one, regarding them as part and parcel of a hostile ideology. The last generation of those who had made their debut in independent Estonia reached the height of their careers in the 1960s. For obvious reasons, no author of belles lettres who made his or her debut abroad was born after

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1940. Those born abroad, of Estonian parentage, tended not to write in Estonian but in the local language – even when dealing with Estonian topics. The most important reason was the fact that their command of the Estonian language was not good enough, and did not allow them to be writers in Estonian. Before Estonia once more became independent in 1991, some 2,600 Estonian titles appeared in the West, just under one third of which were works of fiction or poetry. The print edition tended to be 2,000 to 3,000 copies in the initial years, which was later reduced, but compared with the editions in present-day Estonia, and taking into consideration the number of potential readers, Estonian exile literature, by comparison, came off quite well. In 1945, the Välismaine Eesti Kirjanike Liit (Exile Estonian Writers’ Union) was founded in Stockholm which now, after independence was regained, fused with the Estonian Writers’ Union in Estonia itself. The exile union had, before the merger in April 2000, 35 members, 14 of whom were from Sweden, 12 from the USA, 6 from Canada, 2 from Finland and one from the United Kingdom. Soon after the end of World War II, in 1946, the Estonian PEN Club in exile was founded, to replace the Estonian PEN Club which the Soviet occupation powers had closed down. This became a member of International PEN and enabled émigré Estonian writers to take part in international activities throughout the post-war years. With PEN support, translations, literary overviews and lists of books deemed suitable for translation were produced. From 1989 onwards, the headquarters of the Estonian PEN Club was again located in Tallinn. Former Estonian actors and musicians were not neglected in Estonian exile circles either, but found an outlet for their activities in local Estonian actors’ troupes and choirs, as promoters and leaders. Choir performances and amateur theatre productions were soon off the ground as a mark of respect by Estonians for their culture, also reflecting local traditions. Every larger centre, where there were Estonians has, at some time or other, had a choir or sometimes a group of amateur actors. Many local choirs and theatre groups attracted wider audiences. From the first exile years, song festivals and other folk festivals were organised. From 1972 onwards the international Estonian festival, the “ESTO days” were organised on a rotating basis between the various countries where Estonians were living in exile. The numerous activities included concerts and theatre. In both these areas émigré Estonian culture formed the basis. The advantage of choirs and theatre is that the language knowledge of the younger generation

190 The National Identity and Culture of Estonians Living in the West did not constitute such a hindrance. But it is clear that Estonian choirs will survive longer than Estonian theatre abroad. 7. Hidden, Symbolic and Separate Estonian Identities Quite soon after émigré Estonians settled in their new countries, worrying rumours began to be heard amongst the exile community. The former professor at the University of Tartu, Andrus Saareste, now living as a refugee in the Swedish university city of Uppsala, published an article in 1955 where he brought to the attention of his fellow-refugees three duties: the duty to organise political activities in exile in order to further the rebirth of the Estonian state; the preservation of the Estonian language and culture in all its diversity; and the preservation of the democratic ideas generated in the independent Estonia between the two World Wars. The former professor felt that even during the ten years of exile that had passed, around half of the Estonians in exile had been lost to the Estonian nation. Of the 20,000 or so Estonians who remained in Sweden, around 10,000 had begun to neglect these three duties. Although the figures mentioned by Saareste should be taken with a pinch of salt, there were enough such people and no doubt not only in Sweden. The fact that they neglected these duties and dropped out of émigré Estonian social life had a number of reasons: starting families, looking after children, and maintaining a career. A time comes in life when people no longer wish to spend so much energy in national pursuits. Not everyone returns to the fold later on, so some “souls” are lost forever. But even these “lost souls” are aware of their Estonian birthright or, in the case of those born outside Estonia, their Estonian origins, even though this may only be through one parent or grandparent. Although this person does not tend to participate in Estonian life, does not speak Estonian, or maintain contacts with family in the homeland, an Estonian identity still manages to be expressed under certain circumstances. You can talk here of a hidden Estonian identity which, according to circumstance and mood, reminds a person of his or her Estonian background, though only partially so in the case of mixed marriages. We can also speak of a symbolic national identity as does Herbert Gans, where there is a certain awareness of, and pride taken in, one’s national background and its traditions, activities natural to Estonia such as song festivals, and even national dishes, but the person in question does not maintain any traditions, or speak the language, let alone take part in Estonian social life. Here we can point to authors who write exclusively in the local

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language, but occasionally touch upon Estonian themes, even though they do not know the language, or if they do, only at the level of everyday conversation. Not all of those fleeing Estonia assimilated into, or integrated with, their new countries. There were those who actively maintained their culture and took part in social life, but only absorbed the local culture to a minimum extent and remained separated from it, as Berry has noted. These people lived entirely in a world of Estonia in exile. The positions they had achieved in exile among the Estonian community were some compensation for their loss of status in their old homeland, and most probably some solace for their inability to adapt. Mostly people who were middle-aged or old when they fled, were to be found in this category of hermetically separated Estonians. There were clearly also those who rejected both the old and the new, and according to Berry, were therefore marginalised. But we know very little about these people, because we have principally studied those who took part in Estonian activities abroad and, so to speak, marched under the Estonian flag. The fact that both separation and staying away really occurred is evidenced by the presence of older people in the Estonian exile community who could hardly speak the language of the host country – and such people may exist even now. These were people who relied on their children or grandchildren to conduct everyday affairs. One factor mitigating against integration seems to have been the fact that learning the language of the host country was left to the individual refugee. In those days there were, as far as we know, no official courses for refugees to learn the language of the country. Recent refugees were of the opinion that they would soon be returning to their country after it had been liberated from occupation, so many of these lacked the incentive to learn the language of the host country, at least in the initial stages. But even when, over time, they realised that a return to Estonia was growing increasingly unlikely, they could no longer be bothered to learn the language of the host country properly. By then, they had their children and grandchildren to help them. It remains unknown how widespread this neglect of the language of the host country has been. What is certain is that it was the exception rather than the rule.

192 The National Identity and Culture of Estonians Living in the West 8. The Core and Periphery of Estonia in Exile An Estonian identity abroad was, and is maintained principally by people who have integrated, are loyal citizens of their new country and have entered its cultural sphere but have not rejected their Estonian roots. The “hermetically separated Estonians” have also helped, but they have been far fewer in number. It can be said that the integrated and hermetically separated Estonians together constitute the core of an Estonian identity abroad. There is no data as to how large this core is, so we may only guess. Around this core is the periphery of an Estonian identity abroad. To this periphery belong people who, for one reason or another, do not take part in Estonian life. The reasons vary a great deal, from purely personal ones (an incompatible world view) to ones determined by conditions abroad (e.g. living away from Estonian centres of activity). What has been termed “a hidden Estonian identity” and “a symbolic Estonian identity” occur on the periphery. In both types we may speak about assimilation, as it is not very likely that these people regard themselves as Estonians. One of these peripheral areas of an Estonian identity could be found at the Gothenburg Estonian Boat Club, whose existence the core Gothenburg Estonians were unaware of until Swedish ethnologists happened to discover and describe it. The club was founded by Estonian coastal dwellers, now in exile, and was not interested in either political or national activities, but was held together by a common love of the sea, boats and boat trips. Those who knew no Swedish were initially unable to take part in the equivalent Swedish clubs, so they started their own Estonian one. This was a very lively club. The members would meet every day after work, as most of them worked at the “Svenska Kullagerfabriken” (SKF) ball-bearings factory, and acquired land in the north of the city bordering the River Säve, they built a club house, boathouses and bridges. For a long while this club remained Estonian-speaking, but as the Estonian language and mentality was not the principal aim of the club, Finnish- and Swedish-speaking workmates were gradually introduced as members. The Swedish language was thus ultimately used as the general medium of communication at the club, even amongst the Estonian coastal dwellers themselves. The epithet “Estonian” therefore only retained historical significance. It can be said that the Gothenburg Estonian Boat Club is an example of a hermetically separate Estonian activity under particular circumstances which

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then changed as people began to get a better knowledge of the local language, take on Swedish-speaking members, and thus became more integrated or even assimilated. Other analogous clubs and organisations existed in the early years, where the language of communication was Estonian. But to obtain a full picture about Estonians in exile, peripheral societies and individuals have to be taken into account. 9. An Exile Estonian Identity and the Special Features of the Culture (Hypothesis) The basis of the identity and culture of Estonians living abroad is the intellectual inheritance which the refugee generation brought with them from Estonia itself. Those overseas Estonians, cut off from the home country during Soviet times have, as far as we can see, been able retain their culture and resist change, and have made great efforts to achieve these aims. This intellectual heritage was transformed into a “stronghold and sanctuary” which afforded people a sense of ethnic security. The resistance against things new can be interpreted as a defence mechanism. As the boundary between what is Estonian and what is not has inevitably become increasingly blurred, it has not always been clear whether any new phenomenon is Estonian or not. In any case of doubt, it is always safer to stick to the old and reject the new. Over five decades, new phenomena have arisen and been added to the heritage. This not only includes influences picked up from abroad by those living outside Estonia, but also the development of the Estonian refugee world itself, which has no particular and concrete reference point outside itself. An émigré Estonian identity can therefore be expressed by the following formula: heritage + foreign influences + internal development = émigré Estonian identity and culture. This formula seems to be supported by ethnological, sociological and linguistic studies, both by Estonian refugees themselves and by Swedes. But not all differences which arise, when comparing an émigré Estonian identity and culture with the domestic Estonian identity and culture of today, can be clearly attributed to influences from the outside or to internal developments. The identity and culture of the Estonian Republic today is built on the same foundations as the ones the refugees have continued to develop over the past fifty years with different foreign influences, but also taking on a life of its own. Here too a difference has arisen between the émigré and the

194 The National Identity and Culture of Estonians Living in the West domestic Estonian heritage. In other words: the émigré heritage does not entirely overlap that of Estonia itself. It can be concluded that from a domestic Estonian point of view, Estonian identity and culture abroad gives a rather old-fashioned impression. It has not always been possible to retain the same parts of the heritage as in Estonia itself. All these aspects would warrant further research. Despite the differences in national identity and culture between Estonians living abroad and those living in the home country, it is questionable whether émigré and domestic Estonian identity and culture can be treated separately. This is especially the case now that Estonia has regained its sovereignty, as both categories have been able to mix a great deal more. An accentuation of differences and the somewhat superior and arrogant attitudes on both sides could increase and lead to greater separation. This is a development which neither side would want. References Ainsaar, Ilmar, 1956: Eestlased Prantsusmaal, Belgias ja Hollandis. – Eesti kroonik 1957. Esimene aastakäik, pages 80–87. Stockholm: EMP Publishers. Antik, Richard, 1975: Eestlased väljarändajatena. – editor Alfred Kurlents, Eestlased Kanadas. Ajalooline koguteos, pages 1–18. Toronto: KEAK. Åsgrin, Agneta, Stjernqvist, Karin & Kvist, Britt-Inger, 1970: Balter och ungrare i Olofström. Tvåbetygsuppsats i folklivsforskning. Lund: Lunds universitet. Aun, Karl, 1985: The Political Refugees. A History of the Estonians in Canada. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd. Berge, Anders, 1992: Flyktingpolitik i stormakts skugga. Sverige och de sovjetryska flyktingarna under andra världskriget. Uppsala Multiethnic Papers 26. Uppsala. Bergman, Kjell & Jakobsson, Berith, 1984: Ester i Göteborg. Om identitetens bevekelsegrunder. En “pilotstudie” gjord vid Etnologiska institutionen för Invandrarnämnden, Göteborg. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet. Berry, John W., 1990: Psychology of Acculturation: Understanding Individuals Moving Between Cultures. – editor Richard W. Brislin, Applied Cross-Cultural Psychology. Cross-Cultural Research and Methodology Series, Volume 14, 232–253. Newbury Park, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications. Dahlstrøm, Edmund, 1965. Estonian Refugees in a Swedish Community. – Arnold M. Rose & Caroline B. Rose (eds.), Minority Problems. A Textbook

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of Readings in Intergroup Relations, pages 98–107. New York, Evanston, London: Harper & Row, Publishers. EE 1998 = Eesti entsüklopeedia, 10. Tallinn: Eesti Entsüklopeediakirjastus. Eerme, Karl, 1956: Eestlased Kanadas. – Eesti kroonika 1957. Esimene aastakäik, 65–74. Stockholm: EMP Publishers. Gans, Herbert, 1978: Symbolic Ethnicity: The Future of Ethnic Groups and Culture in America. New York: The Free Press. Hirvesoo, Avo, 1996: Kõik ilmalaanen laiali. Lugu Eesti pagulasmuusikutest. Tallinn: AS Kupar. Järv, Ants, 1991: Väliseestlaste teater ja draama. Tartu: Tartu Ülikool. Kaber, Helmi, 1956: Brasiilia eestlased. – Eesti kroonika 1957. Esimene aastakäik, 53–58. Stockholm: EMP Publishers. Karlsson, Brita & Åkesson, Birgitta, 1970: Olofströmsundersökningen 1970. Den yngre baltgenerationens integrering i det svenska samhället. Tvåbetygsuppsats i folklivsforskning. Lund: Lunds universitet. Kiviaed, Voldemar, 1966: Esterna i Sverige bildar samhälle. – David Schwartz (red.), Svenska minoriteter, pages 201–222. Stockholm: Aldus, Bonniers. Kulu, Hill, 1992: Eestlased maailmas. Ülevaade arvukusest ja paiknemisest. Tartu: Tartu Ülikool, majandusgeograafia kateeder. Kärner, Monica, 1987: “Alla fåglar kan inte vara sparvar, det behövs många olika kulturer för att få ett färgstarkt liv.” En studie av integrering i det svenska samhället hos andra generationen ester. Uppsats för baskurs AB i etnologi. Uppsala: Uppsala universitet. Lindström, Liina (ed.), 1998: Väliseestlaste keelest. Tartu Ülikooli eesti keele õppetooli toimetised, 9. Tartu: Tartu Ülikool. Marandi, Rein, 1949: Kohanemine ja rootsistumine. Ühe eesti pagulasgrupi probleeme. – Sõna nr 4, 257–281. Merendi, Huko, 1952: De estniska flyktingarnas anpassningsproblem i Sverige. En sociologisk undersökning bland ester i en västsvensk industristad 1950–1951. – Svio-Estonica. Studier utgivna av Svensk-estniska förbundet, XI (Ny följd 2), 55–160. Lund. Norberg, Anna, 1994: Etnisk identitet hos ester och estättlingar i Sverige. CDuppsats i socialpsykologi. Uppsala: Uppsala universitet. Nõu, Enn, 1990: Eesti pagulasvalitsus 1988–1988: 44 aastat riiklikku pagulaspoliitikat. – Akadeemia 2, 252–294. Tartu. Pae, Ahti, 1956: Eestlased Rootsis. – Eesti kroonika 1957. Esimene aastakäik, 87–96. Stockholm: EMP Publishers.

196 The National Identity and Culture of Estonians Living in the West Põdrus, Sigrid, 1980: Eesti keele kõnelemine ja lugemine ühe Rootsis töötava eesti noorteorganisatsiooni raames. Uppsala: Uppsala universitet. Raag, Raimo, 1982: Lexical Characteristics in Swedish Estonian. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Uralica et Altaica Upsaliensia, 13. Uppsala. Raag, Raimo, 1983: Estniskan i Sverige. FUSKIS//FIDUS 6. Uppsala: Uppsala universitet, finsk-ugriska institutionen. Raag, Raimo, 1985: The Direct Object in Swedish Estonian. – Eesti Teadusliku Seltsi Rootsis Aastaraamat IX, 1980–1984, 201–212. Stockholm. Raag, Raimo, 1991: Linguistic Tendencies in the Estonian Language in Sweden. – Linguistica Uralica nr 1, 23–32. Tallinn. Raag, Raimo, 1999: Eestlane väljaspool Eestit. Ajalooline ülevaade. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus. Raag, Virve & Raag, Raimo, 1992: Över stormande hav. Üle tormise mere. Estländskt liv och leverne i Kumla 1944–1991. Eesti elu-olu Rootsi väikelinnas Kumlas 1944–1991. Kumla: Örebro Läns Museum. Rakfeldt, Jaak, 1993: Põhja-Ameerika eestlaste identsusest. – Akadeemia 5, 3–12. Tartu. Rebas, Hain, 1985: Sverigeesternas politiska verksamhet. – Raimo Raag & Harald Runblom (ed.), Estländarna i Sverige. Historia, språk, kultur. Uppsala Multiethnic Papers 12, 95–114. Uppsala. Reinans, Alur, 1985: Balterna i Sverige: några demografiska aspekter. – LarsGunnar Eriksson (ed.), De första båtflyktingarna. En antologi om balterna i Sverige, 65–89. (Sine loci et anni.) Reinans, Alur, 1999: Rootsieestlaste teine põlvkond. RU Sari B No 41. Tallinn: Eesti Kõrgkoolidevaheline Demouuringute Keskus. Roos, Aarand, 1980: Morfologiska tendenser vid språklig interferens med estniska som bas. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Uralica et Altaica Upsaliensia, 12. Uppsala. Saareste, Andrus, 1955: Kadunud kümmetuhat ja ka teised. – Eesti Üliõpilaste Seltsi Album XII, 31–41. Stockholm: Eesti Üliõpilaste Seltsi vanematekogu kirjastus. Tiido, Bruno, 1939: Organiseeritud Välis-Eesti. Album II. Tallinn: Välis-Eesti Ühing. Walko, M. Ann, 1989: Rejecting the Second Generation Hypothesis. Maintaining Estonian Ethnicity in Lakewood, New Jersey. New York: AMS Press, Inc.

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Veidenbaum, Siegfrid, 1975: Eestlased Kanadas pärast Teist maailmasõda. – Alfred Kurlents (chief ed.), Eestlased Kanadas. Ajalooline koguteos, 100– 125. Toronto: KEAK. Viidang, Juhan, 1956: Austraalia eestlased. – Eesti kroonika 1957. Esimene aastakäik, 38–49. Stockholm: EMP Publishers.

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Toomas Hendrik Ilves An Opinion Your professional activities could be regarded as an illustration of the theme of Estonian identity. Before you settled in Estonia, was the objective of your activities – as a scholar, a teacher and a journalist – the preservation of the Estonian identity in Estonian communities abroad or had you believed for some time that you were doing preparatory work for the restoration of independence? You were an outside observer of the events which led to the restoration of the independence of Estonia: at what point did you begin to feel that it was really possible? To the author himself, the classification of the following short essay under the heading “What do exile Estonians think?” would seem to be arbitrary and subjective. A Europe without frontiers, where each citizen has the right to live and work wherever he or she wishes is in actual fact just a contemporary version of a practice which has been functioning and developing in Europe for more than one thousand years. The history of Europe has never attached any real importance to where anyone has grown up, but rather to what they have done and to who they consider themselves to be. What nationality was Charlemagne? Was Rousseau French or Swiss? Was Napoleon Corsican or French? Was Éamon de Valera American? Spanish? Or was he the founder of the Fianna Fail political party and the president of Ireland? Was the 19th century French industrialist family William Cockerill et fils from England, France or even Belgium? I have lived for fairly long periods in five different countries: Sweden, the USA, Canada, Germany and Estonia. For some reason, presumably because I speak English with a certain accent – not an American accent, which is nonsense, but a Manhattan, or rather an Upper West Side accent – it is thought that my philosophical convictions, my ethical opinions, my aesthetic preferences and my political leanings are American. This is a rather peculiar but unbelievably widespread version of the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis: that language shapes thinking and that it shapes conscience. And so what should be thought of my son, who was born in Germany, who has lived there, but

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also in the USA and in Estonia, and who speaks three languages “like a native”? Identity has never been an intellectually interesting question for me. I have not sought out my roots or attended courses for young Estonians or participated in émigré politics. Nor have I ever felt the urge to bother myself with the question “so what or who am I then?” If someone tells me that because of my proficiency in English, my education acquired elsewhere and my temporary possession of a foreign passport I am an American, that is just as ridiculous as saying that my colleague Harri Tiido is a Soviet because of his proficiency in Russian and his former possession of a USSR passport. It has always been clear to me that I am Estonian. Because of my strange name I am rather like the character in Johnny Cash’s song “A boy named Sue” in that, while I was living abroad, almost every time I signed something I had to explain to some curious person why I had a name like that. This was always followed by the same comments: where is Estonia, why is it not on the map, can I speak the language, would I say something then, etc… The fact that I started that last sentence with a reference to American pop culture, considered banal, is, however, a reflection of some other part of my conscience. Is it a part of my identity? Goodness knows. But when the tabloid newspapers want to interview me on the topic “Toomas Hendrik Ilves as a Person” (whatever that means), I send them a page-long list of the books which have influenced me the most and inform them that I can only give answers to the journalists as part of a discussion on the themes covered in those books. The USA passport which I acquired when I was 26 and relinquished when I was 38 did indeed give me the opportunity to travel, but it is hard to explain in what way it has shaped my identity. In simplistic terms, my life could be classified as a work of which the major part belongs in the volume entitled “Estonia.” In as much as I am able to identify any kind of conscience within me at all, intellectual steadfastness has perhaps been the only constant element in my life. Estonia is simply one part of that, as is the English and French philosophy of the age of enlightenment. Therefore, Estonia and the restoration and consolidation of its independence is an intellectual project, and this by no means belittles the matter, quite the contrary. Whether it be teaching or translating Estonian literature, analysing and writing articles on national policies in the Estonian SSR at the Free Europe Research Institute, presenting

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Estonian-language programmes on Radio Free Europe or diplomatic work – this is all interesting to me, more interesting than anything else, and that is why I do it.

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Mari-Ann Kelam An Opinion What motivated the preservation of Estonian identity in the United States of America, and in what forms did this identity express itself there? In the 1970s and 1980s, when the re-establishment of independence seemed extremely unrealistic, what pushed you to engage in public action on behalf of Estonia (membership in the Estonian American National Council)? What the Estonian people were subjected to in 1940 was so cruel that it lives on in the subconscious. The fact that a foreign power, in just a few short months, was able to destroy the government, law and order and private property of a democratic country and managed to arrest, torture and murder so many people, shook our people to the very roots of their existence. People were consumed by feelings of defencelessness and fear. During the night of 13–14 June 1941, more than ten thousand civilians, many of them women, old people and children, were removed from their homes, crammed into cattle wagons and sent off into the unknown. The majority of them died or were killed. No-one living in a country under the rule of law could have foreseen such a turn of events. It was no surprise that when, just three years later in 1944, the Red Army invaded Estonia once again, tens of thousands of people tried to escape to save their lives and their personal freedom. As had been the case with many other nations, in the absence of any other option they voted against the Communist regime with their feet. Despite the trauma caused by losing their homes, the continuing sense of insecurity and their limited rights in the refugee camps in Germany, the Estonians at once began to organise themselves into a community. They set up schools, churches, newspapers, summer camps, societies, folk dance troupes, drama groups and choirs, and the work of the scouts and students’ associations continued. Celebrations were held on the anniversary of the foundation of the Republic of Estonia and at Midsummer and Christmas. Once the majority of the people from the refugee camps had resettled in Sweden, Canada or the USA, activities continued even more intensively. In places where a sufficiently large number of Estonians had settled, socalled “Estonian Houses” were set up, around which Estonian social and public life revolves even today. The preservation of the language, culture and

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education was an activity which united these crushed people, dropped into a foreign society, and gave them dignity and emotional support. The economic conditions were initially wretched; people had often had to flee with just a couple of suitcases. Nor was it easy to find suitable work in a strange and foreign-language society. It was particularly hard in smaller towns. Lawyers, former public servants, teachers and other such people of a respectable middle-age initially had to make do with unskilled work in order to feed their families. My parents started off working on a farm in Ohio, the owner of which informed them that there were no days off in the United States of America. They soon found better jobs in the nearest small town and moved there. In addition to their own everyday problems, people were worried about the fate of their relatives and friends stuck behind the Iron Curtain, and about the fate of their homeland. The lack of information, the Soviet postal censorship and the fact of being cut off from their homeland led to a situation which forced Estonian refugees actively to seek contact with each other. A number of years passed before the first tentative letters from Estonia reached America. I remember the excitement in our family when we read the news of Stalin’s death in the newspaper. Some time after that, the first letter arrived from my grandmother who, in 1944, had promised to catch the next refugee boat out of Tallinn to be with her daughter and her family. My mother did not know for almost ten years whether her dear mother was alive or whether she had been deported. We feared that she may have been dead as the next refugee ship, the Moeru, was attacked by Soviet planes and sank with hundreds of people on board. For her part, my grandmother did not know that I had been born. I was her first and only grandchild. In the United States, the refugees quickly engaged in politics. The foundation of this was the Estonian diplomatic representation in New York, which was officially recognised by the US. In a resolution of the US Under Secretary of State, Sumner Welles, on 23 July 1940, the 1932 Stimson Doctrine (non-recognition of territorial changes effected by force or threat of force) was applied with regard to the Soviet Union in connection with its annexation of the Baltic States. This policy of non-recognition remained the official policy of the USA and the other Western countries for half a century. This is perhaps one positive exception to the history of the 20th century, where the correct principles were put in place at the start and they were followed for as long as it took for a just solution to be reached. Thanks to the non-recognition by the West of the legitimacy of the Soviet occupation, many citizens of the Baltic States were saved from Moscow’s

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attempted ignoble “repatriations.” Estonian ships and other property and assets were also saved from the clutches of the Soviet Union. It is noteworthy that the flags of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania continued to hang in the foyer of the State Department amongst the flags of all the independent states. At that time it all seemed natural to us that the West had not recognised the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States – how could any democracy approve of or simply ignore such a crime, such an injustice? In spite of everything, there remained hope that the promises contained in the Atlantic Charter – that sovereign rights and self government would be restored to those who had been forcibly deprived of them in the war – would be met. The fight for freedom began – all possible forces were employed both to save the national identity of our homeland, which had been subjected to Russification on a massive scale, and to restore an independent democratic state. Estonian identity and opposition to the inhumane Communist regime were inseparably entwined. To fight against Communism meant to fight for Estonia. Despite the initial language problem and the insecurity created by speaking in public in a foreign language, many Estonians presented talks to Americans whenever the opportunity arose, whether in schools, churches, clubs or elsewhere. I remember well how my mother prepared herself for these appearances. She had studied English at secondary school but it was British English, not American English, and she had not had any practical experience of using it. Partially for encouragement, but also partially in order to create a friendlier atmosphere, she would take me along and let me sing a little Estonian song. The pressure was intense but the need to explain the fate of Estonia and to warn the Americans who had provided us with refuge from the dangers of Communism was even greater. Our message was convincing because those who have lost their freedom understand its value all the better. It was often necessary to explain things in detail because it was hard for small town Americans to imagine what was happening in Estonia. Once when my mother was talking about the nationalisation of bank accounts and the confiscation of buildings, one nice lady asked, “But why didn’t you call the police then?” The Estonians also set up political organisations such as the Estonian American National Council (EANC) and later the Joint Baltic American National Committee. Work began to lobby American politicians, both at state, and national level. In Congress during the 1950s, the “Kersten Commission” began its hearings concerning the fate of the Baltic States and the crimes perpetrated by the Soviet Union. Soon, demonstrations were

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organised at which independence was demanded for the Baltic States. The demonstration at the headquarters of the United Nations in November 1965 was attended by 15,000 people. Estonian folk culture and songs were always an important part of our political activities. For this reason, those Estonians who were more than happy to sing or demonstrate Estonian folk traditions but who did not wish to be directly involved in politics (often for fear of what would happen to their loved ones back home) also joined in. Beautiful Estonian folk costumes formed a pretty backdrop to more than one speech by an American mayor or Congressman. The desire at least to preserve and develop the Estonian language and Estonian culture abroad was also strong: large-scale song festivals and other cultural events were soon being organised. These grew into the series of powerful worldwide ESTO celebrations. The first ESTO was held in Toronto in 1972 and was attended by almost 20,000 Estonians from all over the world, with the exception of Estonia. The following “ESTO days” took place (every four years) in Baltimore, Stockholm, Melbourne and New York. Over the course of the years, we co-operated increasingly with our companions in fate, the Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and other subjugated peoples, and also with Jewish organisations. A new generation grew up who had acquired their education and knowledge in America and who felt at home in both societies. The understandings and convictions learned at home, at school and from society in general were largely the same – the principles of democracy and a free market economy, respect for fellow human beings and human rights, patriotism, appreciation of independence and freedom. I was, and still am, convinced that in being a good Estonian, I am also a good American. And vice-versa. When in 1980 I joined in the activities of the Estonian American National Council, we had reached an extremely high level in terms of communicating our political message. We defended the policy of non-recognition which from time to time came under threat from a wave of realpolitik, we condemned violations of human rights committed by the Soviet Union, we protested against the invasion of Afghanistan, and we organised explanatory actions in respect of the Moscow and Los Angeles Olympics. We were invited as experts to attend hearings of the US Congress, as well as scientific and political conferences. The real breakthrough came in 1982 when President Ronald Reagan declared the first Baltic Freedom Day, which was followed by a reception at the White House. We managed to achieve these results through

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organised the lobbying of Congress by Americans of Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian origin. We repeated this project every year as a means of using affirmative political action to commemorate the mass deportations of 14 June 1941 – one of the darkest days in the history of our people. Our goal was the restoration of independence for Estonia and its neighbours, and the only way we saw of guaranteeing this was by preserving the Estonian identity, language and culture. When the Soviet Union began talking of policies of glasnost and perestroika, the possibility of closer co-operation with democratic opposition movements in Estonia arose. When Tunne Kelam first made it to the West from occupied Estonia in 1989, he was, as far as I can remember, the first to thank and give recognition to the exiles for their work over the years. And at that moment I fell in love with him. Recognition and acknowledgement are of course necessary for everyone but I often have a strange feeling when someone thanks me for what I did for Estonia abroad. On the one hand I understand what the person is thinking, yet on the other hand it was all a matter of course. As an Estonian I could not have reacted in any other way. The fact that I was energetic, courageous and good with words was only important because those characteristics of mine were of use in the fight for freedom. In the 1970s, the opinion was voiced in various quarters – in some areas it seemed to be particularly “progressive” thinking – that the occupation had gone on for so long and the Soviet Union was so strong that perhaps there was no point in hoping for freedom any more. Yet the silent hope for freedom had been in our thoughts for such a long time and had become such a part of us that it could not simply disappear completely. In fact, it was not just an abstract or theoretical hope. The majority of exiles had relatives and friends in Estonia – real people with whom it was only possible to make contact and engage in cautious correspondence after Stalin’s death. Because of the controls put in place by Moscow, we had to use extremely complicated procedures to send desperately needed packages to them. We found out about the system imposed by the Soviet Union, the policy of Russification, the deportations, the economic stagnation and the pollution of the environment. Many were afraid that the Estonian language and culture would not survive the occupation. We hoped that the Estonians back home were offering at least passive resistance, but for how long would they be able to keep it up? Although in the early years I was not involved in any organised manner in the Estonian fight for freedom, I always stood up for Estonia whenever the

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opportunity arose. When I was ten I sent my first “letter to the editor” to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, praising the courage of the Hungarian freedom fighters. I gave my first speech to a large audience when I was sixteen. The topic, of course, was the fate of tiny Estonia between the claws of the great Russian bear. Later, my children also took part in these activities. My son Kristopher Madis was with me as a baby in my rucksack when we protested in front of the Australian embassy in Washington against the Australian government’s plan to end the policy of non-recognition. The other major event took place two years later at the Lincoln Memorial, when we demanded freedom for the Baltic States. As several older Estonians tended to speak to my son in English, I wrote “Speak to me in Estonian” on a balloon and tied it to his arm. Although Estonian was the home language in our family, we lived quite a long way from other Estonians, even his grandparents, and Kristopher had until then had few opportunities to meet so many Estonian-speaking people at the same time. I was worried that he might start to think that Estonian was some kind of secret language in our family! When he was a little older and his sister Merike Kai had been born, I drove the two of them every Sunday to the Estonian school in Baltimore. This Sunday school was set up as a private initiative and was the only way for most Estonians to give their children a remotely systemised education in their mother tongue. It took up most of each Sunday. The real impetus for me to become active in organised politics was the arrest of new political prisoners in Estonia following the signing of the Helsinki Agreement in 1975. The fact that people of my age and younger in Estonia dared to risk their careers, their personal wellbeing and even their lives (Professor Jüri Kukk, who had stood up for human rights, died a martyr’s death in northern Russia) was extremely moving. It was impossible to remain a silent witness when I had the resources in the West to do something to help them. I engaged myself actively in the work of the Relief Committee for Estonian Prisoners of Conscience in the USSR, which resembled the activities of Amnesty International. We sent registered letters to political prisoners and packages to their families. We also organised a postcard campaign aimed at the Communist authorities in Moscow and Tallinn. There was a photograph of a political prisoner on each card along with a demand for him or her to be freed, written in several languages. It was quite clear that the more cards sent the better and that the more Americans involved the greater the effect.

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One thing led to another – opportunities were constantly opening up. The Estonian political prisoners became better known and more attention was directed at them, which gave them a certain shield and may have helped to improve the situation for them. At the same time, their fight for human rights, democracy and independence helped to explain why it was essential to liberate Estonia from the Soviet occupation it was under. Each demand for human rights and each political demonstration back home was also proof of what the exiles had been saying for decades: Estonia was a country suffering under the regime of a ruthless foreign power and placed in abnormal conditions. I began to send letters actively to newspapers, to my Congressman and to government organisations. My mother and I joked about it all: one single woman, armed only with a computer, a photocopier and a fax machine, was presenting a great threat to the mighty Soviet Union. We managed to participate in Congress hearings organised by Congressman Benjamin Gilman (former Chairman of the Committee on International Relations) to enquire about violations of international postal rules in the Soviet Union. By that time we had gathered a substantial amount of evidence, receipts from registered letters with forged signatures and returned letters. These all showed that the letters had not reached the political prisoners in the gulags. The news of innocent people sitting in forced labour camps merely for having demanded justice and human rights won us the sympathy of the Americans and gave us support. As an American, my fight for the freedom and national identity of Estonia was always tied to the fight against Communist totalitarianism, the nature of which is to suppress national and human rights. Through my activities I had also aroused interest amongst the American Estonians. I was asked to stand as a candidate to the Estonian American National Council. I was hesitant at first but in the end I was persuaded by the argument that my work would be more important if I had a national organisation behind me. And so it was – the position of Vice-President of the EANC gave support and weight to my actions. One action led to the next and almost every single meeting or demonstration brought new members, new partners willing to co-operate. Co-operation also began with other national groups. We were constantly thinking about how to capture the attention of the media and the general public. The Baltic Americans became renowned for our favourite slogan which we shouted thousands of times in front of the Soviet Union embassy: “Niet, niet, Soviet! Da, da, svoboda!” This means that we were against the Soviet system, not against the Russians, and that we were demanding freedom for everyone under the Soviet system, including the

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Russians. One day we would be on the streets with our flags and banners, the next we would be in meetings with members of Congress, at the White House or the State Department. In the second half of the 1980s, the Soviet Union and its satellite states found themselves in a state of ferment. The Polish Solidarity movement was a clear sign that the suppressed nations were demanding their rights and that the empire could eventually fall apart. Peaceful demonstrations in all three Baltic capitals on 23 August 1987, which we supported by organising a letter of warning to be sent to Gorbachev by US Senators, and the international media attention which followed, proved to be the greatest moment of Baltic cooperation. There was still a lot to do, but even then the victory was in sight. We had reached the point we were aiming at – we had put in place productive mutual co-operation on both sides of the ocean and we had achieved an essential political breakthrough in the media.

Liis Klaar The Estonian Identity in Exile An opinion Amongst Estonians in exile, you are a good example of someone who has lived in several countries where there have been Estonian communities of varying sizes. Could you sense any differences in the Estonian identity in the different countries? Does the Estonian identity abroad correspond to the Estonian identity you now encounter living in Tallinn? For the first few years, we lived in the Augsburg refugee camp in the American zone of Germany. There were refugees from all three Baltic States, and there were also schools working in their languages. All sorts of hobby circles, choirs and theatre groups were set up. To begin with there was a lot of creative activity going on but each year the number of pupils and teachers fell as people moved on as soon as they had the opportunity. The USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand all needed to increase the size of their workforce and they were prepared to accept refugees. However, my father contracted asthma in the camp and no country wanted a family with three children where the father was ill. My parents were hoping to be able to go to Sweden as my mother’s brothers had fled there in sailing boats straight across the Baltic Sea. After being turned down three times, we finally made it to Sweden in 1950. I was then 12 years old and I had lived in a refugee camp for six of those years. In Stockholm, to where we were not able to move until 1954, there was a large Estonian community. There were Estonian Guide and Scout groups, choirs, a folk dance group and other hobby circles. In 1945, an Estonian primary school was established. The curriculum was that of a Swedish school but the teaching was in Estonian. There was also a church and an evening school. It was as if I was living in two different worlds. My life during the daytime – school – was conducted in Swedish, but I spent my evenings and weekends in an Estonian environment. The language we used at home was of course Estonian. But that was not the case in every family, as some parents were of the opinion that it was better for their children to assimilate rapidly.

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However, some years later these children reproached their parents for not having taught them Estonian, as they were then unable to write to their grandparents who were still in Estonia (correspondence was not possible before 1953), or take part in events conducted in Estonian. Although we were poor in the material sense, I felt as though I was better off than my Swedish classmates: I had the opportunity to partake of two cultures and to choose the best from both of them. Approximately 30,000 Estonians fled to Sweden, although at least 5000 of those continued onwards, mainly to Canada, as the Soviet Union was still felt to be too close. The majority of the Swedish Estonians lived in Stockholm, which really was still quite close to Estonia. Sweden is a Nordic country – of course there are differences in customs, in food and even in the natural environment, but Nordic Sweden was still much more like Estonia than, for example, Canada was. After Stalin’s death (in 1953), it became possible to correspond with Estonia and the first relatives came to visit. The process of applying for visas was, of course, tiresome and the people who were let out were either extremely loyal to the Communist Party or they were so scared that they did not dare to say anything. But at least some sort of contact had been established. There was also discord between the refugee Estonians. Swedish Estonians were labelled “red” in Canada and the USA as they actively sought contact with Estonians back in their home country and some of them even visited Estonia, their main desire of course being to meet their relatives and to help them. Although the largest Estonian community outside Estonia was to be found in Toronto, the Estonian language was best preserved in Sweden. I believe that part of the reason for this was that Canadian society did not put pressure on the refugees at all: go about your work and speak whatever language you want to. In Swedish society, we were the first immigrants and all kinds of demands were placed on us, as well as our being mocked when we spoke Estonian in public. But pressure always leads to a reaction and our internal strength grew as a result. Starting in 1972, world-wide “Estonian days” (known as ESTO) began to be organised, every four years, and continue today, now also with the participation of Estonians from the homeland.

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And so a global movement developed with the aim of preserving the Estonian identity, making the world aware that Estonia was under occupation, and demanding freedom for Estonia. For me, fighting for the Estonian identity and for Estonia was a part of life and for this reason it was impossible for me to marry a Swede, for example, because he simply would not have understood me. The Estonian national day on 24 February and the blue, black and white colours of the flag would have meant nothing to him. In my case though, my eyes welled up every time we raised the blue, black and white flag on any national occasion. I do not remember my parents as being particularly nationalistic – I think I acquired much of my Estonian identity from the scout movement. On Estonian Independence Day, I would stand as part of the flag guard in the Grand Hall of Stockholm Concert Hall and feel proud to be Estonian. Later, when I was a student, we started up an Estonian department at Stockholm University and on Independence Day I stood on the rostrum and demanded the right of self-determination for small nations and the restoration of independence for Estonia. Naturally, I married an Estonian, our home language was and is Estonian, and our eldest son Toivo even managed to attend the Estonian nursery school in Stockholm for a couple of years. When our youngest son Margus was two and Toivo was five, we moved to Switzerland as my husband was offered an interesting job there. There were not many Estonians in Switzerland but there was an Estonian Society and once a year, in February, we celebrated the anniversary of the independence of the three Baltic States together. Around Midsummer we would make a Midsummer bonfire and at Christmas we would decorate a fir tree. There were no Estonian children and because of this we visited Sweden every summer so that we could at least get together with the children of my brothers and sisters. During the war, the Swiss borders were closed. The few who succeeded in making it into Switzerland were either nurses or distant descendants of former Swiss cheese makers who had established themselves in Estonia in the 1920s. And so the Estonian Society consisted mainly of elderly ladies who met a couple of times a year to reminisce about old times. From Switzerland, our course took us to Vancouver on the West coast of Canada. There were many more Estonians there, some 1000 in total, although only around 200 of these were active. At the time when the first refugees arrived, Canada was still very much a virgin land and anyone who was willing to work was able to achieve something. Canadian Estonians were generally

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wealthier than Swedish Estonians, primarily due to working hard in the construction industry, but also because of their spirit of enterprise. Whereas it was mostly town people who fled to Sweden, the Estonian community in Canada was comprised mainly of people from coastal areas. But everyone who was in any way able to sent their children to university. As my father said, “The only belongings that cannot be taken away from you are those that are in your head!” As far as I know, the Estonian identity in Canada was extremely strict, particularly in the early years when many people arrived there from refugee camps in Germany. If you were Estonian, you had to see the threat of communism everywhere. Any remotely liberal thinking was prohibited and, for this reason, Estonians who were living in social-democratic Sweden were almost “red,” as I mentioned earlier. These attitudes were less prevalent on the West coast of Canada but I certainly came across them when speaking to Estonians in Toronto. In Vancouver, the Estonians had their own church and an accompanying society building called Meie Kodu (Our Home). Folk dancing classes and choir rehearsals were held there, as well as an Estonian complementary school where the children were taught the Estonian language and Estonian history once a week. Estonians on the West coast of both the USA and Canada met up every second summer to celebrate Estonian days. During the final years before our return to Estonia, I was chair of the Vancouver Estonian Society. This meant organising ceremonies on Independence Day and Mothering Sunday as well as many other events, and the whole family always helped out. Every Monday from the spring of 1991 until the time of the August putsch, we organised demonstrations together with the Latvians and Lithuanians in the centre of Vancouver to demand the restoration of independence in our countries. Similar demonstrations also took place in Stockholm. In this way, our sons were able to benefit from the spirit which united Estonians abroad during those long years. Being Estonian had a special meaning as there were Estonians spread around the whole world – in its own way, it was rather like a secret society. When the situation suddenly changed and our dreams were fulfilled, it was entirely logical for us to return to Estonia. It was not a hard decision for us at all – we just had to resolve a few practical matters. Our return was of course made easier by several factors. Firstly, our eldest son had been in Estonia since the autumn of 1989. He wanted to be the first Western student at the

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University of Tartu and he was only supposed to come for a year, but the situation changed and he stayed on in Estonia. Secondly, my husband was offered the opportunity of setting up a branch of a Swiss re-insurance company in Estonia. For my part, I was still somewhat worried. I had been here several times before we finally moved and I was deeply saddened by Tallinn’s dirty and unkempt appearance: unwashed windows, potholed streets, disgusting yards with broken dustbins. Everything seemed so grey and desperate. The people were also grey, nobody smiled. It was as if everyone had been beaten up. Compared with Vancouver, the contrast was horrible. I cried in the plane the whole way back to Vancouver and I was thinking about how on earth I could keep my pride when telling my friends from outside Estonia that this was my home town. But everything seemed to click at once. The windows were washed, the roads were repaired and the people became much more open and friendlier. Life here was naturally very different to what I was used to, but I can say with pride that we did not feel that we were foreigners and neither were we treated as foreigners. We have been accepted in every way, we have managed to find our place in society and I have even been elected to the Riigikogu. In summary, I would say that my home is here, as my roots are also here. I want to do everything to ensure the continuation of the Estonian state and the Estonian people and that we as a nation are an equal among equals.

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Aino Lepik von Wirén An Opinion It seems that for the first generation of Estonians in exile, i.e. those born before the Second World War, their Estonian identity is inseparable from their personality (“I am Estonian as I was born in Estonia”). For people of your generation, did the feeling of being Estonian form during your childhood or did you become aware of it only later? Has your interest in law and legal matters been influenced at all by the injustices to which Estonia has been subjected? For the first generation of Estonians in exile, the feeling of identity and the matter of being Estonian were certainly not of primary importance. By thinking about my parents, I can imagine that the issues which counted the most for them were losing their fatherland, adapting to life abroad, and being separated from their relatives and friends. This applies particularly to those who were already adults by the time they went into exile and who had obtained their education in the Republic of Estonia. I dare say that those Estonians who had not completed their education in Estonian before going into exile, and who soon had to continue their studies in a foreign language, were the ones for whom the question of being Estonian or not was the most painful. Many of them did everything they could to assimilate rapidly into the population of their new country of residence and promptly forgot about their Estonian identity. It was somewhat easier for people of my age who were born during the fifties and early sixties. Our parents had a firm Estonian identity which they did not doubt, while we were as proficient in the language of our country of residence and able to relate to the circumstances there just as well as the local young people. The recognition of this gave us the courage to be Estonian as well. The Estonian identity of the people of my generation comes essentially from the home, from Stockholm, where I grew up, and to a certain extent also from six years of Estonian primary school. Naturally, the preservation of the Estonian identity abroad depended on the opportunities that existed to meet other Estonians and the desire to find opportunities to speak and read Estonian and just to learn about our country of origin in general.

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One important aspect in reinforcing our Estonian identity was contact with occupied Estonia. It was a very painful topic for all of us, as the extent to which communication was permitted was decided by the occupying authorities. People of my generation, none of whom had any personal experience of Estonia, had to find their own way of communicating with the country according to their political convictions. Some of us visited occupied Estonia privately while others came only within the framework of events under the strict organisation of the authorities. Many tried to find other ways of communicating without actually visiting the country. It is certain that the development of the Estonian identity in exile would not have been possible if there had not been at least a minimum of contact with the homeland. However, the majority did not use the opportunities that arose, or the abilities that they already had to preserve their Estonian identity. Perhaps some of them were not interested. We all completed secondary school and graduated from university in our country of residence and most of us married non-Estonians. For most of us, by the time our children were born, our Estonian identity had become confined to our own distant childhood, and it was natural to speak with our children in the language of our country of residence. When Estonia regained its independence, the process of assimilation had been going on for almost 50 years and was well-nigh irreversible. It is a natural process which has unfolded along the same lines for other people living outside their homeland. At this point, it is pertinent to ask: what is the Estonian identity? Is it just the knowledge that I am of Estonian origin? If so, then it can be claimed that the majority of my generation feel that way. If on the other hand identity is connected with knowledge of the language and of Estonian culture, then it has to be said that the majority of us have already lost our identity. And if identity means a high level of proficiency in the language and using it constantly, along with a thorough knowledge of Estonian culture and society, then the Estonian identity of only an extremely small number of my contemporaries has been preserved. It would be more correct to ask why the Estonian identity, in its broadest sense, of just a few Estonians born abroad has been preserved, not why it has been lost by the majority. I have to admit that I do not know the answer. It is difficult to determine the common denominator amongst those in exile whose Estonian identity in the broadest sense has been preserved. Perhaps most of them have settled in Estonia following the restoration of independence, as this is also a natural

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continuation, once life in exile is no longer necessary, for it is the only way of preserving their heightened Estonian identity. I remember from my childhood that older people said that under no circumstances should young people study law because the fate of Estonians abroad was unsure, also we never knew when we might have to move again. As law is connected with a country and a language, it is difficult, if not impossible, to start again in a different society. This story was indeed true, because many lawyers who had been in high office in the Republic of Estonia were not able to find employment corresponding to their abilities in their new country of residence. I think that this was the reason why many of my contemporaries studied to become engineers instead, or doctors. Even at school I was more interested in social sciences than other subjects. I am not certain, but perhaps this was because we regularly discussed social and political questions at home, principally of course matters concerned with Estonia’s relationship with the Soviet Union. I entered the Faculty of Law in 1980, at a time when the situation in Estonia appeared to be particularly depressing. At that point, I envisaged that I would have a career as a lawyer in Sweden, and that was what I began there. It would have been impossible just then to imagine that in a little over ten years I would go and live in the Republic of Estonia. The stories I had heard in my childhood turned out to be correct. The fate of the Estonian in exile was unsure, for the period of exile came to an end. I moved far from the language, attitudes and customs of the country where I had lived, so I had to begin to reacquire the professional abilities I had acquired abroad. My adaptation to Estonia did not prove to be impossible, perhaps due to the fact that all Estonian lawyers had to adapt to a new environment following Estonia’s restoration of independence. My process of adaptation was perhaps just slightly different from that of those lawyers who had studied in Estonia.

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Helga Nõu An Opinion When fleeing the war and the second Soviet occupation in 1944, an Estonian’s identity was natural and inevitable. Initially, refugees did not know the language of the country where they were living, nor did they find work corresponding to their level of education, nor even a decent place to live, i.e. they lacked all the things which give people social status in the eyes of the those around them. Instead, Estonians abroad cultivated the strong national identity they had brought with them from home and which was based on intense patriotic idealism which was linked to the struggle against communism. Their national identity was reinforced by a hatred of the violence perpetrated by the Soviet Union, thoughts about those suffering back home, and a grim brand of homesickness. Schools, newspapers, publishing houses and hundreds of organisations covering all walks of life were started. It could be said that a miniature Estonia was created in several countries: Sweden, Canada, the USA and Australia. The 1950s and 1960s formed the peak years for the refugees, and many put more effort into their various Estonian activities than they did into their everyday work and life. At first, this activity had a concrete aim, since people still hoped to be able to return to their homeland. Over the years, this hope faded and the activities became an aim in themselves. The “liberation struggle” had been reduced to a slogan. For many people, their status in the exile community was the most important thing in their lives. When in 1991 Estonia suddenly became free, there were of course feelings of joy, but also of scepticism and disillusion, since now the importance of those carrying on the fight in exile was diminished. Many old former refugees feel they no longer have a “rightful place.” They have not been able to adopt the identity of their host countries, and their Estonian identity stems from the first period of independence between the wars. They do not feel at home in present-day Estonia. What has been said above applies principally to the oldest generation of refugees who fled as adults. It also applies to those who lived in the Swedish conurbations where other Estonians were living. There are, however, plenty of people who lived away from such a refugee environment, married foreigners and devoted their efforts to their trade or profession. Their Estonian identity thus weakened and their everyday language was not Estonian. They perhaps adopted a double identity, sometimes they became divorced entirely from being Estonian, because it was easier to be a Swede, or an American, if

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you wanted to succeed in the job market and make a career for yourself. After Estonia again became independent, many of those who originally grew remote from their Estonian identity have once more begun to take an interest in Estonia. A certain crisis occurred in refugee activities with the change of generations. It was taken for granted that young people would take up the refugee activities of their parents, as the latter grew weary. But most of the young people, especially those who had no personal memories of Estonia, no longer had enough of a sense of nationhood, or an interest in continuing to devote themselves to the ideals of “the Estonian cause.” Young people could even be critical of their parents, whose idealistic view of independent Estonia they felt to be exaggerated. The older generation did not want to relinquish important positions in the refugee organisations to young people, but wished to have them as “apprentices.” Over the years assimilation into foreign society increased. On account of mixed marriages, the grandchildren of refugees tended to speak poor Estonian, or none at all. Only a very few of the fourth generation now emerging can speak Estonian. But the fact that refugee activities have continued for some half a century does show the strength of the Estonian identity, something which other groups of refugees and immigrants marvel at. For the children and grandchildren of Estonian refugees, their identity is no longer self-evident. A couple of examples: As a thirteen-year-old, my daughter, whose home language was Estonian, found it embarrassing if I spoke Estonian to her on the bus. She forbade me: “Don’t speak so loud, otherwise everybody will be able to hear we’re not Swedes!” When she was 25 years old in the 1980s, the same daughter visited Estonia for the first time. She came back to Sweden with lots of enthusiasm and was surprised that she had felt so much at home there. It emerged that her feeling of “belonging” had been generated by the fact that people spoke Estonian. She was used to living in a Swedish-speaking environment where the Estonian language was only spoken in the family. This same daughter at the age of 39 and married to a foreigner: “I feel both Estonian and Swedish, depending on where I happen to be. This has not caused me any problems. But I’d like you to speak Swedish with me when my husband’s present, so that he understands what’s being said. I’m happy to be able to speak Estonian, and I like going to Estonia, but I don’t think I would want to live there for good.”

IV. The “Singing Revolution” and Independence Regained (1988 to the Present)

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Mart Laar The Restoration of Independence in Estonia In Estonia, 1984 really was 1984, the title of George Orwell’s novel. The evil empire stretched across the whole world and resistance seemed a hopeless undertaking. The characteristic traits of this empire, which extended from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, were lies and violence which, while not reaching the extremes of Stalinist repression, were still pervasive enough to nip in the bud any larger-scale attempts to stand up to the system. Fear was of the essence. This period also coincided with the entry into active life of the generation born in the sixties in the depths of the Soviet era, a generation which did not have any personal experience of an independent Estonia and which should have been 100% absorbed by Soviet ideology. Indeed, the regime went to great lengths to make sure this was the case. As fate had decreed that I would share Lenin’s birthday, 22 April, I was taught at nursery school to be a good Leninist. Later, my grandfather told me of how he almost had a fit when he asked me, “Little Mart, who is dearest to you in all the world?” and I answered, “Lenin and peace.” Fortunately, in the face of the Soviet reality and the physical pain and suffering which confronted you everywhere, this brainwashing did not have any long-lasting effect. It was impossible not to notice the lies and deception which dominated Soviet society, it was rather a question of being honest enough to admit to it. In addition, during the period while this generation was growing, life in the Soviet system became ever more miserable. As a result of increased immigration, the Estonian people and their language were in danger of extinction. This led to protests and opposition. As I grew up, I began to understand the real nature of the Soviet system, which was based on uncontrolled and often arbitrary terror. At any rate, our people were heading for annihilation as anyone could be arrested as part of the repression without really having done anything. And so, those born in the sixties became a generation of people without illusions who, by judging the Soviet system realistically and knowing how it worked, tried to build themselves ivory towers or, by “taking arms against a sea of troubles,” engaged themselves in combat. It then became ever clearer that, by the beginning of the 1980s, the global Communist system was in an acute crisis. The unsuccessful war in Afghanistan was evidence of the vulnerability of the Soviet war machine. The

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birth of the independent union movement Solidarity in Poland and the events of 1980 there showed that control over the situation in the satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe was also weakening. This in turn was a major boost to the protest movements in other Communist countries. The Soviet authorities might even have been able to delay the collapse of the Communist system, as they had in the second half of the 1950s, but for the rise to power in the West of governments with a new way of thinking. Instead of neutralising the Soviet Union, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher set as their goal the destruction of the Communist system. By accelerating the arms race, supporting anti-Communist movements in both Afghanistan and Central and Eastern Europe, reducing the income of the Soviet Union through forcing the price of oil down and effectively setting up an economic blockade, the West succeeded in driving the Soviet Union into a corner and as good as won the Cold War. This of course made Reagan and the “Iron Lady” extremely popular in Estonia. A considerable proportion of the parties I attended as a university student involved bawling a song with a chorus which culminated in the triumphant cry, “I love Thatcher.” In connection with that, I also remember clearly the moment when I realised for the first time that there was not long to go to the collapse of the Soviet empire. Every Monday, the students who were following the compulsory courses to become Soviet officers were given a lecture by a high-ranking officer from Moscow, whose every word reflected fear and panic regarding “the Mad Cowboy’s Star Wars Programme.” None of us had ever seen that kind of panic before. It soon even became clear to the Soviet leaders that they had lost the Cold War and that the only way to save socialism and the empire was to release the pressure and introduce some apparent reforms comparable to those of the “thaw” period. This was the objective of the process of restructuring, or perestroika, put in place by Mikhail Gorbachev when he became the Soviet leader in 1985. This hope was not destined to be realised, but, to the people under the yoke of oppression, it was a sign of the weakening of the Soviet system. Because the Soviet leaders had forgotten that democracy is like toothpaste – it is very easy to get it out of the tube, but you just try and get it back in again afterwards. Against this background, it was natural that attempts were soon made to exploit the freedoms on offer, constantly testing the limits of how far it was possible to go. The first battlefield was history, where the restoration of sections which had been whitened out, mainly regarding the Stalinist crimes

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which had been committed, was part of the policy of glasnost alongside the truth concerning the environmental situation. Then the Soviet leaders forgot the teaching of Orwell – that control of the past is necessary to control the present and the future. In this context, it is not surprising that history became one of the first battlefields for the liberation movement. In 1986, many young people from all over Estonia met up in Jüri near Tallinn to set up an organisation which would restore the historical memory of the Estonian people. At that time, the people assembled there, who included future ministers and members of parliament, were not aware that they were participating in a historical event. Despite the opposition of the authorities, the Estonian Heritage Society grew into a force to be reckoned with and its local organisations covered the whole country. It announced the arrival of a new period of national awakening and called on the people to hold their heads up high and be proud of their history. In our activities, we knowingly used the methods and slogans of the first period of national awakening (from the 19th century) which turned out to work just as successfully in the 20th century as they had 100 years previously. The slogan “a new era of awakening” spread rapidly across the country. This would all have been difficult if not impossible to achieve had the press not gradually managed to free itself from the strict control it had been under. It was now possible to publish articles on less sensitive issues. The press raised topics which would have caused massive problems just shortly before. The articles written by Mati Hint in defence of the Estonian language helped national sentiments amongst Estonians to grow dramatically. An indication of the strengthening of the national movement was given by the so-called Phosphorite War which broke out in the spring of 1987 with the aim of stopping the construction of phosphorite mines in Virumaa. The first to raise the problem were writers, and then the press disclosed the plans to create new phosphorite mines in Estonia, plans which had until that point been kept secret. A storm of protest broke out and petitions were signed to stop the new mines. On 2 April 1987, the Komsomol organisations of the Faculty of History and Law at Tartu University called a meeting in the main hall (or aula) of the university to discuss matters relating to the phosphorite mines. This meeting became known as the “aula meeting.” Despite the efforts of the Estonian SSR Komsomol leaders to appease the young people, the students at the meeting unanimously condemned the actions of the leaders of the Estonian SSR. In the traditional demonstrations on 1 May, the students carried anti-phosphorite

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slogans and, in doing so, took the protests on to the next level. The yellow Tshirts made by the students and carrying the message “Phosphorite – no thanks” became extremely popular. Estonian musicians also joined in the protests. Future Minister of Education Tõnis Lukas was almost expelled from the university for hanging a banner bearing an anti-phosphorite slogan on Tartu Town Hall. The Soviet Estonian authorities initially tried to quash the revolt using the same old methods. But it soon became clear to them that concessions were unavoidable and the construction of the phosphorite mines was halted. The Soviet authorities had been forced to back down in the face of public opinion and protest actions. This gave the people faith in their own power and helped create the circumstances in which an official political protest movement could be set up. On the basis of an agreement between dissidents from the three Baltic States, an organisation was created on 15 August 1987 called the Estonian Group for the Disclosure of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (abbreviated in Estonian as MRP-AEG). The MRP-AEG appealed to the authorities of the city of Tallinn for permission to organise a demonstration on the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in the Deer Park (Hirvepark) in Tallinn. This request was met with a positive reply, perhaps due partially to an open letter sent by 32 American senators to Mikhail Gorbachev in which they called for peaceful demonstrations to be permitted in the Baltic States. This letter was a source of encouragement for all the people, showing as it did that, in the form of the exiles, there was an Estonian community in the West who could defend their interests from there. The Hirvepark meeting took place on 23 August and the number of people attending was estimated to be between 2,000 and 5,000, a figure which was a surprise to the organisers. The demonstration went ahead smoothly in a wellorganised manner and speeches were made demanding the liquidation of the consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The meeting was a major breakthrough in the development of Estonia as it showed that public opposition to the system as it was at the time was becoming possible. The success of the Hirvepark meeting came as a shock to the leadership of the Estonian Communist Party. An extensive campaign of defamation was started in the press against the meeting and its organisers. Although one of the leaders of the MRP-AEG, Tiit Madisson, was expelled from Estonia, new members continued to join. The MRP-AEG soon became an extremely

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effective organisation and even began to publish its own information bulletins which were printed on fine corn paper and passed from hand to hand. Alongside the people involved with the Hirvepark meeting, the heritage conservation movement too was put under pressure by the authorities. When the Heritage Society refused to condemn the Hirvepark demonstration, confrontation was inevitable. The clubs affiliated to the Society had planned a gathering for the beginning of September but this was now outlawed by the authorities who instead arranged a huge demonstration of force on 4 September in Tarvastu, the place where the gathering would have taken place. Tarvastu was surrounded by several cordons of militia and special units, and the place itself was full of security forces photographing and filming people. This action had been conceived as one of fear but ended up as being plain ridiculous. And by laughing, the people were less afraid. The banning of the Tarvastu meeting had the effect of being a powerful advertisement for the Heritage Society. In one month, the number of affiliated clubs doubled. It was no longer possible to ignore the movement. At a demonstration held by young people in Võru on 21 October 1987, the banned blue, black and white Estonian flag was displayed officially for the first time. The deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Arved Jaaska, gave the order for tear gas and water cannons to be used against the demonstrators but the local militia simply ignored the order. The activities of the national movement caused disquiet to the generation of the seventies and eighties who were trying to get into power through the Communist Party. For some time, various groups had been working on a plan for economic reforms which would have introduced innovations to the Soviet system but would still have been contained within it. It appeared on 26 September 1987 in the newspaper Edasi (Onwards) under the name “Proposal for full economic autonomy in the Estonian SSR.” This proposal soon became known as IME, the acronym for Isemajandav Eesti (economically autonomous Estonia) and also the Estonian word for “miracle.” At the same time, the people who proposed the IME-project stressed that it should not be seen in any way as an attempt to restore an independent Estonian state. Their assurances tempered the original negative reaction that the leaders of the Estonian Communist Party had displayed towards the project. By the middle of January 1988, the dissatisfaction of the people with regard to the situation prevailing in Estonia at the time had increased significantly. The MRP-AEG decided to make the most of this and began to organise demonstrations on dates of importance in Estonian history, in this

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way making the people conscious of their history. On the anniversary of the Tartu Peace Treaty on 2 February 1988, the MRP-AEG called on people to demonstrate in Tartu. The authorities sent in special militia units armed with dogs and plastic riot shields, the people were beaten up and many of them were arrested. The use of violence in Tartu did nothing to increase the authority of those in power. The situation was made more complicated by the fact that the next anniversary, the birthday of the Republic of Estonia on 24 February, was rapidly approaching. The events of 2 February in Tartu had shown that not even the use of violence would prevent demonstrations from taking place on that day. Shortly before the demonstration, the then leaders of the Estonian SSR, with Arnold Rüütel at the helm, declared that Estonia had joined the Soviet Union in 1940 voluntarily and that there would be no return to a “bourgeois republic.” Precisely one year later, on 24 February 1989, the exact same men, then in the role of great freedom fighters, raised the blue, black and white flag at the top of the Tall Hermann tower, having completely forgotten their earlier statements. In spite of the calls made by the authorities and the press and also despite an officially organised demonstration “against imperialist interference in the internal affairs of the Estonian SSR,” thousands of people gathered at six o’clock on 24 February in the centre of Tallinn in front of the monument to Anton Hansen Tammsaare. The authorities had brought along a radio bus and used it to call on the assembled crowd to disperse. The people answered with whistles, songs and spontaneous speeches. The demonstration at the Tammsaare monument only ended a couple of hours later. The political crisis which had emerged in February 1988 deepened further over the course of the following months. An ever increasing part of the population joined the national movement at one level or another. An essential role in this was played by the plenary assembly of the various creative unions which took place on 1–2 April 1988 in Tallinn. At the assembly, well-known and popular Estonian cultural figures criticised the Soviet system with a previously unseen intensity and demanded decisive reforms. This gave the people renewed belief and courage to stand up for their rights. The disarray in which the authorities found themselves provided an impulse for several new initiatives. On 13 April 1988, Edgar Savisaar suggested that, in order to support perestroika, a Popular Front (Rahvarinne) be formed. Moscow had already, for some time, been promoting the creation of popular fronts supporting perestroika and the reform of the Communist

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Party. This was originally the direction taken by the Estonian Popular Front but it soon began to separate itself ever more clearly from the Communist Party and this contributed to the rapid increase in membership. However, by this time the situation in Estonia had changed completely. An important role was played by the legalisation of the blue, black and white flag and other national symbols. This fight against the occupying force for the right to use national symbols had been the particular way in which Estonians had fought for their future. For this reason they were strictly forbidden in the Soviet Union even though, thanks to the efforts of various unknown people, they still found their way onto towers and taller buildings on days of national importance. It was clear that restoration of the national symbols would rapidly give a whole new dimension to the national movement and it was for this reason that, at the beginning of 1988, the ways in which this could possibly happen began to be investigated. The heritage conservation movement, which was becoming ever more radical, organised a large event in the form of an assembly of all its affiliated clubs on 14–17 April in Tartu. While discussing the schedule for the assembly, it was decided that the official Estonian colours should be restored. This decision gave a fresh impetus to the general awakening of the people, just as had been the case during the first period of awakening. In all probability, none of the organisers realised what the consequences of that decision were to be. I remember the evening of 15 April in Tartu very well. In the main hall of the university, full to standing room only, a concert of patriotic songs was just finishing and it was due to be followed by a torchlight procession to the building of the Estonian Students Society which had been decorated with blue, black and white cloth. As I glanced out of the window, I saw that the area in front of the university building was already crowded and that people were still constantly arriving in droves. There were tens of times more than we had expected. It was the breakthrough. In front of the university, the torches were already burning. And then I saw the flags. Or rather, they were not really flags but strips of blue, black and white cloth which had been sewn together and from which pieces were then cut and given to everyone who wanted one. And suddenly everywhere was full of blue, black and white. In the crowd, small flags began to appear which the people had kept hidden for decades, and they were soon followed by larger pieces of material.

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And so, off we set. People were standing on either side of the street with young men from the law and order teams of the Heritage Society (the basis for the future National Defence League, or Kaitseliit in Estonian) keeping order. The older people were crying. Standing in front of the Estonian Students Society building, a kind of electricity rippled through each and every one of us, a feeling that we knew we were now different people and that now there was no going back. As a historian, I thought that it was probably the same feeling that had gripped the country people who gathered in the same town of Tartu over one hundred years earlier at the first national song festival and who had realised for the first time that they were Estonians. It was a real awakening. The authorities looked on at the events, powerless, not daring to intervene. The enthusiasm so eagerly displayed during the heritage conservation days soon spread around the whole of Estonia, along with the blue, black and white colours. The blue, black and white flag was here to stay. From then on the young people became active in the freedom movement. In fact they became the driving force behind it. It was essential that the national message be interpreted into a language and format that was understood by the young people. The “Five Patriotic Songs” project was decisive in this respect – Alo Mattiisen and Jüri Leesment managed to build a bridge between the previous period of awakening and contemporary Estonia, arousing feelings in the young people which became ever harder to keep under control. During the late afternoon of 4 June, a large group of young people carrying blue, black and white flags descended on the Town Hall Square in Tallinn. The blue, black and white flag was hoisted in front of the Town Hall and flew there until evening. Then they headed off to the Song Festival Grounds for the first spontaneous Night Song Festival, which was attended by tens of thousands of young people. Punks climbed the projector tower and raised the national flag there. This unleashed a huge wave of enthusiasm amongst the young people and more and more blue, black and white flags became visible. The event started with well-known patriotic songs. Old flags which had been hidden away for decades, now rather frayed around the edges and moth-eaten, were also brought out. The atmosphere was amazing. None of the participants had ever felt such a spirit of solidarity and freedom before. There was also a feeling of security and strength in numbers as it was clear that it would have been extremely complicated for the authorities to act against such a mass of people. The whole event became known as the “Singing Revolution.”

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The Night Song Festival caused the leaders of the Estonian SSR to panic. Karl Vaino tried to obtain permission from Moscow to use forceful measures against the mass of young people at the Song Festival Grounds. But as news of the events had already reached the Western media, Moscow did not dare to give permission for force to be used. Sending in the tanks against one hundred thousand singing people would have led the West to doubt the seriousness of perestroika. And so Moscow had to find other ways of calming the situation. It was even decided that Karl Vaino himself would be held responsible. On 16 June, the 10th plenary session of the Central Committee of the Estonian Communist Party took place in Tallinn. Karl Vaino was released from the post of general secretary and replaced by Vaino Väljas. On 17 June, a large demonstration attended by up to 100,000 people was organised by the Popular Front at the Song Festival Grounds. The delegates at the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which was about to begin in Moscow, were instructed to act in the interests of Estonia. Although the Popular Front had called on the people not to use Estonian flags at the demonstration, this request was largely ignored and the Song Festival Grounds were covered with a sea of blue, black and white. The Popular Front no longer had any choice but to recognise it. Over the course of the next few weeks, the authorities made concessions on a number of important questions. In essence, the leadership of the Estonian Communist Party assumed the positions of the Popular Front. On 23 June 1988, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet legalised the national colours of blue, black and white. One inseparable component of the “hot summer” of 1988 was the restoration of the historical memory in physical form. People hunted out their monuments to the War of Independence, which had been hidden away for decades, and put them back in their former places. A wideranging campaign was started to gather recollections of the past. The Heritage Society located documents and accounts which had been carefully hidden away and which revealed the true extent of the red terror which struck Estonia during the Soviet occupation. When, in the autumn of 1988, I published the first summary of the facts to have been unearthed during the course of the gathering of recollections of the past in the magazine Vikerkaar (Rainbow), a Union-wide scandal broke out. Even the central newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party, Pravda, rose to defend the NKVD and the Red Army. While I was on my first foreign trip at the turn of the year, I was informed that the Prosecutor’s Office of the Estonian SSR had initiated criminal proceedings against me and had found that I was guilty of spreading

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malicious slander against the security forces and other Soviet institutions. I could therefore expect to be arrested upon my return. I dare say that the hope was that I would take fright and apply for political asylum abroad, meaning that the gathering of recollections would come to a standstill. But I could not let that happen and so I returned home. After all, my wife and my two small children were also waiting for me. This was a complete surprise to the Soviet authorities. The whole event was becoming an international scandal and in several countries committees for the defence of Mart Laar were set up. The Prosecutor’s Office began to have its doubts and instead initiated criminal proceedings in respect of the acts of violence I had described. This was another link in the chain of weakening the position of the Soviet authorities. The “hot summer” of 1988 came to an end on 11 September with the large rally “Songs of Estonia,” organised by the Popular Front at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds. Trivimi Velliste, chairman of the Heritage Society, appealed in front of the 300,000 people present for the restoration of the independence of the Estonian state, and this was received rapturously by the crowd. The leaders of the Popular Front condemned Velliste’s actions. There then followed a public conflict between the various wings of the national movement. However, because of the events which were to follow, this conflict was hardly noticed at first. In October 1988, a project for amending the Soviet constitution was put forward for public debate. One part of the project foresaw extensive restrictions on the rights of the Soviet republics. One of the suggestions made was to remove the provision in the constitution regarding the right of the republics to leave the Soviet Union. A storm of protest erupted in Estonia against the constitutional amendments. The Popular Front and other political movements collected several million signatures in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to demand the withdrawal of the project. In spite of this, Moscow carried on and this led to increasing demands to leave the Soviet Union as quickly as possible. The strengthening position of the more radical movements in Estonia forced the local Communist Party to seek co-operation with the Popular Front to avoid the worst from happening. The result of this was the birth of a package of quite radical decisions which the leadership of the Estonian Communist Party managed to force through the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR on 16 November 1988. The Estonian SSR declared itself to be sovereign, meaning that Soviet Union laws would only enter into force in

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Estonia following their approval by the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR. The Estonian SSR proposed to the Soviet Union that an agreement of a federal nature be signed. This step by Estonia evoked a furious reaction from Moscow after an initial period of disarray and confusion. Estonia was told to revoke its declaration of sovereignty. Although the leaders of the Estonian SSR refused to annul the declaration, the attitude of the leadership of the Estonian Communist Party did become more concessionary to Moscow’s demands. At the same time, the opposition within the Communist Party itself became more visible in Estonia as the wing supporting the imperialistic Interfront rose to the fore. They were particularly angered by the passage of the Language Act which guaranteed the future of the Estonian language. At the same time, the question arose ever more clearly as to what exactly was the objective of the national movement. The National Independence Party (ERSP), formed in the autumn of 1988, sought total independence for Estonia, while the Popular Front had a more reserved position on the matter. This led to tensions in the relations between the Communist Party and the Popular Front on one side and more radically-minded movements on the other. On 24 February 1989, the ERSP, the Estonian Christian Union and the Estonian Heritage Society launched an appeal for the creation of a committee of citizens of the Republic of Estonia. The aim of the movement was to register legal Estonian citizens (according to the laws of the independent Republic of Estonia) and to convene an Estonian Congress which would represent their will and restore the Republic of Estonia on the basis of legal continuity. But what had caught the people’s imagination more than the formation of the committee of citizens were the first multi-candidate elections to the Soviet Union Council of Deputies on 26 March. Although considerable hopes had been pinned on the elections to start with, it soon became clear that Estonia had no reason to expect anything positive from Moscow. This in turn strengthened the independence movements. In Latvia and Lithuania, the Popular Fronts began to support the attempts to gain independence. In Estonia, the committee of citizens got off to a shaky start but then grew into the largest popular movement in the history of the country. The people themselves organised committees of citizens across Estonia and hundreds of thousands of Estonian citizens were registered. In order to influence Moscow and demonstrate the desire for freedom, an unbroken human chain was formed through the three Baltic States on 23 August 1989 on the initiative of the Popular Fronts. It has been estimated that

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two million people took part. The Baltic Chain aroused a great deal of interest around the world and helped considerably in increasing awareness of the aspirations of the Baltic States to become independent. Moscow reacted furiously to the Baltic Chain. On 26 August 1989, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union openly attacked the resurgence of nationalism in the Baltic States and reaffirmed that the Baltic States would remain a part of the Soviet Union in perpetuity. If Moscow had hoped to influence anyone with that position, the result was precisely the opposite. The independence movement in Estonia grew even stronger. On 24 February 1990, elections took place to the Estonian Congress and the overwhelming victors were supporters of independence. The elections developed into a kind of referendum in which the people were able to give their vote in favour of the restoration of independence. As opposed to the new Supreme Soviet in Lithuania, the Estonian Congress which met on 11–12 March did not declare Estonia independent but it did pass a decision to commence the transition to independence. On 16 March 1990, elections to the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR took place and, whereas the elections to the Estonian Congress had been open only to Estonian citizens, these were open to all Estonian residents and to members of the Soviet armed forces serving here. The Popular Front was victorious but it still won less than one half of the seats in parliament. Many of the leaders of the Estonian Congress did not stand in the elections to the Supreme Soviet, leaving the Popular Front to take victory. The Supreme Soviet approved the decisions of the Estonian Congress and began to exercise real power in Estonia under the leadership of Edgar Savisaar, the new Prime Minister. This soon led to a conflict with more imperialist-minded circles. On 15 May 1990, the Interfront movement, spurred on by the Soviet leadership, organised a demonstration in Tallinn and tried to seize power in Toompea. People rushed to the scene to drive the demonstrators away, in so doing showing that all such attempts in the future would also be futile. This was followed by a complex and nerve-wracking period of transition, part of which included a rift between the Estonian Congress and the Supreme Soviet. The Estonian Congress claimed that it was not possible to build the Republic of Estonia on the basis of the Estonian SSR, while Prime Minister Edgar Savisaar did not consider it impossible. The Soviet authorities had no particular desire to do business with either side. But at the same time, the empire was no longer able to assert itself through the use of force. Attempts were made in January 1991 in Lithuania and then Latvia but thanks to the

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intervention of the Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, public confrontations were avoided in Tallinn. Over the course of the following months, Mikhail Gorbachev tried to force the Baltic States to sign a so-called federal agreement, which they all refused steadfastly. In a referendum held on 3 March 1991, 77.8% of the participants voted in favour of Estonian independence. Although the referendums did not in themselves change anything, they did have the effect of strengthening the demands for independence for the Baltic States. The Soviet authorities continued to demand that the federal agreement be signed but Estonia refused categorically. Despite this, Gorbachev set a date of 20 August for the signing of the agreement. It was impossible to foresee what was going to happen to the republics which refused to sign. However, the federal agreement never was signed. Early in the morning of 19 August, my mother-in-law, who worked in the post office on the island of Saaremaa, called me at home and told me that she had just heard on the radio that there had been a coup in Moscow. Gorbachev had supposedly “been taken ill unexpectedly” and power had been turned over to a special committee. I can still remember the thoughts which went through my mind at the time. Firstly, that this was the end of the empire, and secondly that no-one could even organise a coup properly in the Soviet Union. If it was possible to hear about the coup on the radio and if the telephones were still working, then it had already failed. I was also convinced that the end of the empire would prove to be a drawn-out and bloody affair. In Estonia, preparations began to be made to go underground and to continue the resistance in the event of the country being completely occupied. At this difficult time, the Estonian Congress and the Supreme Soviet managed to reach a consensus quickly and on 20 August 1991 the Supreme Soviet declared that the independence of Estonia had been restored. The armoured units which had been sent to restore order in Estonia were already perilously close to Tallinn. Barricades were set up around the city and the people prepared themselves to offer resistance. But the military coup ended before it had even really got going. After a failed attempt to storm the so-called White House in Moscow, the coup simply fell apart. Gorbachev returned to Moscow and the participants in the coup were arrested, but real power was transferred to Boris Yeltsin who had recognised the independence of the Baltic States at the very start of the putsch. The additional armed units left the Baltic States and all the sites occupied in 1990–1991 were liberated. The three Baltic States regained control of their

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borders, the local KGB organisations were closed down and the leaders of the pro-Soviet Interfront movement were arrested. On 23 August 1991, the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the statues of Lenin in the Baltic capitals were taken down. Before anyone really understood what was going on, the Baltic States were independent again. The first Western country to recognise their independence was Iceland and during the following couple of weeks all the leading Western countries restored diplomatic relations. After a delay of sorts, the Soviet Union also recognised the independence of the Baltic States. On 17 September 1991, the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian flags were raised in front of the United Nations building in New York – the Baltic States had rejoined the family of free nations. Independence had been restored but, as it was soon necessary to admit, harder times lay ahead. The reconstruction of an independent state and the acts of breaking free from the East and turning towards the West were harder and more painful than had initially been imagined. But still, ten years after the restoration of independence, it can be said that Estonia has been successful. It has set in motion radical economic reforms and has been spoken of as a genuine economic miracle. This has been possible thanks to the endeavours of the whole population and their ability to take painful but necessary decisions. The desire to turn back towards the West, back towards the roots of its culture, carried Estonia through the most difficult times and took it to the stage where it was the first of the former Soviet republics to start negotiations to join the European Union. Estonia has shown that it is worthy of its independence.

Tunne Kelam An Opinion You were fortunate to be one of the participants in this unique era. As the saying goes, one swallow does not make spring: when did you begin to feel that independence might become possible? During my university years (1954–59), I saw myself as more of a cosmopolitan than a nationalist. My instinctive desire was to acquire as much independent information as possible about world events. I was fascinated by world politics, philosophy, especially the Indian religions, art and literature; for me Estonia was relatively uninteresting. I independently studied English, German, French, Finnish and Polish; for decades my radio broadcast of choice was the English-language programme of the BBC World Service. These shaped in me a democratic and independent way of thinking; that alternative information permitted me independence from totalitarian propaganda, and when necessary simply to ignore it. I followed world events with great interest, ever since the Korean War, during which, as a schoolboy, I would enter the movement of the front line on a self-made map. The UN forces’ successful descent behind Communist lines and the aggressors’ dramatic retreat offered the first ray of hope that the Soviet Empire was not invincible. I felt a particularly strong sympathy for the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. On the one hand the fact that Hungary declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops, and on the other the concentration of force that Moscow brought to bear and the brutality with which it maintained its domination gave the impression that the Communist system could not be permanent – it was precisely the Hungarians’ desperate nation-wide resistance that led to the conclusion that sooner or later new attempts to restore independence would be conceived. I had a look back at my journal of the dramatic BBC radio report of 5 November of that year by the defenders of Budapest: “In this building young people are preparing Molotov cocktails and hand grenades. We are calm, we are not afraid. Send our message to the world and say that they must condemn the aggressor.” That was also the first time I realised the tragedy caused by the two leading Western countries becoming entangled in the defence of their own interests in the matter of the Suez canal, which gave the Red Army a free hand to crush the Hungarian patriots’ revolt.

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Although to a certain extent I went along with the optimism of the Khrushchev era that the Communist system could be made more humane and free, I was at the same time influenced by my increasingly thorough knowledge of the Communist terror of the 1940s and the ever-intensifying Russification of Estonia. For me the 1964 coup by the Brezhnev group was a grim reminder that the regime was beginning to return to its old methods. Freedom of expression and national identity began to be systematically suppressed. The longer-term repercussions of this process created a feeling of cold anxiety: even if the mass repressions of the Stalin era were not carried out, in the long run the Estonian people were destined to fade away. Later the above-mentioned danger was given concrete form as an objective in the programme of the Communist party: to shape a unified and Russian-speaking Soviet hybrid people. At the beginning of the 1960s, after graduating from university, I went through a gradual transition: departing from cosmopolitanism, I started to pay more attention to issues of national interest to Estonia. I was not by nature a passionate Estonian nationalist, but was instead an individualistic intellectual. Emotionally, I did not feel connected with the ordinary folk customs and celebrations, and I avoided the more coarse expressions of folk “Estonianness.” In addition, I was disgusted by the manner in which some of the Estonian communist collaborators attempted to give the impression of being close to the people by drunkenly taking part in the Midsummer’s Day festivities, although that did not prevent them from speaking Russian and implementing the interests of the central government in Moscow the very next day in their positions in the Soviet administration, like faithful servants. My nationalism developed on the basis of a feeling of justice. Convinced as I was that the Estonian people were not superior to other peoples, at a certain point I came to the realisation that they at least deserved not to suffer a worse fate than the others, or have lesser rights. My knowledge of the culture and fate of other peoples created in me the conviction that the survival or violent smothering of the Estonian people and culture was not only our own concern – the wealth of world culture lies in its diversity and the multiplicity of forms in which it is expressed. It was precisely on the basis of that idea that I began an appeal to the Secretary General of the UN in August 1972 on behalf of two illegal civil rights groups: “Whereas the existence of different nationalities enriches humankind; whereas the violent levelling of national cultures impoverishes humankind; whereas national independence is the main condition for the

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survival of a nation and its culture; whereas Estonia, formerly an internationally recognised state and member of the League of Nations from the year 1921 has – as the other Baltic States – been violently deprived of its independence and placed in the position of a colonial territory; whereas as a result of such a status, there has arisen a serious danger to the further national, cultural and intellectual existence of the Estonian people; whereas in the conditions of this colonial regime, the Estonian people are not guaranteed the implementation of the fundamental articles of the General Declaration on Human Rights and the other UN pacts, we appeal for the assistance of the UN in the restoration of Estonian independence through the withdrawal of the Soviet occupation forces and the holding of free elections under UN supervision.” At the time another 19 years separated us from the restoration of Estonian independence, but of course nobody was able to predict whether it would ever take place. Five individuals who shared my views were sentenced to prison for criminal libel against the Soviet state. When our appeal became known in the free world, they were sentenced to up to six years in prison. Their trial took place in the summer of 1975, at the same time as Brezhnev put his signature to the Soviet Union’s accession to the principles of human rights at the Helsinki Conference. We did not, however, allow ourselves to sink into depression. It was precisely this panicked reaction by the state apparatus of one of the most powerful countries in the world to the appeal by a dozen people requesting the peaceful implementation of their rights that highlighted the regime’s vulnerability and weakness in the area of truth and human rights. I soon realised that, when in the following years I clandestinely passed information to the West concerning political prisoners sentenced to the Gulag and the human rights violations of the Communist regime. The nature of the totalitarian system – its pursuit of perfection in controlling and managing everything – proved to be its greatest weakness. The slightest scratch in this perfectly polished surface immediately caught the eye, irritated and was magnified one thousand fold in comparison to the effect if something similar had happened in free, democratic conditions. Apparently President Reagan became aware of the same fact when, at the beginning of his term of office, he showed an interest in the anecdotes then circulating in the Soviet Union. Their absurdity offered the most truthful picture of the absurdity and monstrosity of the system itself, which was perhaps concealed from the superficial observer by the Soviet Union’s apparent power and inflated statistics. The views shared by us and Reagan were starkly opposed to those held by the majority of

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Sovietologists and politicians, who believed that the Soviet empire would continue to exist forever, despite all its weaknesses. By the beginning of the 1980s we no longer had any doubt that the empire was in a complete impasse and was utterly incapable of solving any problems. This was symbolised by Brezhnev, the increasingly mummified head of the Communist party and the antiquated leaders who came after him. We saw Gorbachev’s rise to power as a desperate attempt by the KGB to restart the stalled system, using glasnost as a sort of oxygen mask. We didn’t believe for a second that it was possible to reform the Soviet system or make it civilised under the leadership of those who had themselves helped to bring the system to such a condition. In the opinion of those fighting for civil liberties, that was the same as if after Hitler’s death, some younger leader of the Nazi party had declared the democratisation of the Third Reich under the enlightened leadership of the Gestapo’s functionaries. On 20 August 1988, at the founding of the first non-Communist political party in Estonia since the Soviet occupation, I stated that, on the basis of its achievements up to that time, the leadership of the Soviet Union had only one way out – to declare an end to the criminal and coercive experiment known under the name of the Soviet Union and relinquish power, pleading for leniency from its long-suffering people. Of great importance was the use of the oxygen mask of freedom, which was applied in the utmost necessity for real reforms on the way towards democratic civil initiatives independent of the Communist party. For Estonia’s freedom fighters it was of primary importance that they seize the moment that had arisen in order to get out of the Soviet prisons and restore national independence. We saw political independence and multiparty democracy as the only precondition for the real implementation of all other reforms. In that respect we differed from the Communist reformers, who hoped to achieve nationalist objectives gradually through reformist leaders of the Communist party. We were also supported by the weighty argument that the Western democracies had not, for nearly fifty years, recognised the occupation and annexation of the three Baltic States by the Soviet Union as a legal union. This fact also had a certain influence on Moscow’s behaviour, making it more cautious in the implementation of its plans for the Russification of Estonia and the stifling of the Estonian national identity. My experience repeatedly demonstrated that in its actual behaviour, the Soviet Union paid greater attention to the special Western policy towards the Baltic States than the leaders in Moscow ever officially admitted.

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A unique model for the restoration of national identity developed in Estonia at the end of the 1980s: citizens’ organisations that spontaneously arose in the form of the so-called movement of citizens’ committees in Estonia, which despite the occupation continued to have a legal existence. Despite the power of the Communist party that continued to exist, yet was becoming increasingly weaker, the registration of citizens was performed. The latter became a distinctive and vigorous plebiscite in support of the restoration of a completely independent Estonian nation state. In one year 790,000 people – over 90% – registered themselves once again as citizens of the Republic of Estonia. In February 1990 these citizens elected as their provisional representative body the Estonian Congress, in which 33 parties and movements formed a non-Communist national and democratic forum that lasted for a year and a half. The Estonian Congress adopted a clear programme for the restoration of legal state authority and the democratic rule of law. At that time the question was no longer “whether?” but “when?” Thanks to the formation of that democratic alternative, the legal and political preparations for the restoration of independence had been made by the time the decisive moment arrived. I consider that the preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia, which declares that the task of the Estonian state is to guarantee the preservation of the Estonian nation and culture through the ages, is in fact a result of the historic struggle in favour of national identity. When a people that has been oppressed and has frequently been brought to the brink of destruction can finally feel secure as regards the survival of its identity and culture, it is also able to show generosity and openness towards all others, and that, the Estonian people have demonstrated.

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Küllo Arjakas Reflections on the Late 1980s and Early 1990s An opinion Today it is impossible to say who of our ancestors was the first to come up with the idea that the peoples living by the shores of the Baltic Sea could also have their own state. However, it should be pointed out that during the years of the Crimean War (1853–1856), at a time when the national awakening movement had not even begun here, the French journalist Louis-Antoine Léouzon Le Duc put such thoughts into print. On a journey to search for porphyry for the tomb of the Emperor Napoleon, he reached the shores of the Baltic where he met peoples which were unfamiliar to him. In 1855,in Paris, he published a book about his travels, called La Baltique. In covering the general political situation on the shores of the Baltic Sea in the chapter headed “Reval,” his flight of thought even reached far enough to write: … whatever comes to pass, whether the Scandinavian powers will rally to the cause of the Western powers or not; whether Finland will be handed over to Sweden or will stay in the hands of Russia; whether Estonia, Livonia and Courland will recover their ancient national independence or continue to be slowly absorbed into the vortex of Moscow… In some respects it is noteworthy that it was a Frenchman who was the one to put clearly into words the historical choice which has confronted the people of this region for centuries. It is undoubtedly important that this was done in a language spoken so widely. It is, of course, quite another matter how much those lines were read at the time or how much the readers could be bothered to think about that far-off place and the complicated dilemma facing a littleknown people. It is quite certain that the brightest Estonians at that time had not yet thought that far. In Ferdinand Johann Wiedemann’s Estonian-German dictionary, which was published in 1869 and contained over 50,000 words, there are no entries for the words iseseisvus (independence) and vabariik (republic). And there is no reason to be surprised at the absence of the latter as, in the understanding of the country people, czarist power was still in force.

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Fate decreed that in that same year of 1855 a man would be born in Estonia who, during the years of the independent Republic of Estonia in the 1920s and 1930s, would be considered to be the initiator of the idea of independence, or at least the first person to put this message forward. This man was Andres Tiido (Dido). In his lecture “On the Usefulness of History,” in 1882, at the Estonian Society of the Men of Letters, he stressed, among other things, that history shows that it is possible to attain freedom, and that tyrants would eventually be judged by history. In the summer of that same year Tiido was arrested on political grounds. Among interesting material discovered during a search was the manuscript of a poem called “The Estonian War Song” which was then used as evidence against him in court. In this patriotic song he expressed for the first time the hope for a national state and used the term “Republic of Estonia”: For freedom there before us glows that which the Estonian Republic also knows. After several years of imprisonment, Andres Tiido was exiled to Kazan, in Russia, from where he managed to escape, and found refuge abroad. Later, he lived for a longer period in Paris and in 1906 he published his own periodical Õigus. La Justice, journal esthonien. Fortunately he lived long enough to see the Republic of Estonia declared on 24 February 1918 and to see it consolidated through the successful War of Independence (1918–1920), as well as de jure recognition of the new country by France. He died in Paris in 1921. 1. The Republic of Estonia Survived for Two Decades The infamous pact signed in August 1939 between Hitler and Stalin and better known here as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (MRP) brought about an equilibrium between the two powers which had been fighting for so long, but it came at the price of the division of Poland and the inclusion of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. The real meaning of this phrase became clear as early as the autumn of 1939 when the Soviet Union, resorting to the threat of military intervention, forced Estonia to allow military bases to be set up. In the summer of 1940, the Republic of Estonia was occupied and a new puppet government was installed. Of course, the Estonians were not the only ones to lose their national independence in the

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tumult of the Second World War. As we all know, these processes began with the annexation of Austria, the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, the military crushing of Poland, etc. Austria too capitulated in 1938 in the face of a brutal political and direct military threat. At their meeting in Moscow in 1943, the Allies recognised Austria’s independence and declared its incorporation into the Third Reich to be unlawful. The direct military occupation of Estonia on 17 June 1940 was deemed by the Reuters news agency to merit no more than one sentence, while the entry into office of the new Soviet-minded government on 21 June was not even considered to be newsworthy. It was understandable, as the attention of the world was focused on the collapse of France, and on Western Europe. At the important conferences in Teheran (1943) and Yalta (1945), none of the representatives of the powerful countries seriously raised the issue of Estonia or the similar matters of Latvia and Lithuania, not even in the form of a discussion. Their own interests, and the military situation demanded, above all, good relations with the Soviet Union. To a certain extent, the question remained a sensitive one because the participants at the Potsdam conference (1945) agreed that the western border of the Soviet Union would run along the Baltic Sea from Leningrad to Königsberg. In so doing, the representatives of the three great powers successfully managed to avoid using the term “Baltic States” by replacing it with the more indirect “Baltic Sea.” This meant that the representatives of the United States and Great Britain did not have to recognise the incorporation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into the Soviet Union de jure, but acceptance of the fact that the border ran along the Baltic was in effect de facto recognition that the Baltic States were part of the Soviet Union. Estonia and its two southern neighbours remained the only countries to have lost their independence, in the long-term, as a result of the Second World War. The consequences of the war and the transformation of the Soviet Union into a superpower in both the political and military sense left no room for doubt on that front. For decades, western countries did not recognise the annexation of Estonia, preferring instead to turn a blind eye to that particular moment when specific questions were raised. On the one hand they were trying to stop the issue of the Baltic States from causing discord between the great powers, whilst on the other hand they stopped short of morally approving or legally recognising their annexation by the Soviet Union.

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The intervention of Soviet forces in the events in Hungary in 1956 and the fact that the reaction of the West was limited to the diplomatic level clearly showed to a generation here that there was no hope of receiving serious support from the West in the fight for independence. The similar events in Czechoslovakia in 1968 confirmed this to the next generation. In 1980, faced with the threat of Soviet invasion, Poland declared a state of war and demonstrated to a third generation that the Soviet Union was still a superpower which would not permit any political reforms in its satellite states, let alone anything along those lines within its own territory. In reality, Estonia had been forgotten by the rest of the world. This could have been said to be “a conspiracy of silence” although no definite rules were set, and no specific agreements were reached. Even in Sweden, Estonia’s neighbour across the Baltic, the first radio programme dealing with Estonia in greater detail was only broadcast in 1966, and even then the Estonian situation was described using the official terminology in force in the Soviet Union. For example, the term “Soviet occupation” was replaced in this second, coded language by “restoration of Soviet authority.” It was mentioned that public debates on various topics, typical of democracy in Sweden, did not take place, but this admission was qualified by adding that, “in these countries, people do not miss our kinds of debate as they do not feel the need for them!” Sweden had already handed over the gold reserves of the Estonian state (in total 2.9 tonnes) at the very first request of the Soviet Union and even the British government entered into a trading agreement with the Soviet Union in 1969 which saw the Estonian gold, deposited in Great Britain (4.8 tonnes), become Soviet property. Estonia lived in complete isolation and was totally unaware of developments elsewhere in the world. And the first cultural contacts with our close cousins the Finns, under the watchful eye of the occupying powers, were only made in the mid-1960s. They were possible thanks to the visit of the Finnish president Urho Kaleva Kekkonen to Estonia in the spring of 1964. Kekkonen was the first politician in decades to visit Estonia. During the periods of the Stalin dictatorship, the Khrushchev thaw and the Brezhnev stagnation, there did not appear to be any hope of restoring independence. In the collective conscience of the people, the independent Republic of Estonia was no more than a memory and the Forest Brothers, who had faded away in the early 1950s, were only spoken of in a whisper. Stories of young students imprisoned in the 1950s for setting up underground organisations were passed on in a similar manner, in a whisper. There was no

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longer any real public resistance and this was replaced by general adaptation to and accommodation with the new way of life. It was only in the early 1970s that very small organisations began to be set up to oppose the authorities. There was no immediate mention of the restoration of independence, rather a referendum was demanded on the issue of the status of Estonia, under the control of observers from the United Nations. The first memorandums to the UN were written and, after a delay of a couple of years they even reached the West. This was followed by court cases behind closed doors and long prison sentences for those involved. The situation only began to change in the mid-1980s due to the policy of perestroika announced by the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. It could be said that the events in Eastern Europe between the early 1980s and 1986 (the Polish crisis, the increase of freedom of religion in Poland and the then Czechoslovakia, the emergence on the agenda of environmental demands in Hungary, etc.) had some degree of effect on the way society thought in Estonia. But the roles were later reversed and by 1988 Estonia, together with the other Baltic States, had taken centre stage and was sometimes indirectly influencing events and developments in Eastern Europe. A start was made on testing the new possibilities and the new limits of the policies of perestroika and glasnost in August 1987 when the first political demonstration was held in Tallinn. The demonstrators demanded that the historical truth of the events of 1939 be made known. One month later, groups of intellectuals presented the idea of an economically autonomous Estonia within the centralised Soviet Union. But 1988 saw a massive breakthrough and the process accelerated rapidly: the democratisation of society increased, ever bolder demands were made known and expressed more clearly, the public debate regarding history and the depressing situation at the time took on unprecedented dimensions, and a civil society gradually began to be restored. During the Singing Revolution of 1988, Estonia became a model for others. Estonia was the first to restore its national flag, in April, followed by Lithuania in July, Latvia in August and Armenia in September. In many regions of the Soviet Union, suppressed feelings of nationalism and patriotism were suddenly aroused. In April 1988, the Estonian Popular Front was founded and it quickly became a mass movement uniting the majority of the legal opposition. It chose a step-by-step policy which corresponded to our resources and to the degree of courage felt by the people at the time. In July and August, Popular Fronts were formed in Latvia and Lithuania and then in

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other Soviet republics. In November 1988, under intense popular pressure, the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR adopted a declaration of sovereignty and a resolution regarding the primacy of Estonian laws over Soviet laws. This led to ever increasing opposition to the central authority of Moscow, setting off on a parliamentary route which was to take some time. That kind of scenario was perfect for the West which, above all, feared that the position of the new Soviet leader would weaken suddenly. The declaration of sovereignty set in motion a real parade of sovereignty amongst the Soviet republics, which then began to stand up more to the central authority. Finally, even the reforming Russia followed suit and the Soviet Union became in essence an unnecessary empty shell, but one, which continued to be a frightening proposition because of its nuclear potential. All these processes eventually forced Mikhail Gorbachev to manoeuvre towards a new federal agreement. However, in August 1991, before the agreement was due to be signed, one final attempt was made to hold the crumbling Soviet Union together. As we know, the August putsch failed and by the end of 1991 the Soviet Union had completely disintegrated. Another event which was undoubtedly important in the eyes of the world was the Baltic Chain of 1 August 1989 in which almost two million people joined hands from Tallinn to Vilnius and demanded freedom and the restoration of independence. This was a clear demonstration that the phenomenon was not limited merely to a group of separatists driven to frenzy by nationalist slogans. Similar human chains were later organised in several places in Russia, Ukraine and other Eastern European countries. In 1990–1991, the Eastern European countries freed themselves from the influence of the Soviet Union, and the events going on there no longer had a direct impact on us. Estonia and its southern neighbours followed their own course and continued their quest to restore their independence. Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost had already enabled debates and discussions to take place in Estonian society concerning the initial position and the historical choices faced by Estonians. Where are we, where did we come from, how did we lose our place in Europe, what are we striving for now and what can we offer others? – these were the main questions. The expansion of the mental horizon, an increase in the openness of society, release from the double standards which had been prevalent up to that point (on the one side the standards of homo sovieticus, imposed by the state and adopted unwillingly, and on the other the “domestic” self-conscious standards which stressed the importance of the Estonian identity), and the renunciation

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of self-censorship soon gave rise to considerable illusions regarding the future. The main thing is to be free, even if it means eating potato peelings – this type of slogan became quite characteristic. But no-one yet asked exactly who would have to eat the potato peelings: at that point the sudden increase in social inequality had still not been perceived. No-one believed that there was not a good room reserved for Estonia in the “hotel” called Europe. Instead, there were naive hopes – if Germany and the Soviet Union could be pushed to reveal the truth about the infamous MRP, then this would probably open another door for us on the path to restoring our independence. It was also believed that with the restoration of the historical truth it would even be a possible to claim for compensation from both the Soviet Union and Germany. Despite all the existing evidence there were even some who believed, particularly in the light of the historical truth being revealed, that the West would rush in to help us in the event of a crisis. Such people were few in number, but on the whole there was a subconscious belief in support from the West. Help and support was found in history. This began by stressing the fact that we were the only people in Europe to have occupied the same territory for more than 5,000 years, conveniently forgetting that we had only started to consider ourselves Estonians some 150 years earlier. We even emphasised our historical importance by claiming that the traditional Estonian farmhouse and barn building was the absolute best possible, taking into consideration our agro-climatic conditions and our way of life, that it was the prerequisite for our intensive agriculture and that it was “exported” to Scandinavia and Russia. The dangerous geo-political location, between the German and Russian spheres of influence, which had been ours for centuries was now presented as a privileged situation which had enabled us to gain a high degree of knowledge about Western Europe and the Soviet Union; before our very eyes, grandiose transit corridors between East and West were materialising. The Estonians could offer their services to both sides and be the perfect stepping-stone to the Russian market. A more precise model for us was the welfare state of Finland where prosperity had generally been attained by maintaining good political relations with its eastern neighbour and by selling any surplus in production in the immense expanses of the East. The illusions grew stronger on several levels. Some imagined the return of the Republic of Estonia as it had been in 1939, or rather as it had been idealised during the long Soviet years. Although it must be said that there was also a fair amount of truth in those idealisations as the second half of the

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1930s had been an extremely good time for Estonia, economically, with almost zero unemployment. The opening of the borders and the opportunity to visit developed countries gave rise to hope that soon, perhaps in just a few years, we would be at the same level. It had been the case that most of the production, above all agricultural production, of Estonia – the most developed republic in the Soviet Union – had gone to Russia, and now we just wanted to sell it to the West and live like they lived. We also hoped for aid, in that the West ought to have a certain historical and moral obligation to help us. The understanding that the return of the Estonians (like the other Baltic nations) to the European family was entirely their own business, came only later. At the same time, it was understood that this would mean conforming to certain requirements, being able to solve our own problems in a democratic manner and being able to take the initiative in finding our place. It had already been realised that the stressing of historical values was only fit for addresses or speeches at banquets. The opinion that, in the unending series of other events, the Europeans would not even notice how the Balts did not make it back to Europe, never really became the dominant view, such were the hopes pinned on European aid and assistance. Scenarios which were extremely dangerous in the light of the crumbling Soviet empire did not remain in the realm of mere possibility. It is sufficient to recall the harsh and threatening statement issued by the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party in August 1989, immediately following the Baltic Chain, according to which the actions of extremist leaders could endanger the very existence of the whole population. Threats were also made that force would be used to suppress any attempts to gain freedom, and in Estonia everyone knew perfectly well what that meant. And so it was necessary to mobilise our forces in two directions at once: to restore Estonian civil society and to search for opportunities to escape, as painlessly as possible, from the weakened and already crumbling Soviet giant. The starting point was, of course, difficult: more than five decades spent as the Estonian SSR had left their mark on the way of life and had meant lagging further and further behind the West. The Soviet demographic policy and systematic migration had led to a situation in which native Estonians accounted for only 64% of the population, whereas for hundreds of thousands of non-Estonians there was just one homogenous Soviet Union as the only place to live. The territory of Estonia was strewn with Soviet military bases and knotted to the main body of the USSR by a proliferation of tiny threads. The West was rather careful in its support for our aspirations for

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independence, taking account of the point of view of the influential nuclear power which the Soviet Union was and the position of Gorbachev, the father of perestroika. That Estonia managed to emerge from all this and was able to restore its independence in August 1991 without a single loss of life or even any shedding of blood is, in the greater historical scheme of things, certainly more of a miracle than it is the natural course of events. The creation, occupation and liberation of countries are generally complex historical-political processes full of upheaval during which nations have to suffer losses amounting to tens, hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands. It is clear that the initial problematic situation demanded some manoeuvring with permanence and resourcefulness between opposing forces, as well as requiring that new possibilities be sought and different paths tried out. Of course the restoration of the independence of Estonia did not take place as quickly as the Singing Revolution as the excessive hopes of the people had led them to imagine. At the same time there were internal conflicts which provided new experiences for those taking part, but also gave rise to apathy in respect to politics on the part of the people; initially this was reflected in falling interest, later in a reduction in electoral participation. The achievement is all the more remarkable bearing in mind that previous cases of countries becoming independent through a national liberation movement and without blood being shed had happened in European countries where the starting point or the immediate neighbours were much more favourable than our own. Norway finally separated from Sweden in this way in 1905, but the Swedes had not fought a war since the time of Napoleon. In 1944, Iceland seceded from Denmark, but this was during the Second World War when Denmark was under German control and the fortunes of the latter had already inexorably changed. In 1964, the small Mediterranean island of Malta became independent after having been a crown colony of the now weakened United Kingdom. Other European countries had been created in the cataclysm of the First World War and their decline was due to the events of the Second World War, invariably with loss of life. However, our southern neighbours, the Latvians and Lithuanians did pay with blood for their separation from the Soviet Union – attacks on frontier posts by special Soviet units, the bloody events in Riga and the armed attempt to topple the Lithuanian government in January 1991. And this without mentioning the victims of the wars between the various Transcaucasian peoples, the massacres in Central Asia, and the division of Moldova and its civil war. Yet

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the breakthrough, resulting from the events of August 1991 still took Estonia by surprise, and it came easily and quickly. There were not even any sizeable internal repercussions. Maybe this was natural because it was what had been expected and wished for. For years life had continued with great hope and great disappointment, increasing internal political tensions and ever deepening economic hardship. The restoration of independence did not bring about the expected outbreak of joy, but rather a reduction in psychological tension or even a spiritual void. Suddenly there was no longer the Soviet authorities on whom it had been easy to blame all the everyday problems and unpleasantness. The mutual settling of scores between our own politicians and their lust for power, the transformation of “socialist” public property into private property through the process of privatisation and the accompanying changes in the perception of justice, the demand that ownership rights be restored to those which had been in force in 1940 prior to the Soviet occupation, the new tensions aroused by the first cases of restitution leading to people losing what had become their homes, the beginning of social inequality, the ruination of rural life, the fact that older generations were finding themselves on the breadline, homeless people and street children, drugs and AIDS – all of these were indications of a somewhat different future and of attitudes and relations which no-one could have predicted just a few years earlier. The restored Republic of Estonia came through its difficulties in a rather different way from how the country had done it in the 1920s. It is possible to make a comparison but there are no parallels to be drawn because the eras and circumstances were simply different. Back then, the price of achieving independence was thousands of lives. At that time, the country had been devastated and ravaged by wars, revolutions, requisitions and so on, which had gone on for years. But there were still the Baltic-German manor-lands available which could be nationalised and then redistributed to Estonian farmers, in so doing creating an extensive class of owners. Although the Russian market had been lost, a number of new countries had been formed in Europe by that time, as a result of which there were new markets to be explored and new commercial relations to be developed. Estonian businessmen were able fairly easily to find places to sell our products, ranging from agricultural produce to products from the timber industry. The country had come through a hard war which had reinforced the authority of the government and inspired respect with regard to those in power. Because of this, the state was able to implement harsh measures to

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stabilise the domestic situation. The Republic of Estonia had entered from a comparable socio-economic system and there was continuity in many areas. At that time it was necessary to rely on any opportunities which arose and there were no grand or excessive illusions with regard to the future. This time we managed without blood being shed and without there being any victims. Similarly, everything which was built during the Soviet era remained: all the enterprises, kolkhozes, residential areas in the towns, etc. It now seemed that the only problem for rural life was the restitution of state land to the former owners and its redistribution to those who wanted it. It seemed that new farms would be built quickly and that development would be rapid. But that was not the way it went, as tensions in political relations with Russia left the traditional eastern market closed to our agricultural produce, and it was much harder to make it into the well-maintained and protected Western market. It soon became clear that the industrial legacy inherited by Estonia did not come up to European standards and that no-one there was about to welcome newcomers to the market with open arms, with the exception of the possibility of finding new sub-contractors at lower cost. In terms of economic development, we were lagging much further behind the others than we had been at the start of the 1920s. State authority was also weak and the new legal system was wholly insufficient. The process of ownership reform had opened the way to the redistribution of property, but also to fraud. Now we had come into a new socio-economic system straight after the decades of Soviet rule, which differed completely from the point at which the Republic of Estonia had ended in 1940. There was no clear understanding of the new rules which had to be applied. After the Singing Revolution, many illusions were shattered. Once again, it was necessary to count primarily on ourselves and to make the most of our opportunities, even though the support of the West was now clearly tangible in helping us to integrate with the Western world and adapt to the new requirements. In the summer of 1992, Estonia adopted a new Constitution and monetary reform took place, and in the autumn, the first parliamentary elections to the Riigikogu since the war were held. When the Riigikogu was convened for the first time, a declaration was made ending the period of transition which had begun in the spring of 1990. And with that we embarked on a new path of development.

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Rein Raud The Conditions for a Multicultural Estonia One of the most acute problems in Estonia since the restoration of independence has been the question of the non-Estonian population. The Estonian term muulased is generally used in this regard to designate people who moved to Estonia from within the Soviet Union, as well as their descendants whose cultural and/or political identity is different from that of the Estonians. The term is not normally used to designate all foreigners or non-Estonians. It is perfectly clear that the restoration of the independence of Estonia was a traumatic experience for some of them, as they had been accustomed to thinking of Estonia as an integral part of their large homeland and the new situation was strange and unfamiliar to them. State policies in respect of language and citizenship, aspiring to restore the hegemony of the Estonian language and national culture, have dramatically intensified the scale of this identity crisis. The problem has gradually begun to be resolved over recent years, primarily due to the breaking down of the stereotypes held by both Estonians and non-Estonians, and the disappearance of their fears, but a change in state policy has also had a role to play in this process. The nonEstonians have begun to identify themselves more and more with the totality of the environment in Estonia and Estonians no longer see them as a threat to the state and to society. It is not my aim here to describe or document this process in detail but rather to analyse the theoretical conditions required for the formation of a multicultural Estonia. Nor is my discourse based on extensive surveys but rather on my own observations. It is, therefore, inevitably subjective, although in one sense this approach may be more justified than, for example, a statistical analysis of standardised answers to a questionnaire. The question of the non-Estonian population is significantly more complex than it appears at first sight and, despite the success which has been achieved in solving practical problems, it is my opinion that in Estonian society there is still no conceptualisation of the problems in a manner which is acceptable to both sides. This complexity is caused not only by historical, political and social problems, but also by the ways in which the living environment in Estonia is structured culturally.

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The Conditions for a Multicultural Estonia 1. Multiculturalism in Estonian History

The question of the non-Estonian population in the country is itself linked to that of the identity of the Estonians. Although Estonia has, according to various theories, been populated by Fenno-Baltic peoples for more than 5000 years, it is of course no secret that people who considered and called themselves Estonians only appeared relatively recently, around 200 years ago. The ethnonym “Estonian” is a loan from Latin and is derived from a couple of lines in the Germania of Tacitus which arguably do not refer to Finno-Ugric peoples. But the adoption by the people of the name given by Germany/Europe to this area as their own name was in some respects also a declaration by which they proclaimed themselves to be the real heirs to this land and restored their subjectivity in the historical process. The Estonian identity – as opposed to that of the peasantry, or country people – has therefore arisen from confrontation and the will to undertake a revision and reallocation of the symbolic rights which had existed up to that time. And if we take a look at the wider processes under way in Europe at that time, then this was of course justified. Although Eric Hobsbawm and some other historians do not consider the birth of the Estonian identity to have been a historical inevitability, it is still no different from the birth of the Norwegian, Finnish or Czech identities and is derived from Herder’s National Romanticism and perhaps also, indirectly, from Hegel’s Theory of the Nation. In turn, both of these were brought into being by the pursuit of “pure” categories, typical of the beginning of the modern era, and, in the search for a historical subject, it is likely that nations appeared to be the “purest” macro subjects. Yet in a manner more resembling that of Central Europe than that of Norway for example, the Estonian identity was born in an existing multicultural environment. Since the Middle Ages there have been two different models of multiculturalism functioning in Estonia: the rural model, stressing strict cultural boundaries, and the urban model, more tenuous and more integrated. In rural areas, cultural boundaries also designated a social divide: the theoretically possible transformation from peasant to, for example, minister of the church demanded a clear change of culture, an exchange of the Estonian identity for the German identity. It is probable that this demarcation was respected more by the peasants than the landowners who, in using the language of the country people for pastoral self-expression, provided considerable assistance to the development of the nascent Estonian identity.

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In the towns, with a freer society and more mobile population and, as a result, a more diversified national population, there was a different kind of confrontation. The cultural division of people into Germans and non-Germans led to the creation, in ethnic terms, of a specific category which did not possess any ethnic reality – the non-Germans included not only Estonians but also Swedes, Russians and French, as well as all other traders and artisans who lived for some time in, for instance, Tallinn. The social position of the non-Germans was in general not as high as that of the Germans but this boundary was not an indication of a clear difference in class. Ethnic origin was not the decisive factor in determining one’s social group. At the same time, the fact of living in a German-language urban environment did not automatically bring about a change of culture for non-Germans. The first Estonian-language books, published at the time of the Reformation, were intended precisely for such Estonians living in towns, and the Estonianlanguage services which were introduced at that time in some churches also point to the fact that the Estonian language did have a place in the urban cultural environment. It was a multilingual, tolerant and dynamic cultural environment which successfully maintained its diversified identity for centuries and which was more than capable of integrating migrants. The traditional interpretation of history has styled the Estonian people as a macro subject derived primarily from the peasant population of the countryside, and has taken the country model as its basis in observing the coexistence of cultures. Thus, giving up the status of peasant (even to become an artisan in a town) was automatically construed as a form of Germanification. The Soviet historical discourse, focused on the importance of the class struggle, then assumed this view, and it still exists today as a popular vision of history. A wider approach has only been undertaken in a few very specialised research projects and in literature, for example in the numerous historical novels by Jaan Kross. The fact that intercultural relations have been built on the historical rural and not on the urban model has influenced the attitudes of a large number of Estonians towards non-Estonians. But the principle cause of the cultural rift is actually to be found in the political aspects of the problem.

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The Conditions for a Multicultural Estonia 2. Demographic Changes under the Soviet Regime

The non-Estonians who were systematically brought into Estonia under the Soviet regime settled chiefly in the towns, particularly Tallinn and the industrial towns of the North-East. In addition to the desire to further the presumed assimilation of the Estonians, there was also the pragmatic reason of being able to develop industrial production more easily in Estonia because of its relatively good existing infrastructure. Despite the creation of the kolkhozes and sovkhozes and the damage caused to Estonian agriculture as a consequence of the deportation of the most successful farmers, Estonia was able to supply both itself and the neighbouring regions of Russia with sufficient food. It is quite natural that, in the minds of the country people, the old model of cultural confrontation quickly re-established itself, with the landowners simply being replaced by Soviet functionaries and the new settlers, while the political barriers prevented the model of multiculturalism from working in the towns. However, the majority of non-Estonians educated in the Soviet school system did not draw sharp ethnic or cultural divisions. Their lack of interest in studying the Estonian language and culture was, as far as they were concerned, because, in their eyes, identity was based largely on ideological principles. However, this was often not a result of disregard towards Estonian culture but rather due to the nomadic lifestyle and movements of a large proportion of the non-Estonian population (for example construction workers). The Estonians, who have generally settled and remained in one place, have often disapproved of this nomadism, but they have been unable to see the analogies with the migration of younger Estonians within Estonia. If we leave aside the ideological gulf which separated the non-Estonians, who tended to be loyal to the Soviet system, from Estonians, who tended to be rather more critical of it, a large proportion of the cultural conflicts of the 1970s and 1980s can be explained by differences in the systems of reference of the two communities. Non-Estonians saw Estonia as a tiny part of their “own” territory, in other words a province, while the Estonians considered Estonia, and only Estonia, to be their territory, and they made a clear distinction between Estonia and the Soviet Union. At that time the dominant view in Estonia was that it was the “worst” part of the Russian population which had settled in the Baltic States, whereas those Russians who still lived in Russia, in spite of their ideological peculiarities, were generally friendly, hospitable and pleasant people. Estonians in Tallinn found it easier to get on

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with Russians in Moscow because each group was living in the capital city of their system of reference, while Russians in Tallinn felt they were living on the periphery of the Moscow system of reference. It is of course clear that such views held by Estonians could only be based on a stereotypical vision of the non-Estonian population, which was actually much more diverse. But the depiction of non-Estonians as a monolithic socalled Russian-speaking population with its common interests and convictions was also in the interests of the Soviet institutions and this rhetoric can still be found in some instances of Russian propaganda today. 3. The Structure of the non-Estonian Population and the Motives for Immigration In analysing the structure of the non-Estonian population and the political and cultural conclusions which can be drawn from it, it is useful first of all to study the historical, now somewhat blurred division, as this sheds light on many of the currently ongoing processes. I will leave aside the traditional Estonian minorities, such as the so-called “coastal Swedes” from Western Estonia, whose existence when speaking of multicultural Estonia at the end of the 1980s was, for political reasons, made out to be far more important than was actually the case. I will instead restrict myself to those groups of nonEstonians who played an important role during the Soviet occupation. As is widely known, there were very few ethnic Russians living in Estonia in the 1940s and a large number of those who did lived in areas which were administratively united with Russia after the war (the Petseri region and the area beyond Narva). Russians living elsewhere in Estonia had either assimilated or integrated and the Soviet acts of repression were just as painful for them as for the Estonians, as their number included many wealthy traders and so on. So most of the non-Estonians arrived in Estonia after the Second World War, notably during the period when Karl Vaino was in power. They can be divided into various groups according to their motivation for immigrating. (a) Natural immigration This group comprises people who came to Estonia for family reasons or because of the objective availability of employment. The cause of this type of immigration was only minimally related to the Soviet regime (for example,

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The Conditions for a Multicultural Estonia

the lack of doctors after the war can be explained by the fact that most of them had fled to the West in fear of repression, or had been deported) and the immigrants in this group have, upon their arrival here, generally had a more positive rather than negative attitude towards Estonia. (b) Political refugees This not inconsiderable group of non-Estonians also has a positive attitude towards Estonia, even though many of them were not able to speak Estonian any better than more Soviet-minded immigrants. These are people who came to Estonia as a result of the freer intellectual atmosphere which has been dominant here since the 1960s and also partly due to the more Western way of life. This grouping includes many Jews who were persecuted in Russia because of their ethnic identity, but also ethnic Russians and representatives of many other peoples. Many of them went on to have a significant influence on the Estonian cultural environment, such as Juri Lotman who founded the school of semiotics in Tartu. It is also conditionally possible to add to this group artists who were studying at the Tallinn Institute of Art and who chose to remain in Estonia because their style of art no longer corresponded to that dictated by their home region. (c) Ideological colonists Precisely the opposite orientation to that of the previous group is represented by employees of the Soviet Communist Party and the Komsomol, by the officers of the KGB and the Soviet army, all of whom were sent to colonise Estonia to consolidate the regime. The majority of people who worked for the machinery of Soviet oppression were from Russia, partially because it did not prove possible to recruit Estonians in the numbers needed, but also because they, the Estonians, were not considered to be sufficiently trustworthy. A large part of this group comprised so-called military pensioners. Upon being demobilised from the army, they were given a flat in the place of their choice and plenty of them chose to settle in the Baltic States. Although in formal terms these people are pensioners, there are also a large number of special unit veterans, for example those who took part in the Afghan war, who were demobilised long before reaching the pensionable age for civilians and who were strongly encouraged by the regime to settle in Estonia, particularly at the end of the 1980s at the time of the independence movement.

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(d) The workforce of the war industry The workforce of the war industry enterprises set up in Estonia is relatively close in its views to the previous group, or at least these people have not been given the opportunity to express different opinions because of institutional power relations. In the late 1980s, these war industry enterprises constituted the basis of the Moscow-minded Inter-movement and their workers demonstrated support (without being given a choice) for the political programmes put forward by their management. It could be supposed that the support proffered for the harsh ideology of the war industrialists by highly qualified skilled workers and by engineers with higher education was not especially sincere but, as no dissenting voices were heard from among their number, the Estonians tended to see them as their political opponents. (e) Migrant casual labour There was a constant stream of temporary casual workers arriving at large industrial enterprises and in the construction industry. Statistics from the late 1980s show clearly that, although the annual migratory balance from Russia to Estonia was always positive, this was only a small proportion of actual total migration. Many people spent only a few years in Estonia before leaving for their next assignment. According to Moscow’s understanding, these workers naturally had to have exactly the same cultural and political rights as permanent residents. In Estonia, this opposition quickly and easily reached the ethnic and cultural surface even though precisely the same problem also arose in Moscow and Leningrad where, incidentally, the rights of the temporary workforce were severely restricted (by the so-called limited address registration which did not permit people to change their place of employment freely, and so on). (f) People born in Estonia The cultural habits and world-view of non-Estonians born and raised in Estonia generally fall somewhere in between those of immigrants and those of Estonians. Understandably, this group does not have a common social and ideological background and is really more of a small society of its own rather than simply a sub-group of non-Estonians. Yet there are still traits which clearly distinguish the majority of them from other non-Estonians. Although

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The Conditions for a Multicultural Estonia

many of them have grown up in a principally Russian-speaking environment, in some cases even in cultural enclaves, they have still been in contact with the reality of everyday Estonian life from an early age and it is this which has led them to develop a different identity to residents of Russia or other countries of origin. Those who subsequently have had to return to these countries, for whatever reason, have suffered serious problems of adaptation as they are no longer familiar with the local cultural code and the people living there no longer accept them as their own quite so easily. At the same time, non-Estonians born in Estonia have not become entirely “Estonianised” in terms of the culture of their everyday lives (even disregarding their knowledge of the language), although it is true that it has become increasingly hard to portray the “Estonianisation” standard since intensive relations began with the outside world at the end of the 1980s. If the current processes continue, it could perhaps be claimed that in a few years’ time school-leavers in Estonia will, with regard to their everyday and cultural dispositions, form a more or less homogenous group, although by then they will most likely be united by the nascent European mentality which is itself linked weakly to both the Estonian and the Russian cultural substrata. 4. Integration I once said half-jokingly that if an Estonian and a Russian from Estonia were stranded together on a desert island, the only topic of conversation they would have would be American soap operas. In all likelihood, we will be able to measure the success of the so-called integration process by observing how extensive the range of conversation topics becomes and by the language in which these conversations are held. There is absolutely no reason to believe that, in the eyes of the majority of Estonians, the ongoing integration campaign is anything but an expression of goodwill towards non-Estonians, irrespective of whether those Estonians actively contribute to the campaign or not. The relatively substantial support for the campaign is a reflection of the breakthrough which has occurred in the Estonian consciousness over the course of the last decade. Those who believe that the non-Estonians here in Estonia do not merit methods of integration any better than those applied to the Estonians who were deported to Siberia in the 1940s have become the minority or tend not to express their opinions out loud. Without this breakthrough, the change in the attitude of the government would not have been possible. For example, the insistent attention which the

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West has paid to the problems of the non-Estonians, which has from time to time left all other matters involved in the relations between Estonia and the outside world in the shade, has occasionally incited Estonians to feel disposed against both the West and the non-Estonians and left them inclined to ignore the problem rather than to search for a solution in a rational manner. The campaign itself is primarily aimed at those non-Estonians who have adopted Estonia as their own at the everyday level, i.e. those who do not wish to live in Russia or a similar environment. This does not, of course, mean that they have always identified themselves with Estonia. For example, it is a common desire amongst the younger generation of non-Estonians to wish to move to a Western European country, and this ensures their support for integration with Europe. However, it should be clear that the departure from Estonia of talented young non-Estonians is directly at odds with the interests of our country. The aim of the campaign is, on the one hand, to instil in everyone the understanding that the dominant factor of the world view of the non-Estonian population is in the course of changing from the values held by the former groups (the migrating casual workforce and the war industry workforce) to those held by natural immigrants and by people born in Estonia, and on the other hand to develop the process of everyday Estonianisation into one of political and linguistic Estonianisation. For the most part, the process of integration is progressing naturally and the steps taken by the government have only helped. As an example of natural integration, the behaviour of the parents of small children could be cited. Professor Mati Hint has repeatedly underlined the fact that it is more likely to be non-Estonian parents who give their children traditional Estonian names whilst Estonian parents will give either European names or concocted names which have a foreign ring to them. It is quite commonplace for non-Estonians to change their surnames into something sounding more Estonian. There is no official pressure to do this, although in all probability there is social pressure: the idea prevails that a person who speaks Estonian fluently but has a Russian surname may be turned down when seeking employment in favour of a compatriot who has the same skills but an Estonian surname. And when it comes to choosing a school or nursery school for their children, many nonEstonian parents prefer an Estonian-language school as this is seen as giving their children a better chance of success in the future. For this reason, the number of children in Russian-language nursery schools has dropped dramatically, while Estonian-language nursery schools are oversubscribed.

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The Conditions for a Multicultural Estonia 5. Political and Cultural Identity

By no means do all observers look upon the integration process favourably. The initial fears of non-Estonians in connection with the national policy of the Estonian government were probably caused by an inability to foresee that the problem of national minorities could be resolved in any manner other than that implemented in the Soviet Union. In the eyes of sceptical Estonians, the allocation of resources for integration is just creating special conditions for non-Estonians which will not influence their identity in the long term, while in the eyes of critical non-Estonians, the process will end with their identity being lost and with the creation of a culturally homogenous society. At first glance it would appear that each side is afraid of what the other is hoping for. In my opinion, this is the case only on a superficial level, and the fears of both sides, along with occasional expressions of goodwill, albeit articulated clumsily, ensue from identity being treated as a total and monolithic concept, a notion which is not at all justified. Somewhat like several other European languages which do not differentiate between nationality and citizenship, the concept of total identity is derived from the paradigm of homogenous nation-states, and it unites political identity with national stereotypes. This is itself a paradigm in which minority populations are considered to be a deviation from the political norm, irrespective of whether this deviation is judged to remain within acceptable limits or not. State authorities which are tolerant towards their minorities, tolerate them for as long as they accept the legitimacy of the authority exercised over them and do not demand greater political influence than that which is granted to them from above. For this reason, national peculiarities continue to be one of the principal sources of tension in any political environment striving to attain a total identity. However, multiculturalism is founded upon a rather different concept of identity – the separation of political identity from cultural identity. In these circumstances, it can be presumed that a citizen of a country is loyal to the political structures of his or her homeland, but this loyalty is not tied to the fact of belonging to the majority culture. From the point of view of the historical experiences of Estonia, this is comparable to the urban model from the era of the Hanseatic League, which is also reminiscent of the European Union in terms of its mobile workforce and the freedom of economic exchange. It is, in all likelihood, precisely this model which is best suited to ensuring the integration of the non-Estonians and to creating a cultural

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environment where people from regions other than the more traditional areas of immigration would also fit in well. One source of continuing tension as regards this matter is the question of citizenship. The Russian Federation and several associations of Russian citizens have encouraged non-Estonians in Estonia to take Russian citizenship, i.e. to define their political identity outside Estonia and, at the same time, to renounce the possibility of becoming Estonian citizens, as Estonian law does not permit dual citizenship. The number of Russian citizens in Estonia is indeed very large, although the process of obtaining precise information from Russian agencies and authorities has proved to be complex. In order to function effectively, the multicultural model necessitates a common political identity, but the formation of such an identity in these conditions is much harder and it may take several generations. However, the most urgent reforms required by the multicultural approach would need to be put in place in the educational system. The debate is still continuing on such topics as: for how long the possibility should remain in Estonia of obtaining secondary education using the Russian language, and whether there should be wholly Russian-language groups in Estonian universities. At the same time, many non-Estonian parents are actively Estonianising their children themselves by placing them in Estonian-language schools where, for example, Russian history and literature are taught only against the backdrop of the wider European picture. It should be self-evident that, just as everyone has the right to their mother tongue, so everyone also has the right to their cultural heritage. For this reason, I believe that the condition which must be met for integration to be successful, and to respect the non-Estonians themselves, is a school which would give young people the ability and skills to participate in Estonian life, as well as cultural competence in their own traditions. 6. In Conclusion The transformation of Estonia into a multicultural society in which people with different cultural backgrounds are united by their political identity is a long process which cannot be accelerated through administrative resolutions. Obstinate and indiscreet retorts will inevitably damage the interests, both of the non-Estonians and of the Estonians. But now, when the greatest fears associated with the Estonian political situation have dissipated, the process has begun to gather momentum and, for it to be successful, there is nothing

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more necessary than political stability and continuous general democratic development.

Sergei Ivanov, Jaan Kaplinski, Mart Nutt, David Vseviov, Harri Tiido The Pragmatic and the “National” Approach to the Question of the Russian-Speaking Population in Estonia An exchange of ideas Participants: Sergei Ivanov, Jaan Kaplinski, Mart Nutt, David Vseviov. The debate is chaired by Harri Tiido. Tiido: Is the currently dominant approach to the question of the Russianspeaking population in Estonia pragmatic or “national,” and have you noticed any changes in that approach during the years since the restoration of independence? Kaplinski: The pragmatic and the “national” approach to the question, or rather questions, of the Russian population in Estonia are currently in competition with each other. Officially, the government was then dominated by Pro Patria1, has stated that its position is strongly national but in actual fact it has displayed a substantial degree of pragmatism regarding the Russian question. The balance between the two has swung between the two poles but fortunately it has never reached extremes: no serious Estonian politician has yet used the slogans “Russians out!” or “Estonia to the CIS!” The fluctuations between the national and the pragmatic approach have been dependent on several circumstances. In recent years, it has seemed that society is always hit by a light outbreak of nationalism before elections to the Riigikogu, even though this is normally limited to rhetoric. It appears that the politicians believe that this rhetoric will assist them in winning a few vital percent of the majority Estonian vote. Also, in taking the national position, it is much easier to accuse the opposing side of betraying the interests of Estonians, or at least of neglecting them. Nationalism is expressed in Estonia largely through attitudes to precisely that Russian question, irrespective of whether the matter in hand is the fight to Estonianise Russian schools or for stricter observance of the national language requirements in Narva and Sillamäe, or some kind of demonstrative action, such as the petition against the Russian campaign in Chechnya. And so nationalism is one component of Estonian domestic and foreign policy while mild Russophobia is itself a

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component of the nationalism of Estonian politicians or of the way in which it is presented – there are not really any other occasions when it can be displayed publicly. In general, there has perhaps been a slight reduction in anti-Russian feeling: the younger, growing generation is remarkably free of it and is beginning, independently, without the cultural and political pressure of the empire on one side and the snubbing attitude at home on the other, to discover Russian culture. Ivanov: In my view, the national approach to the question of the Russian population is prevalent, although since Estonia regained independence there has been a steady, step-by-step shift away from this clear national emphasis in the direction of a more pragmatic approach. Nutt: I think that the question should be formulated in a different manner. There is no rational approach to the question of the Russian population at all and neither is there a systematic policy in terms of what should be done and how the state should behave. Emotionally, Estonians are relatively tolerant towards Russians, but they are also prudently sceptical, displaying a sort of “goodness knows what they will be up to next” attitude. The Estonians try to live as if the Russians did not exist. Vseviov: The national approach is a really peculiar one. It’s almost as if it were divided into two. To start with there is the public approach, which is considered to be that of a cultured person, and secondly there is the secret approach, hidden away somewhere deep down, which can be summed up with the sentence “the occupants must leave.” The approaches differ in terms of language and attitudes. Which of these two is dominant or sincere probably depends on the specific experience of each individual. In the pragmatic approach, it is the first of these which is preferred consciously (or imposed by the circumstances) although, if the opportunity arises, the second is taken up as soon as possible. History has repeatedly demonstrated this kind of development. Shortly after the restoration of independence (to many, this was a dream come true), it appeared that the secret desire of the Estonians might be carried out as well (let us call this the national approach). Then the “national approach to the question of the Russian community” also took shape and even found partial expression in the legislation of the time. And so a situation has now evolved in which laws inspired by the “national approach” contradict general attitudes which, from the outside at least, appear to be

Sergei Ivanov, Jaan Kaplinski, Mart Nutt, David Vseviov, Harri Tiido 271 becoming ever more pragmatic. Why have attitudes become more pragmatic? Probably because the universal rule applies here too: after periods of revolution and the upheaval which accompanies them, the situation calms down and pragmatism prevails. Tiido: What could be the reasons for the predominance of one or the other of these approaches and for its evolution? Kaplinski: As the Russian question is part of Estonian politics and of the political debate, it is influenced by other domestic and foreign policies. The main factors are of course the traumatic memories of the past, the current policies of Russia and particularly the fact that they are dominated by nationalism with imperialistic undertones, and last but not least the attitudes and wishes of Estonia’s real and supposed Western patrons. The light but constant pressure applied by the West has certainly made Estonia take up more pragmatic policies towards Russia and the Russians, in so doing smoothing the rougher edges of nationalist demands. And so somewhat paradoxically, the goal currently being pursued so actively by Estonia, that of joining the EU and NATO (one of the main factors behind this is naturally a desire to come closer to the West so as to become as far removed from the Russian sphere of influence as possible), has forced our politicians to take Western interests into account by making concessions to the Russians in Estonia and perhaps by restraining themselves slightly in relations with Russia. The specifics of this policy mean that Toompea3 and Kadriorg4 are less attentive to the opinions of the people, for example strong anti-Russian sentiments amongst some of the older generation, than is normal in a democratic society. The Estonian people as a whole are certainly not ready to adopt such attitudes to minorities as have been adopted in the West, whether those minorities be Russians, homosexuals or criminal offenders. Attitudes here are more conservative and rigid, close to how they used to be in Europe in the 1930s. At the same time, these attitudes cannot be demonstrated clearly, no more than they are able to find their way into official policy. And so it is the case that politics in independent Estonia presents an analogy with the Soviet Union, manifested in terms of political correctness: attitudes and thoughts expressed in public differed from people’s real attitudes and thoughts then too, but much less than is the case now. This duality is certainly of no benefit to Estonian democracy, although it is undoubtedly of use to Estonia’s image in the West. Estonia is playing its part diligently, albeit

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occasionally unwillingly and awkwardly. It may tire of its role if its hoped-for passage into the polite society of the West is delayed for too long, but it is more likely that this habit will become second nature and that forced Europeanisation will develop into plain and simple Europeanisation. Ivanov: The reasons are both objective and subjective and they derive from the existence and specific nature of the Estonians. The specific nature of a society develops from several aspects, such as geographical location, the size of the population in the society and its longevity in one form or another (for example independent statehood), historical development and experience, religion etc., as well as those phenomena which are characteristic of a society in its development and its contacts with the surrounding world. These are phenomena which are directed at preserving the vitality and durability of a society (people), as well as the historical life, memory and experiences of the people who belong to that society. Nutt: I do not believe that much has changed over the course of the last decade. Attitudes towards the Russian-speaking population have perhaps taken a small turn for the better as the Russians are no longer seen as being the ruling class. Vseviov: Actually there are always two ways of approaching this. I think that the dual approach is equally characteristic of the West. People have lived for thousands of years with the idea of “them and us.” This conception is implanted so deeply in all of us that any absolute, all-encompassing “us” is simply not possible. In general terms, “them” in the context of Estonia can only mean Russian-speakers. This opposition, perceived by both sides, lives on somewhere deep inside us. However, the external approach depends on the specific situation. In the depths of the Soviet period when I was writing my thesis on Narva and regularly visiting north-eastern Estonia, I was surprised by the difference in attitudes towards Estonians displayed by Russians in Narva and Kohtla-Järve. In Narva (where Estonians accounted for about 3% of the population), there did not appear to be any anti-Estonian feeling, more the opposite. Yet relations in Kohtla-Järve (at that time Estonians made up about 25% of the population) were extremely tense. It was something similar to the cases of anti-Semitism in the Baltic States before the war. It existed in Lithuania but hardly at all in Estonia, with Latvia somewhere in between. It is interesting that when the objects of hate are reduced to just a small number,

Sergei Ivanov, Jaan Kaplinski, Mart Nutt, David Vseviov, Harri Tiido 273 they instead become something exotic. Maybe it is just chance, but on a couple of occasions I have heard people in America say proudly that they have Indian blood flowing through their veins. I have yet to hear anything like that about black blood. Tiido: Who has shaped attitudes in Estonia to the Russian-speaking population and how? Kaplinski: The birth of an anti-Russian sentiment in Estonia only dates back to the Soviet era. There was very little or even none during the czarist period and the first period of Estonian independence when it was the Germans who were the bitter enemy and there was considerable anti-German sentiment amongst the population. The disappearance of anti-German feelings and their replacement by anti-Russian feelings and anger directed at Russians was one of the greatest achievements of the Soviet authorities. It took Stalin and his henchmen just one year, 1940/41, to effect this substantial change. The steps taken by Moscow later – the fight against “nationalism,” encouraging the immigration of foreign labourers, furtive Russification, the inhumanity of military service and so on, all helped the level of feeling against the Russians to be maintained, to develop and to become entrenched in national Estonian sentiments. It is logical to suppose that, if circumstances were to change, anti-Russian feelings could disappear just as quickly and completely as did anti-German feelings. I believe that the independence of the Estonian state, above all a lack of dependence on Russia, is indispensable and perhaps even sufficient for this change of attitude to take place. However, politicians and the media all have an effect here: the use of anti-Russian sentiments in political combat may sustain it for longer, as will the tendentious attitude of the media. It is not difficult to find examples of the latter: it is hard to find even the smallest item of positive news about Russia in our newspapers while there is certainly no lack of negative news. However, at least in terms of cultural contacts, the situation is clearly improving. A rigid East-West attitude is to be found to some degree in Estonia when it comes to Russia, in that everything good comes from the West and everything bad from the East. This attitude probably does not date back further than 1940 and presumably originates from Nazi propaganda – after all, they presented themselves as “the defenders of European culture” fighting against “the barbarians of Asia,” embodied by Russia. Fortunately, this ideology, which prolonged the traditions of the SS,

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was not so influential here, although its continued existence could be encouraged on the one hand by the nostalgic wish of people who had served in the German army and who had, because of that, been the victims of repression, to see themselves as having fought for the right cause, and on the other hand by the neo-Nazi and pro-Nazi tendencies currently growing in strength in Europe. I nonetheless hope that the Estonians will not attempt to be more Aryan than their neighbours to the East. Ivanov: The prevalence of the national approach (yesterday and today) is caused by the understandable conception that the Estonians have as their right, to be their own masters in their own country. This is assured today by the state and by the authority of the state. The causes also include the limited experience which the Estonians have had of democracy, independence and the exercising of power, as well as a perception of their own society as an Estonian-language society. People who cannot speak Estonian do not belong to this society and are foreign, whether they be Russians, Germans or Swedes. If you want to be a full member of society, you have to learn Estonian. The Estonian language is the gauge by which everyone is measured. The Estonian state and Estonian society are understood to mean the state and society of the Estonians, characterised by the Estonian language and culture and a sense of unity. In many respects Estonian society is perfect for the Estonians – they have everything they need: their own state, power, all the institutions, their own language, literature, culture, their own relations and way of life, schools, universities, theatres, museums, libraries, churches, holy sites and historical victories, achievements and losses… And yet alongside them, in this same country, in this same state, there are other people (there were before too, but there were fewer of them), people who do not speak Estonian but rather another language and who have a completely different culture and completely different historical memories and experiences. These people make up one third of the population living in Estonia and they do not belong to or fit into Estonian society as the Estonians see it. Even today, the Estonians do not know what to do with these other people or what the model for communication with the Russian community ought to be. This is above all a question of language, education, culture, even politics. But it is extremely important in terms of Estonia’s future. Estonians are good-natured people and do not wish harm to others. But at the same time, they do not want other people to come and live in their state, people who do not speak Estonian and

Sergei Ivanov, Jaan Kaplinski, Mart Nutt, David Vseviov, Harri Tiido 275 are not concerned about the “Estonian cause.” You can speak another language in Russia or in Germany, think the Estonians, but in Estonia you have to speak Estonian. Immediately after the restoration of independence, the historical memory and perception of past events was amplified tenfold. This is a phenomenon of political power as the dominant opinions and perceptions in society, and the divisions between them, are used in order to attain a particular goal. The national approach was boosted at that time by the political elite in the sense that the Estonian state was reborn as a nation state – the state of the Estonians. Yet in reality, Estonian society is multicultural and it is dominated by two languages: Estonian and Russian. You may like it or not but it is a fact which does not depend on whether there was an occupation, an incorporation or migration in the meantime, or whether a large number of people came to settle in Estonia for other reasons. And this reality will not change even if those people are considered to be second-class citizens or, if they were to be offered the throne and power, like the Varangians, they could not rule over themselves. The multicultural reality does not depend on its recognition by the authorities – it either exists or it does not. It is more a matter of the extent to which the authorities are capable of taking this into account, of accepting the current approach of Western and Northern Europe, of understanding democracy, human dignity, rights and freedoms. The pragmatic approach to the Russian question has been and continues to be shaped by the ongoing democratic process in Estonia, the developing and strengthening of statehood, the positive international situation, but above all the influence of the European spirit, the perception of Estonia’s place in the world, historical practical experience, the wisdom of the Estonians and the gradual process of becoming free of provincialism. Nutt: The principal role has been played by the Russian Federation, which continues to give notice to the Estonians that the danger presented to the Estonian state and the Estonian identity by the Russians has all but disappeared. Vseviov: Of course, the state (the press, etc.) can do a lot to shape attitudes. But in my opinion, the problem with the Estonian state is precisely that it is shaping attitudes towards the Russian-speaking community. There is no need to shape anything at state level. What is needed is simply a normal attitude

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towards the whole population (including other communities residing here legally). Tiido: In addition to domestic Estonian factors, what are the external factors and how do they influence the way in which attitudes are formed here? What is the influence wielded on the Russian population in Estonia and on the Estonians by the Eastern neighbour of which Mart Nutt has already spoken? Kaplinski: Estonia is currently very dependent on external factors and this is also the case with regard to everything related to people’s assessments of themselves and of others, their values and their goals. I presume that the dominant Western attitudes against racism and ultranationalism have had a balancing effect here. On the other hand, Russian policies, the Russian media, and the opinions expressed by intellectuals and politicians certainly exert an influence on relations between the communities in Estonia. There is no doubt that Russia is attempting to exploit the question of the Russian minority to put pressure on Estonia to adopt policies which are more favourable towards Russia, or particular Russian communities, but it appears that this has not had the desired effect. This is as a result of two things: firstly, the awkwardness and demagogy of Russian propaganda, and secondly the economic and social crisis in Russia. For as long as the standard of living and security is considerably higher in Estonia than in Russia, and the Estonian authorities do not trip up, there is no reason to expect that the Russians here in Estonia will be ready to act as if they were a fifth column. This may change in the future, of course, particularly if the situation in Russia stabilises and if that country regains its former superpower status. Ivanov: The things which have contributed most to shaping attitudes towards the Russian-speaking community in Estonia have been individual experiences, the collective memory, the events of the Stalinist period, the existence of the large Russian neighbour, weakened and unpredictable, and the supposed threat from the East. In addition, there is also the reserved nature of Estonian society and the Estonian people, provincialism, which has formed objectively over the course of history, and the lack of the experiences and relations which are typical of developed democratic societies. The political powers in Estonia, as well as in the East and the West, are exploiting the question of the Russian-speaking population to serve their own interests and achieve their own objectives – and public opinion is moulded

Sergei Ivanov, Jaan Kaplinski, Mart Nutt, David Vseviov, Harri Tiido 277 correspondingly. Because of the historical legacy and the decisions taken by the Estonian authorities (and other factors as well), Russians in Estonia do not have the same possibilities for development and the same freedoms as Estonians, in several fields, and this is the case at both individual and community level. Nutt: I will stick to what I said in answer to the previous question. Vseviov: A while ago, a collection of documents written by Toomas Karjahärm and entitled “Russian imperialist policy in the Baltic provinces in the early 20th century” was published. There are some extremely significant documents in that collection. And of course our large neighbour has not given up on its imperialist ideal, so the mentality which is significant and comes across in those documents is still present one hundred years later. And so what is demanded? It is stressed that the proportion of Russian-speakers in the population must increase, that the position of the Russian language must be strengthened and that Orthodox beliefs should be spread further afield. That is to say that the imperialist policy would be deemed successful in the Baltic provinces only if there existed a separate ethnic group with its own language and its own beliefs. For this reason, it is easy to understand why Russia is not really interested in any effective integration in Estonia. Large countries generally have many means of influencing such processes, the question is just whether the situation is ripe. Tiido: Do current attitudes to the Russian-speaking community in Estonia need to change? And if so, why and in what direction? Kaplinski: Current attitudes with respect to the Russian-speaking community do need changing, but I am not sure that this is possible in the short term as at the moment relations are pretty well established. The current legislation in the field of national policy has been a matter of prestige for Estonian politicians and is based largely on the prevailing national ideology. This ideology is one of the few things which binds the various political forces and a considerable part of the population together, and it is clung to with tenacity. There will undoubtedly be changes but they will come little by little over a long period of time. However, there are things which should be done and which could be done right now. First of all, an agreement should be reached in Estonian politics regarding ethical standards, which would include the idea that

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national policy would not be used to score brownie points in the game of politics, that devotion to the “Estonian cause” would not be demonstrated by yet another action along the lines of the Estonianisation of Russian schools, checking the Estonian language proficiency of members of Sillamäe town council or of police officers, and so on. Ivanov: The changes which are needed primarily concern the status (citizenship), language and education of the Russian-speaking community, because the opportunities people have to develop, to gain employment, and for their general wellbeing are all dependent on these factors. The preservation of the specific characteristics of the Russian language and culture, and the opportunity for them to be developed, are just as important for Russians as the preservation and development of Estonian culture and language is for Estonians. Integration is a two-way process – it includes not only the opportunity and desire to become familiar with another culture and language, but also the opportunity to preserve and develop your own culture and language. It is a long and complex process. It is very important that the learning of Estonian should be organised and that language requirements should be established. It is necessary to have a rational approach to the opportunities available and to the time factor. It should not be necessary to promote the defence, use and learning of Estonian by introducing limitations and suppressing Russian, by setting unattainable deadlines and strict conditions. I call this a negative language policy, but it has to become a positive language policy. Everyone has been treated badly at some point – Estonians during the Russian era and Russians during the Estonian era. The development should not take place under the mantle of fear and pressure. The degrading queues and procedures in the Citizenship and Migration Board must be consigned to history. Attitudes towards the Russians could be significantly influenced by the Russians themselves, if they were better able to comprehend their role in Estonia, if they were more aware of what is going on in Estonia, and if they were able to understand the things that concern the Estonians. But this is only going to happen in an environment of mutual cooperation and respect. Nutt: The Estonians could develop an integratory attitude, by which I mean that the Russians should be viewed as long-term guests who want to become natives, and the Estonians should communicate with them as they would with other Estonians – in Estonian and with Estonian values as the basis for

Sergei Ivanov, Jaan Kaplinski, Mart Nutt, David Vseviov, Harri Tiido 279 communication. If the Estonians view the Russians as foreigners, this will inevitably lead to a bilingual state. Vseviov: An end has to be put to attitudes which depend on ethnic background. Ethnic background should be ignored. Ethnic background should not be a value in itself. The state has to transform itself. It needs to be less ignorant than its large neighbour (and that, after all, should not be especially hard). All of this would be the best guarantee of stability between the various peoples in Estonia. Tiido: What would be the ideal way of solving the question of the Russianspeaking population in Estonia? Can you offer any pragmatic solutions? Kaplinski: My ideal would be a model along the lines of Switzerland or federal Europe, in which the Estonian state and the Estonian language would no longer exist in their current form and all the various communities living here, both minorities and majorities, would be able to live more or less how they themselves see fit and to go about their business in their own languages. In the first case, Narva and Sillamäe would be cantons in their own right with their own language and education policies, and in the second case they would no longer be subordinate to Tallinn as much as to Brussels or Strasbourg. In any case, traditional nation states and peoples are rather violent constructions. However, I am not at all certain that their breaking up and reconstruction would be any less violent. But there is unlikely to be any alternative, and it hardly seems worth the effort of preserving them in their current form. We can find role models for multilingual small countries in Asia, for example Singapore. It would be extremely useful for Estonia to adopt a second official language, and in the modern world this could not really be anything other than English. This step would undoubtedly result in many changes in the relations between the various communities here and in the status of Estonia as a whole. However, in the current circumstances, this ideal is unfortunately still rather Utopian. Ivanov: A sensible approach would be to eliminate statelessness, which is humiliating to the Russians. Over the course of the next three or four years, laws should be passed dealing with the Russians and other minorities in Estonia (for example, a Defence of National Minorities Act, and so on). They should include clearly defined and regulated linguistic, educational and

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cultural possibilities to be offered to people to permit their development. The language problem and the linguistic composition of the population is not going to change in Estonia in the near future. The Russian language is a reality and people should be free to use it in regions and towns where the Russian-speaking community comprises a significant proportion of the total population. We have to reach a point where the visions and opinions of Russians and other minorities regarding their future are also taken into account, and where they are not simply forced to follow the models placed before them by a majority in the Riigikogu. The conditions must be present in society and in the state for minorities to be able to restore their culture. Nutt: I do not see that there is an ideal way. However, the state should participate more actively in the integration process, above all through the education system. Vseviov: When possession of a blue Estonian passport arouses the same kind of feelings in local Russian people as Mayakovsky described in his “Poem of the Soviet Passport,” then the question of the Russian-speaking community in Estonia will have been solved. And so work should be aimed at improving the Estonian state but not at integration within the framework of an administratively incapable state. Notes 1

This debate took place sometime in 1999, and the result of the general election which ensued was a new government without Pro Patria as its leading faction. 2 CIS – The Commonwealth of Independent States, comprising eleven countries formerly included in the USSR. 3 Toompea – the seat of the government and the Riigikogu (the parliament of Estonia). 4 Kadriorg – the seat of the President of the Republic.

Jüri Luik, Jean-Jacques Subrenat, Harri Tiido Globalisation, Integration into European Structures and their Effect on National Identity and Culture Discussion Participants: Jüri Luik, Jean-Jacques Subrenat. Moderator of the debate: Harri Tiido. Tiido: We live in the age of globalisation and humanity is now divided into supporters and opponents of globalisation as a process. The intensification of the process has led to increased activity on the part of anti-globalisation protest movements. One of their arguments refers to the danger posed by globalisation to the separate existence and identity of small nations. Does this mean that, as a result of processes not at all dependent on us, Estonia currently finds itself in a danger zone? Luik: Globalisation is a multifaceted process and this has both its good and its bad aspects for small countries. The global exchange of information can unquestionably be considered a positive aspect, as can, with certain reservations, the creation of the global market. In these conditions, Estonian producers, businessmen and cultural figures have a disproportionately large chance of being successful, provided of course that their products meet the demands of the global market. The global exchange of information has certainly also been beneficial to Estonia from the point of view of its security interests. It is easier for Estonia to make the world aware of its existence and its problems. If, for example, a country were to attack Estonia, it would be impossible for other countries to claim that “unfortunately we were not aware of what was going on.” In this respect, the global exchange of information is an absolutely essential component of our security. However, global information flows and the global market also present the risk of excessive standardisation. And these standards begin to be established by powerful countries and corporations which have enough money and influence to do so. They can simply flood the global market with their products, whether it be McDonald’s hamburgers or Hollywood films. It is difficult for small countries to stand up to this influx of products which are

282 Globalisation, Integration into European Structures and their Effect… supported by big money and which are made to entice consumers, products which are taking over the markets from India to Argentina. This makes it even more necessary for small countries to find their own niche in the global market, a niche in which they can compete. It is essentially a matter of finding and developing your own strengths, along with directing public investment at finding and developing that market niche. Unfortunately however, it is extremely difficult for a young country with limited resources to find the answers to these questions. Tiido: Yet in parallel with globalisation and integration, there is also the opposite trend – stressing differences, redefining smaller cultural spaces. In this sense, Estonia is at a crossroads – the choice has to be made of how far to go in one or the other direction. Subrenat: I do not believe that globalisation puts small countries in any more danger than medium-sized or large countries. Rather the extent of the danger depends on what we have in mind. If we talk about global finance, then the smaller countries, which are only loosely connected to the world-wide financial system, are in more danger than others, but this is just one specific field. Or perhaps we are instead thinking along the lines of an increasing global conscience? I think that this is precisely the phenomenon that we saw in the shape of the mass demonstrations at the time of the World Trade Organisation summit in Seattle. The global conscience is no longer the prerogative of international corporations, as other social strata are now able to participate in it, such as non-governmental organisations, pressure groups and so on. Or perhaps we are speaking of the global market? But in this case, how will decisions be taken and who will be driving the mechanism? In reality, decisions of global importance are taken by the boards of large companies. In my opinion, the question is actually more a matter of what the connection is between economic decisions and political or social decisions influencing the global environment. If, for example, a company decides to launch an extensive marketing campaign to promote the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture, the company may well believe that there is no danger in its products. Yet many non-government organisations may be of the opposite opinion. There is currently a wide gap between economic decisions which are taken at corporate level and are based on scientific research and those

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decisions which concern other fields, such as health, the environment and the availability of food and water supplies. However, it is not only corporations which deal with this second group of problems, but also governments, international organisations and in recent times also a larger number of nongovernmental structures. It seems to me that the anti-globalisation demonstrations in Seattle and elsewhere were brought about precisely by the difference in the levels of decision-making. We are now only just entering the era in which these differences will be resolved and it is important for “small” countries like Estonia to understand the main trends during this period of adaptation. Estonia is indeed small in terms of size and population but compared with the rest of the world there is, for example, a very high degree of computer literacy here. It is not a matter of computerisation making Estonia large or small. The important point is that this makes Estonia a developed country. At least in terms of information technology, Estonia is a developed country. In addition, there is a very strong orientation towards knowledge here. And so there is no reason to claim that, in the process of globalisation, Estonia will find itself on the losing side. Tiido: In terms of the globalisation process, countries are generally divided into two groups – those which go along with developments in IT and those which do not pay enough attention to them. It is the opinion of analysts that the level of economic development in a given country is beginning to depend more and more on which path it has chosen. In this respect, Estonia has made the choice in favour of information technology and rapid development. But turning towards national identity, there may be a whole series of problems waiting for Estonia which are connected not only to globalisation in general but also to accession to the European Union and NATO. Both organisations have their own collective identity which will leave its mark on any small countries which join. Luik: It seems to me that the whole topic of identity will be different in the future to how it has so far been regarded on a cultural-anthropological scale. It is undoubtedly the case that the global information system and the almost real-time movement of information is having an effect on the visions nations have of themselves. Attitudes towards the roots of their culture and to everything which they have hitherto considered to be important are changing. I am fairly certain that national differences and sensitive problems will not

284 Globalisation, Integration into European Structures and their Effect… disappear but they will be completely different in nature in the future. To a certain extent, it will relieve the inevitable fact that, as peoples change, they lose some of their specific characteristics. The usefulness or harmfulness of this process can be debated, but it is an inevitable consequence of the new opportunities for exchanging information and culture. For example, looking at those young people who work in Hansapank (the largest bank in Estonia. Translator’s note) and who have studied not only at the University of Tartu but also in Paris or Washington or in another foreign country, then it would probably be harder for me to arouse a similarly intensive sense of patriotism in them as in the older generation. But this is not to say that they are in any way less Estonian or that they are less interested in the fate of Estonia. The young simply see the development of their people differently to how we do, using a different categorisation. They see Estonian society as being more open. Let us take for example the interesting debate on the need to bring in immigrants. This topic has traditionally been taboo because the immigration from Russia which occurred during the Soviet era has left its mark on the attitudes held by society. The discussion is currently rather about bringing in an educated workforce for some specific areas, but this is still viewed with considerable doubt. But for the young people of today, this prospect does not seem to cause any problems. In their view, “purchasing brains” is a perfectly natural way to go about increasing the competitiveness of Estonian firms. The meaning of being Estonian is currently changing extremely fast and I imagine that the meaning of being French or English is also changing. In a situation in which the media has taken over our lives and we live in a genuine information society, this has a decisive influence on both our way of life and our identity. In the debate about the need for Estonian-language software, many opinions have been expressed saying that we do not need Estonianlanguage software because the English software works perfectly well. I do not agree with that point but just five years ago no-one would have even started to debate it. Subrenat: If we consider the influence of IT-intensive technology on national identity, then it is important to maintain control over it at the level of the user – whether that be individuals or the government. At the end of the day, technology is nothing more than a mere instrument, a tool. It is, however, noteworthy that during the last ten years the discussion has not so much been about the tool itself as its contents. For example, television – the number of

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channels available to viewers has increased dramatically in recent years. Thanks to satellite and cable channels, the number of programmes offered has become almost limitless. Yet the problem is not the number of channels available, but rather the content of the programmes which they broadcast. Is it possible to leave decision-making regarding content to the realm of market forces or should the process also take into consideration cultural and educational aspects which, even if not defined, would at least be directed by educationally competent people? In this context, it is also important to note that of all the various regional country groupings, the European Union is the only mechanism of integration to have paid serious attention to this problem. The EU has passed a directive on television without frontiers, which the EU’s candidate countries should also look at seriously. As you know, this directive dictates that a certain proportion of the television schedule should be made up of programmes made in Europe. We can of course argue about the size of that proportion, but the content of the television programmes probably cannot be left solely to the market to decide. Simply leaving it to market forces could prove to be the much feared danger to national identity. Tiido: Small countries like Estonia have a certain advantage in terms of satellite channels – as we do not transmit satellite programmes ourselves, we do not suffer from any kind of inferiority complex due to our being overrun by any of the major languages. For us, all those channels are equally foreign. But in the case of larger nations, attitudes may be different and perhaps more nervous. Estonia is multicultural and multilingual. The unifying factor for us is, above all, our territory and our historical vision, as well as the one official language used here on this our own patch. The language problem also arises in the context of international structures – for example the European Union and its official languages. So far, the languages of all the member states are official but as new countries join so the number of languages will swell even further, along with the necessary army of translators and interpreters and the bureaucratic machinery. Would it not be more sensible to keep to a smaller number of common languages? Subrenat: Not at all! Every large undertaking has its price. European integration is priceless, it is one of the most successful integration processes of our time and there is nothing else of its kind. Yet this pricelessness also has

286 Globalisation, Integration into European Structures and their Effect… its cost. And the cost is precisely that which you just called bureaucracy. Still, bureaucracy in the EU is proportionately lower than in the majority of its member states. The number of translators and interpreters is just one part of the cost of the process of European integration and it is precisely this which enables us to respect the national identity of each and every member state. It is primarily a question of accepting diversity. One psychologically important element for Estonia is the opportunity, following its accession to the EU, to enter into trans-European agreements in its own mother tongue. This too is a part of national identity. Tiido: Jüri Luik, if I could ask you directly: would you be willing to surrender the right to use Estonian in the European Union and to enter into agreements in other languages? Luik: A politician would answer that by saying, “That is a very interesting question.” On the practical level, the opportunities to use the various languages are actually very different. Even now there are official languages and working languages. The term “official language” will become more restricted following the accession of the new countries. In my opinion, this is an inevitable compromise taking into account the interests of the integration process. On the symbolic level, the addition of the languages of the new member states to the list of “official languages” is certainly important from the point of view of national identity. After all, national language is the central component of national identity. Moving on from there, we reach a really interesting topic: all international organisations, including the European Union, are striving to establish their own identity. This is natural as communities made up of various peoples need some kind of common identity in addition to their common interests. And so an interesting question arises – what is the European identity and what does it mean to be European? This question comprises social, economic and political aspects, as well as those of the politics of security. If you claim that the EU means diversification, then the question still remains – what does it mean to be European? Diversification leaves unanswered the question of what unites us. If we say that we are united by common interests, we should not forget that there are other nations with whom we share common values. Take for example Ireland, which probably has deeper historical and cultural ties with the USA than with other European countries. If we recall the part played by the President of the USA in the

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peace process in Northern Ireland and his participation in the Irish national Shamrock Day celebrations ever year in the USA, this leads directly to several questions within the framework of our current topic. So what are we actually discussing? Identity is not so much a cultural as a political topic, which takes us to the question of sharing our identity. What identity do we share with other nations of the democratic world who do not belong to the European Union and perhaps are not even located in Europe? Tiido: As an aside, do you personally think of yourself as being European? And if not, then what do you think of yourself as – a former Soviet? Luik: Personally, I think of myself as being primarily Estonian. In addition to that, I recognise the close cultural and political ties between Estonia and Europe. Estonia is a part of Europe. But at the same time, I do not support the view known as “fortress Europe.” However, I do support close ties with the USA and other non-European democratic countries. Subrenat: I will try to answer the question Jüri Luik raised about a European identity. It would be fallacious to speak of a European Union identity. The European Union is not attempting to create an identity of its own to replace national identity. The European Union is a process of integration which is not striving to achieve a separate identity. Portugal, Luxembourg and the other states have all maintained their own national identity within the Union and in many cases it has even been strengthened. One extremely good example of this is the aforementioned Ireland which has managed to promote its national identity even more than before joining the European Union. The real problem is one of each country being conscious that its own cultural and linguistic identity merits preservation. Tiido: Let us move on from the topic of the European Union to that of accession to NATO. In this organisation there is no such diversity; the very nature of NATO demands a greater degree of similarity, not difference. Is there not a conflict between the two organisations in this regard? Subrenat: No, I do not think so. NATO is simply not a place where you stress your identity. The North Atlantic Alliance, like the Western European Union, is intended to protect identity, but they are still alliances aimed at common defence, which has nothing to do with competition between

288 Globalisation, Integration into European Structures and their Effect… identities. There are only two official languages in NATO – English and French – and the question of Estonian being used at official level will not even be raised. In this respect, the nature of the European Union and NATO is very different. Joining NATO means belonging to an organisation which is based on collective responsibility. There are certain common values shared by the members of NATO although this is not a result of the organisation but of the members themselves. Luik: During the Cold War, the European Union and NATO were indeed very different, but it seems to me that they are now drawing somewhat closer to each other. The European defence dimension is assuming more clearly defined boundaries and this is having an influence on both the European Union and NATO. I think that, in the future, NATO will function as a wideranging strategic agreement between the European Union and the USA, although there will certainly be other countries which are also parties to the agreement. NATO will develop into a more balanced structure which in turn implies that the European Union will have to take on new obligations, including military obligations. We can already see co-operation between European Union and NATO structures (also military structures), for example in the operations in Kosovo. Understandably, the solidarity in the field of defence which is offered by NATO is currently much stronger than it is in the European Union. In addition to this, there is one non-European member of NATO whose financial and military capacity cannot be matched by the others. This will undoubtedly remain so for a long time to come. But in terms of identity, these two organisations are becoming intertwined. Several external factors point to this – the former Secretary General of NATO, Javier Solana, moved on to head the European Union’s foreign policy and the then British Defence Secretary, George Robertson, a clear supporter of increased participation by the United Kingdom in European defence matters, was appointed as his successor. We are living in interesting times where the question of different identities is actually receding into the background. Subrenat: In order to avoid misunderstandings, we should take care not to use the word “identity” in any loose context, for example in connection with NATO. The ultimate objective of NATO is the protection of values, democracy and territory. The member states of the European Union and NATO do indeed overlap to a large extent, but at the same time they remain

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entirely separate organisations. There is not a word in the NATO Treaty on social, economic, cultural or any other integration. NATO is after all a security and defence organisation and in this context it would be misleading to talk about identity in the same sense as in the previous part of our discussion. NATO is an important tool in defending identity but it is not connected with the creation of identity. The European Union, on the other hand, is attempting to promote the development and expression of the national identities of its Member States. Luik: I do not entirely agree. NATO is an interesting cultural phenomenon but at the time of the Cold War it was its military aspects which came to the fore. However, if we take the NATO Treaty, then we find several provisions dealing with so-called soft topics. I have read material about how the NATO Treaty was compiled – for example Canada argued strongly for precisely those “soft topics” (including identity) to be added to the document. Some of the articles of the Treaty seemed relatively insignificant during the Cold War but, as the strategic situation has changed, so they have taken on much greater importance. Many new questions are arising and even the whole subject of peacekeeping has now acquired a much more humanitarian slant – it is no longer just strictly a defence question. There is an interesting case from NATO’s history. When the US Senate was debating the founding of NATO in 1949, Senator Vandenberg, then chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said something to the effect that, “We will create NATO only until such time as the Europeans have acquired the capability to organise their defence themselves.” This view was shared at the time by many US Senators but now the general vision of NATO has completely changed. This shows that, although the dynamism of the European Union is incomparably greater, NATO has also undergone change. Subrenat: I agree on the sociological implication of what you say. But when considering the identity of Estonia, it is important to bear in mind that you are not joining the European Union and NATO because of your identity but for defence and security reasons. One of the most interesting developments in Europe in recent years has been the creation of a common defence and security policy. Even this is a part of European integration, but a part which has long been ignored. It is now in Estonia’s interests to weigh up in which way this policy may be of use and in

290 Globalisation, Integration into European Structures and their Effect… which way Estonia can itself contribute. Estonia has so far been more active than many of the other candidate countries in voicing its desire to participate in the preparation and implementation of the common foreign and security policy, and this before actually acceding to the Union. Tiido: For Estonia, both the European Union and NATO are really a means of guaranteeing security. If the security of the state is guaranteed, this provides the opportunity for stable economic and cultural development. It may be that in ten years’ time we will look on our membership of these organisations in a somewhat different light, providing of course that we are actually members by that time. But if we are by then still located outside these structures, the situation will be totally different for us and it is possible that in this case we would be searching for other ways of guaranteeing our security and that, as a result of this, the question of identity may no longer be as prominent as it currently is. Identity can be defended and preserved in a safe and secure state, and in this sense security is of primary importance for identity. Luik: It is politically extremely important for Estonia to belong to the foreign and security policy framework of the European Union. There is no doubt that the possibility we have of influencing global events and our own situation has increased dramatically thanks to the opportunity to operate, hand-in-hand, with the countries of the European Union. Unfortunately however, some problems have arisen in the EU in recent times. In order to act as one in terms of foreign policy, a certain internal political and, in some cases, economic cohesion is needed. There are constant problems in the economy as some European Union member states have greater interests in certain geographical areas than the others. For example, the drafting of a declaration on human rights has always been complicated as the member states have different economic relations with various countries. These are natural divergences of interests, but this policy should be made congruent with the shared values and a compromise which is acceptable to all sides should be reached. There are two principal topics in the field of defence for Estonia – desire to participate and preparedness to participate. The desire to participate has increased dramatically, but the second question remains – are we able to increase our readiness for action as well? Of all the numerous problems connected with this, I would mention just one. When directing a military operation, it is clear that what is really needed is trust. It is necessary to trust

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the leaders of the operation and also the other countries involved, as it is not possible to monitor every military move with political decisions. Someone, therefore, must be given authority to act. In NATO, that “someone” is the USA, or to be more precise the American commander of NATO’s European armed forces, to whom very wide-ranging powers are granted. In the case of the European Union, there is the similarly important question of who do the Europeans trust enough to give them the right to make tough decisions in situations of crisis where it is not possible to consult with anyone on a regular basis. Political and economic integration deepens mutual trust and for this reason it is not entirely unexpected that we now find ourselves discussing the common defence and security policy. Subrenat: This is also part of the work currently in progress, and the decision-making process is being dealt with extremely thoroughly. But, to conclude, I would like to return to Estonia. By aiming for both the European Union and NATO at the same time, Estonia has to divide its efforts on two fronts simultaneously, as Jüri Luik has just observed. I am referring to desire and capability. In this respect it is important that Estonia is convinced, and it has demonstrated that it is, that the efforts being made in the direction of joining the European Union and NATO are not in contradiction with one another but rather that they serve the same goal. Luik: Our actions are indeed aimed towards two objectives at the same time. For us, these two organisations – the European Union and NATO – complement each other and as such they are both necessary.

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Co-Authors ALLIK, Jaak (born 8 October 1946), politician, theatre director and publicist. Served in the Ministry of Culture of the Estonian SSR (1977–1981). Minister of Cultural Affairs (1995–1999). President of the Estonian Theatre Union. Director of the Ugala Theatre in Viljandi (2001–2003). Member of the Riigikogu. Member of the Estonian People’s Union. ARJAKAS, Küllo (born 10 October 1959), historian and politician. Member of the Riigikogu. Member of the Estonian Centre Party. Author of several history textbooks. HVOSTOV, Andrei (born 10 July 1963), journalist. Studied history at the University of Tartu. Author of a collection of essays, Conceptual Estonia (Mõtteline Eesti, 1999), dealing principally with the mythologisation of Estonian history. ILVES, Toomas Hendrik (born 26 December 1953), politician and diplomat. Estonian Ambassador to the USA, Canada and Mexico (1993–1996). Minister of Foreign Affairs (1996–1998 and 1999–2001). Member and former leader of the Mõõdukad Party. Member of the Riigikogu. IVANOV, Sergei (born 5 January 1958), politician. Studied systems engineering at Tallinn Polytechnic Institute and political studies at the Institute of State and Municipal Management, St Petersburg. Member of the Riigikogu. Member of the Estonian Reform Party. JANSEN, Ea (born 14 November 1921), historian. Researcher at the Institute of History (1968–1998). Author of several works on the period of National Awakening in Estonia, notably on the life and work of Carl Robert Jakobson. KALA, Tiina (born 15 October 1967), historian. Researcher at Tallinn City Archives. Medievalist, specialist in ecclesiastical history. KAPLINSKI, Jaan (born 22 January 1941), writer. Author of poems and essays influenced by Oriental philosophies. Included amongst his dominant themes are the tragic estrangement of man from reality and the rejection of analytical and classifying western thought.

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KELAM, Mari-Ann (born 26 June 1946), politician. Vice-President of the Estonian American National Council (1987–1993). Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1993–1996). Former member of the Riigikogu. Member of the Pro Patria Union (Isamaaliit). KELAM, Tunne (born 10 July 1936), politician. President of the Congress of Estonia (1990–1992). Leader of the Estonian National Independence Party (1993–1995). Head of the Estonian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (1992–1995). Member and former Vice-President of the Riigikogu. Leader of the Pro Patria Union (Isamaaliit). KESKÜLA, Kalev (born 22 October 1959), poet and journalist. Cultural editor of the weekly Eesti Ekspress newspaper since 1991. Also a renowned oenologist. KLAAR, Liis (born 25 January 1938), sociologist, politician and philanthropist. Has lived and worked in Sweden, Switzerland and Canada. Former member of the Riigikogu. Member of the Mõõdukad Party. KROSS, Jaan (born 19 February 1920), writer. Author of numerous historical novels and short stories bringing important Estonian historical figures to life. Works translated into English: Estonian Character (1992), The Czar’s Madman (1992), The Ashtray (1993), Professor Martens’ Departure (1994), The Conspiracy and Other Stories (1995), Treading Air (2003). KULMAR, Tarmo (born 13 August 1950), historian. Doctor of theology. Professor of Comparative Religious History at the University of Tartu. LAAR, Mart (born 22 April 1960), historian and politician. Prime Minister (1992–1994 and 1999–2001). Member of the Riigikogu, member and former leader of the Pro Patria Union (Isamaaliit). Author or co-author of numerous historical works, notably concerning the “forest brothers,” the folklorist Jakob Hurt, and the restoration of independence in Estonia. LAIDRE, Margus (born 18 September 1959), historian and diplomat. Estonian Ambassador to Sweden (1991–1996), Germany (1996–2000) and the Holy See (1997–2000). Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of War

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Sciences. Author of several historical works, particularly covering the Swedish era in Estonia. LEPIK VON WIRÉN, Aino (born 28 October 1961), lawyer. Legal Counsellor to the Government of Estonia (1993–1994). Head of the Human Rights Bureau of the Legal Department (1994–1997) and Director of the Legal Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1997–1999). The Secretary of State of the Republic of Estonia (1999–2003). Ambassador to Portugal (2003–). LUIK, Jüri (born 17 August 1966), politician and diplomat. Minister of Foreign Affairs (1992–1993). Minister of Defence (1993–1994, 1994–1995, 1999–2001). Estonian ambassador to NATO and the WEU, as well as to Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg (1996–1999), and to the USA (2003–). Member of the Pro Patria Union (Isamaaliit). MEDIJAINEN, Eero (born 1 December 1959), historian. Doctor of Philosophy. Senior lecturer in the department of Contemporary History at the University of Tartu. Author of works on Estonian foreign policy and diplomatic relations between the two World Wars. MERI, Georg Lennart (born 29 March 1929), writer, cinematographer and statesman. Founder of the Estonian Institute. Minister of Foreign Affairs (1990–1992). Estonian Ambassador to Finland (1992). President of the Republic (1992–2001). Has written travel accounts and made ethnographic films about the Finno-Ugric peoples. NÕU, Helga (born 22 September 1934), pedagogue and writer. Worked as a primary school teacher for 30 years in Sweden, mainly in Uppsala. Starting in the sixties, her novels and short stories made an important contribution to the revival of Estonian literature abroad. NUTT, Mart (born 21 March 1962), politician. Studied history at the University of Tartu. Former member of the Riigikogu. Member of the Pro Patria Union (Isamaaliit).

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RAAG, Raimo (born 20 August 1953), linguist. Senior lecturer in the Department of Finno-Ugric Languages at Uppsala University. Author of a work on Estonians abroad (Eestlane väljaspool Eestit, 1999). RAUD, Rein (born 21 December 1961), writer and translator, poet, novelist and essayist. Head of the Department of Asian Studies and General Theory of Culture at the Estonian Institute of Humanities. Professor of Japanese Language and Culture at the University of Helsinki. RUMMO, Paul-Eerik (born 19 January 1942), writer, translator and politician. From the 1960s to the 1980s, one of the most outstanding poets in Estonia. Minister of Culture (1992–1994). Minister for Population and Ethnic Affairs (2003–). Member of the Reform Party. RUNNEL, Hando (born 24 November 1938), poet. Chairman of Ilmamaa Publishers (1992–). In the 1970s and 1980s, his poems played an important role as an expression of social and national protest. SUBRENAT, Jean-Jacques (born 9 June 1940), worked at the CNRS, Centre for scientific research, in Paris (1967–1971), French diplomat (1972–). Permanent representative to the WEU in Brussels (1995–1998), Ambassador to Estonia (1998–2002), to Finland (2003–). TARAND, Andres (born 11 January 1940), politician and naturalist. Minister of the Environment (1992–1994). Prime Minister (1994–1995). Member of the Riigikogu. Member and former leader of the Mõõdukad Party. TIIDO, Harri (born 8 October 1953), journalist. Studied English at the University of Tartu. Worked for several radio stations, including Estonian Radio, Voice of America and Kuku Raadio. Deputy Secretary General at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2000–2003). Ambassador to NATO in Brussels (2003–). VILLEMS, Richard (born 28 November 1944), molecular biologist, academic. Member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. Professor at the University of Tartu.

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VSEVIOV, David (born 27 May 1949). Studied history at the University of Tartu. Researcher in the Institute of History at the Academy of Sciences (1981–1991). Professor at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

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Chronology Ca. 9500 B.C. The last glaciers of the continental ice sheet retreat from northwest Estonia, and the first tundra species from the south begin to arrive in areas freed from ice. Later, humans also arrive. Ca. 9000 B.C. The earliest known traces of human inhabitation in Estonia (socalled Kunda settlement sites along the lower reaches of the Pärnu River). Ca. 4000 B.C. The Estonian climate is the most favourable of all time: broadleaved forests inhabited by bison, aurochs and wild boar predominate. The use of large clay vessels with linear decorations – so-called comb ceramics – spreads among the Estonian hunter-gatherer tribes. These populations are considered to be the direct ancestors of the Balto-Finnic peoples. 3200 B.C. Animal husbandry and primitive agriculture – the so-called Boat Axe and Corded Ware Culture – spread gradually in Estonia as a cultural loan and apparently also through migration to the area. 1800 B.C. The first bronze objects arrive in Estonia via Scandinavia and the Volga region. Agriculture becomes more intense on the shallow alvar soils of northern Estonia, although the people continue to subsist mainly from hunting, and in coastal areas from fishing and seal hunting. 800 B.C. Fortifications begin to be constructed for the protection of both the trade routes passing through Estonia, and local bronze processing centres. A new burial practice originating from northern Estonia spreads across the land (above-ground burials in stone coffins). Ca. 600 B.C. A meteorite falls at Kaali on the island of Saaremaa: the sun-like “setting” of the bright meteorite has a strong influence on the attitudes and understandings of the people who inhabit the region at this time. Ca. 500 B.C. Beginning of the Iron Age in Estonia. The new and valuable metal is initially also used for the making of ornaments. 330 B.C. Greek geographer and astronomer Pytheas begins a journey from Marseilles to Thule, the northern end of Europe, and presumably for the first time, describes the territory of Estonia.

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Fortified settlements arise in several parts of Estonia at around the time of the birth of Christ. 98 A.D. In his book Germania, Roman historian Tacitus, who apparently came here from southern Gaul, refers to one of the tribes inhabiting the southern coast of the Baltic Sea as the aestii, which have been seen as the ancestors of the Estonians. 200 A.D. Plough farming becomes increasingly common. The quadrangular burial mound (with cremation burial) spreads. A notable feature is the almost complete absence of weapon finds and the fact that new fortresses are not built, also the old fortresses are not much used in this era. 750 A.D. Aethicus Ister’s Cosmography describes the island of Rifarrica, a place to which salt is transported and weapons are traded. Some historians associate Rifarrica with Revala County in Estonia. 850 – beginning of 13th century. There were approximately 180,000 people in Estonia. The Estonians living beside the waterway from the Baltic Sea to Byzantium along the great rivers of Russia participate in East-West trade, a fact that is also corroborated by numerous finds of Arab silver coins in Estonia. 968 Olav Trygvesson’s Saga recounts how future Norwegian King Olav Trygvesson and his mother Astrid were taken prisoner by the Estonians, and the child’s uncle later purchased their freedom. According to the sagas, the Icelanders also came on raids to Estonia. Swedish runic stones bear memorial inscriptions to the Viking chiefs who died in Estonia. 1154 The chronicler of the Norman court in Sicily, Arab geographer al-Idrisi, first describes northern Estonia. 1195 Pope Celestinus III declares a crusade against the pagan peoples living around the Baltic Sea. 1202 The Order of the Brethren of the Sword (Fratres militiae Christi), which is to be dedicated to a mission of conquest on the shores of the Baltic Sea, is founded in Riga. Ancient Livonia is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and the

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title Maarjamaa (Maryland) is still used today as a poetic designation for Estonia. The Pope declares pilgrimages to Maarjamaa to be equivalent to pilgrimages to the Holy Land. 1208 German crusaders and merchants first invade Estonia, and the Estonians’ nearly two decade-long resistance begins. The population of Estonia is judged to be about 150,000–200,000. 1210 Estonians defeat the crusaders at the Battle of Ümera, which is also recorded in Henrik’s Chronicle of Livonia. The chronicle attributed to missionary Henrik of Latvia the conversion of the Livonians, Latgallians and Estonians from the 1180s to 1227, and is the most important source on the history of Estonia (and Latvia) during that period. 1219 Under the leadership of King Valdemar, the Danes, having joined forces with the Germans, land at Tallinn (Lindanise). In the following years Danes, Germans and Swedes organise both looting raids and crusades in Estonia. 1236 At the Battle of Saule, the Lithuanians crush the Order of the Brethren of the Sword, the fragments of which join the German Order in the following year, forming its Livonian branch (the Livonian Order). 1238 At the Battle of Stensby, northern Estonia comes under Danish control, and southern Estonia is acquired by the Livonian Order. 1242 The Order’s forces attempt to move East with Estonian, Livonian and Latvian auxiliary troops, while spreading Catholicism. Their defeat at the Battle on the Ice on Lake Peipsi lays down the boundary between West and East for centuries to come. 1248 Tallinn is granted the Lübeck Charter by Danish King Erik IV “Plough tax.” 1285 Tallinn joins the Hanseatic League, and is later followed by Tartu, Pärnu and Viljandi. 1309 In Prussia the German Order builds its capital Marienburg (Malbork), which is one of the strongest fortresses in the world at this time. The Teutonic

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state becomes one of the wealthiest in Europe and one of the strongest military powers in Central Europe. Numerous heavily fortified bishops’ castles and castles of the Order are built in Estonia (Tallinn, Kuressaare, Viljandi, Rakvere, Paide etc.). 1343 The St. George’s Night Uprising (Jüriöö): Estonians attempt to struggle free from the conquerors’ yoke. The support promised by the Bailiff of Turu arrives late, and the Order’s forces brutally suppress the uprising. 1346 Danish King Valdemar IV sells northern Estonia to the German Order for 19,000 Köln marks (about 500 kg of gold). 1370 Yet another war between the Hanseatic League and Denmark is won by the Hanseatic League. Flourishing commerce takes hold in Estonia: grain (ancient Livonia was called the breadbasket of Europe), linen and hemp are exported from here, and Estonians act as intermediaries in the sale of goods from Novgorod (furs, honey, wax). The wealthiest cities in the region are Tallinn (ca 7000 inhabitants) and Tartu (ca 5000 inhabitants). Since, in Estonia, conquest was not followed by colonisation as had been the case in Prussia, for instance, the peasantry in Estonia is of Estonian descent, and the predominantly German manor owners keep such a distance from the “common people” that the Estonian people retain their language and ancient customs, despite the spread of Christianity. 1421 The first Diet is convened in ancient Livonia, and it later begins to gather regularly. All the most important local authorities are represented: local masters of the Order, bishops, abbots, the representatives of vassals and the cities, and the state’s foreign and internal affairs are discussed. Diets are held until the year 1561, i.e. until northern Estonia comes under the Swedish crown during the Livonian War. Peasants become tied to the land. Manor owners lose all rights over peasants who have been able to hide themselves in a city for a year and a day. Apparently the expression “city air makes free” dates from this time. 1480 Muscovite forces invade Livonia. The Russians destroy several large fortresses and plunder the land.

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1494 Moscow closes the headquarters of the Hanseatic League in Novgorod. Direct trade with Russia is profitable for the cities of ancient Livonia, but leaves them without military protection. At the beginning of the 16th century, Russian forces attack Estonia repeatedly. 1507 Peasants are prohibited from bearing arms. Firstly, there is no longer any need for peasant auxiliary forces, and secondly the authorities fear possible insurrections on their part. 1519 Ancient Livonia officially comes under the rule of the government of Karl V, when the latter ascends to the throne of Germany. 1523 The Reformation reaches Estonia. 1525 The first Lutheran book known to contain some Estonian text is printed. The cities of Livonia are granted religious freedom. All monasteries in both Tallinn and Tartu are liquidated, with the exception of the Cistercian Monastery in Tallinn, which existed until the beginning of the 17th century. 1535 Wanradt-Koell’s Lutheran catechism is printed in Wittenberg in the Estonian and Lower German languages; this is the first (partially) extant book in the Estonian language. 1558 The invasion by Russian forces launches the Livonian War. With their economic interests in mind, Sweden, Denmark and Lithuania-Poland also hasten to seize their own share. 1583 Sweden and Russia sign the Peace of Pljussa, which brings the Livonian War to an end. Northern Estonia is ceded to Sweden, western Estonia to the Rzeczpospolita, and Saaremaa to Denmark. 1599 War breaks out between Sweden and Poland, and Estonia becomes the battleground for a significant part of the hostilities. 1629 Under the Armistice of Altmark, all of continental Estonia is ceded to Sweden, Saaremaa remains in the hands of the Danes and the Duchy of Courland is relinquished to Poland.

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1632 By order of Swedish King Gustav II, Adolf, Tartu University is founded. The population of Estonia is about 350,000. 1641 Witch trials are held in Estonia. Pastors complain of the people’s superstition: the people make sacrifices to sacred trees and springs. 1645 Denmark cedes Saaremaa to Sweden after a brief war. The Baltic nobility is resolutely opposed to the Swedish government’s plan to free the peasantry from serfdom. 1695–1697 During the Great Famine, one fifth of the population dies of hunger. 1700–1721 The Great Northern War between Sweden and Russia. Poland attempts to re-conquer Livonia, and Peter I wishes to achieve free access to the Baltic Sea. Estonia and Livonia have been under Russian control since 1710, a fact that is officially registered in the Peace of Uusikaupunki (Nystad) of 1721. The local nobility retains its privileges. Due to war and plague, only one third of the population survives, about 120,000 people. 1739 The so-called Rosen Declaration by the College of the Livonian Landrat divests the Estonian peasantry of all manner of rights. The worse the condition of the peasantry becomes under the new rulers, the more fondly the previous government is remembered. The expression “the good old Swedish time” finds its way into the Estonian language. A bible is published in the northern Estonian dialect, which becomes the foundation of the written Estonian language. 1730s–1740s The Herrnhuter movement (brethren congregations) reaches Estonia. The preachers learn the local language, and only then do the principles of Christianity begin to reach the Estonian peasantry. Due to the influence of the Herrnhuter movement, however, a large amount of older folk culture is lost, and the existing regilaul (runic songs) tradition in Estonian folk music is interrupted. 1779 Eight Estonian songs appear in J. G. Herder’s Anthology of Folk Songs. Baltic German nobles begin to show an interest in the Estonian people’s oral tradition.

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1782 According to census data, Estonia has 480,000 inhabitants, 10% of whom live in the cities. 1802 Tartu University is reopened. Instruction takes place in German. 1816 Even before the Napoleonic Wars, the Baltic nobility were forced to request credit from the state due to the fall in grain prices resulting from the continental blockade. In return the peasantry of Estonia are indeed, through government pressure, freed from slavery, but as a result the whole land is declared to be the private property of the manor owners, and the peasantry lose their former right to use inherited land. The corvée further exacerbates the condition of the peasantry. As of 1832 peasants are freely permitted to move into the cities. 1838 In Tartu, Estophilic Baltic German intellectuals found the Estonian Learned Society, which later plays a significant role in the preparation of the epic Kalevipoeg. Universal literacy begins to develop among the peasantry. 1840–1850 The inhuman treatment of the peasantry leads to unrest. The punishments are beatings and deportation to Siberia. Peasants begin to migrate to southern Russia, where they hope to find land of their own and a free life. By the beginning of the 20th century, nearly 200,000 Estonians have emigrated to the Caucasus, Crimea, the upper reaches of the Volga River and Siberia. The hope of being granted land as a member of an Orthodox congregation compels roughly one fifth of the peasantry to convert. 1857 Publication of J. V. Jannsen’s newspaper Pärnu Postimees begins, signalling the advent of continuous journalistic publications in the Estonian language. The national epic Kalevipoeg, prepared by F. R. Kreutzwald, begins to appear in instalments and, despite its lack of authenticity, encourages others to become involved with folk culture. 1850s A new Law of the Peasantry is enacted, dividing land into manor land and farmland, and it is prohibited for the latter to be appropriated by a manor. Peasants are granted the right (although initially only theoretical) of purchasing land in perpetuity. Estonia has a population of about 760,000.

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1869 The first National Song Festival in Tartu. The “promotion of the Estonian cause” is progressing apace in the areas of education and music. 1887 Russification begins. Russian becomes the official language in schools and the language of official business. Educated Estonians’ admission to positions in government institutions is restricted. In response, a keen folklore collection campaign is launched. As a result of the gathering of local tradition that begins at this time, the Estonian folklore collection is now the second largest in the world after Ireland’s. 1905 Strikes and unrest take place in the midst of the fervour of the revolution. The tsarist government sends punitive detachments to Estonia who enforce beatings as punishments and even the death penalty. For several years harsh censorship rules the land. 1917 A great demonstration is held by Estonians in Petrograd, in which autonomy is demanded for Estonia, which the Provisional Government accepts. Estonian soldiers serving in the Russian Army are gathered in Estonia, and later, during the formation of the Estonian Army, these men form the core of the new force. The Estonian Diet fears that the Bolsheviks will not keep the promises made by the Provisional Government, and will declare themselves the supreme authority in Estonia. 1918 On 24 February the Republic of Estonia is declared. 1918–1920 War of Independence against both Red Army and Landeswehr. 1920 On 2 February in Tartu, the Peace of Tartu is signed with Soviet Russia. 1921 Estonia becomes a full member of the League of Nations. An extensive land reform programme is carried out: the land occupied by the manor houses (58% of agricultural land) is nationalised and divided among 55,000 settler farms. The former manor owners receive compensation. 1924 Groups of the underground Communist movement attempt to overthrow the elected government of Estonia with the support of leaders who have secretly crossed the border from the Soviet Union into Estonia. The Communist party is declared illegal in Estonia.

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1925 The Cultural Autonomy Act is passed, granting the ethnic minorities residing in Estonia the right to operate schools in their own language and organise their cultural life with state support. The Cultural Endowment of Estonia is founded for the financing of cultural life. 1933 On the initiative of veterans of the War of Independence, following a plebiscite, a new constitution is passed, significantly strengthening the power of the head of state. The kroon is devalued and in 1929 the repercussions of the depression begin to abate. 1934 Estonia has 1,126,000 inhabitants, of whom ca 89% are Estonians, 8.8% are Russians, 1.5% are Germans, 0.7% Swedes, 0.5% Latvians and 0.4% Jews. Preparations are made for presidential elections. Although it seems that the candidate put forward by the radical War of Independence Veterans’ Party will win, the Head of State Konstantin Päts declares a state of emergency and holds on to power. 1935 The so-called Silent Era begins: the activities of political parties are prohibited, and freedom of the press is restricted. 1938 A new constitution, significantly more liberal than its predecessor, is passed. 1939 Estonia is required to sign an agreement of mutual assistance with the Soviet Union, which brings its armed forces onto the territory of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Following a German appeal to its nationals, over 12,000 Baltic Germans leave Estonia. 1940 On 16 June the Soviet Union presents an ultimatum to Estonia, which is then occupied by the Red Army. The Riigikogu elected as a result of the Soviet-rigged electoral farce is convened under the “protection” of the Red Army and submits a request to join the Soviet Union, a request that Moscow then immediately “satisfies.” Private property is abolished and companies and land are nationalised. The rouble is introduced. People are arrested and disappear.

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1941 The first mass deportation takes place in Estonia: families are separated, and about 12,000 people are herded into cattle cars and deported to Siberia. The German occupation begins in July. 1944 Soviet forces re-conquer Estonia, before which about 70,000 people escape across the sea to Sweden and even to destinations beyond. The largest Estonian communities are in Sweden, the USA, Canada and Australia. A large number of men hide in the forests, and the so-called Forest Brothers’ resistance continues for years with the support of the population. 1949 In order to prepare for the collectivisation of rural life and break the resistance of the rural population, another mass deportation, a total of 21,000 people, is carried out. 1954 An Estonian government in exile is formed. 1956 After Stalin’s death (1953) Estonians, among others, begin to be released from prison camps. Contact with the outside world (although under firm control) is now permitted. 1965 Regular shipping traffic is reopened between Tallinn and Helsinki. 1972 Estonian exiles organise the first Worldwide Estonian Days (ESTO) in Toronto. Political demonstrations are held in support of the restoration of Estonian independence. 1981 The period of Russification begins in Estonia: Russian is imposed in educational institutions. The industrial enterprises in Estonia act as a pump for migration: nearly one third of the population are immigrants who do not speak the Estonian language. Student protests take place in Estonia. 40 important figures in the world of Estonian culture write a joint letter of protest against the policy of Russification. 1986–1987 A campaign against the creation of a phosphorite mine in Estonia is held throughout Estonia: this prepares the way for the idea of Estonia’s secession from the Soviet Union. Journalistic freedom in Estonia increases. The idea of “A Financially Independent Estonia” (Estonian abbreviation “IME”) is presented.

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1988 The Popular Front is formed. The Estonian Heritage Society restores the Estonian national colours, which had been harshly forbidden during the entire Soviet period. So-called Night Song Festivals are held at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds, and each evening about 100,000 people come to sing patriotic songs; it is from these gatherings that the concept “the singing revolution” arises. On 16 November an extraordinary session of the Supreme Soviet of the ESSR passes a declaration on the sovereignty of the ESSR; this is considered to be the beginning of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. 1989 The blue-black-and-white flag is once again hoisted atop Pikk Hermann tower in Tallinn. On 23 August a demonstration dedicated to the consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is held: a 600-km-long human chain, the so-called “Baltic Chain,” stretches right through the Baltic States. 1990 At the end of February the Estonian Congress is elected. The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR passes a resolution on the national status of Estonia, and a transition period is declared. In place of the Estonian SSR, the name of the Republic of Estonia is re-established, and the use of the flag, coat of arms and anthem of the Estonian SSR is discontinued. 1991 Additional Soviet commando forces are dispatched to Estonia. After the bloody events in Riga and Vilnius, barricades are erected in central Tallinn. In the independence referendum on 3 March, the people vote for the restoration of the national independence and sovereignty of the Republic of Estonia. On 20 August the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR declares the independence of the Republic of Estonia from the Soviet Union. The first country to recognise Estonia’s restored independence is Iceland, on 22 August. The Russian Federation grants its recognition on 24 August, followed by the Soviet Union on 6 September. 1992 After a 56-year hiatus, Estonian athletes participate in the Olympic Games as an independent team under the Estonian flag. Estonia adopts its own currency, the kroon. In the plebiscite on the Estonian Constitution, 91.2% say “yes” to the new constitution. The Estonian Congress ceases activities.

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1993 Estonia is the 29 th country to be accepted as a full member of the Council of Europe. The Popular Front ceases activities. 1994 On 31 August the last Soviet forces depart from Estonia. Estonia joins the NATO Partnership for Peace programme. 1995 Estonia submits to the European Union an application for membership. 1998 Entry into force of an association agreement between Estonia and the European Union, in which Estonia’s objective of acceding to EU membership is recognised. 1999 NATO recognises Estonia as a potential candidate for membership. 2003 In a referendum held in September, a clear majority favours Estonia joining the EU. 2004 (May 1st) Accession of Estonia to the European Union. Chronology compiled by Lore Listra