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** THE BALTIC REPUBLICS 2011 - A PROLOGUE ** |
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Baltic Commonalities and Distinctions |
Lithuania |
Latvia |
Estonia |
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Last year while in NE Poland (see that trip's webs), we made a 5 day exploratory foray into Lithuania, an experience which inevitably whetted our appetites, hence this year's more thorough venture. We have additionally benefitted from the detailed accounts of journeys through the Baltic region published by fellow travellers Margaret and Barry Williamson on their web site Magbag Travels, a travel information resource of encyclopaedic proportions. We should also like to acknowledge help received from Michael and Cindy O'Malley whom we originally met on a French campsite in 2006 on their return journey from the Baltic. We shall be setting off shortly and during the
course of our travels through the Baltic Sates, we shall publish on the web site detailed logs
and pictorial record covering the progress of our travels. As is our custom
however, we now present this Prologue study with demographic, topographical,
cultural, economic and historical background to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, our 2011 host
countries.
Baltic
topography and wildlife: the 3 Baltic states are small: it's just over
400 miles from the northern tip of Estonia on the Baltic coast down
Shared history, distinctive cultures:
the 3 countries have much in common, most particularly their centuries of
oppressive foreign conquest and occupation. Early conquest by crusading Germans
from the west and imperialist Swedes from the north led to rule by Tsarist
Russia during the 18/19th centuries. A brief and fragile period of independence
after WW1 was snuffed out by Soviet occupation in 1939 followed by 4 desperate
years of Nazi-German conquest, and 45 years of even more repressive Soviet
domination until the collapse of the USSR in 1990. Having reasserted their independence
in 1990, the 3 states have now turned their political and economic focus
westwards, becoming fully-fledged EU and NATO members since 2004. This
shared historical experience of foreign conquest and occupation, especially the
Soviet years, followed by sudden re-acquisition of self-government and
conversion to market economy has left the 3 countries with much in common. The
convenient group-label 'Baltic States' does however belie their distinctively separate
identities and cultures which modern-day Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians are
at pains to emphasise. Latvia and Estonia both share a Lutheran inheritance from
medieval German feudal rule; their significant Russian population is
largely Orthodox, including those of the Old Believers sect who broke away from
the 17th century liturgical
language and pagan religion, and cut off by forests and bogs until well into the
Middle Ages. From the 12th century, under increasing pressure
from Slavic and Germanic neighbours, the tribes began to unify around fortress
strongholds such as Trakai and Vilnius under powerful chieftains such as the
legendary Mindaugas, first ruler of Lithuania. As Europe's last pagan culture,
the emergent Lithuanian state faced constant threat of attack by crusading
land-grabbing western invaders such as the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order; Chaucer's
Knight in the Canterbury Tales saw mercenary service in Lithuania. Such warfare
forged Lithuania into a major military power, and the 14th century ruler Gediminas extended
the Lithuanian empire eastwards, demonised by western
Christians for its paganism. When Poland's king died
without male heir in 1382, the Polish nobility formed a dynastic alliance with Gediminas' grandson,
Jogaila who became king of Poland under the name of Jagiełło and Christianised the Lithuanians
as his part of the deal. Vytautas became Grand Duke
of Lithuania, and the combined Polish-Lithuanian forces were powerful enough to
inflict a crushing defeat on the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald in
1410. Under Vytautas, regarded as Lithuania's greatest national hero, the Grand
Duchy's empire was extended from the Baltic to the Black sea. After Jagiełło's
death, his descendents continued to rule in Poland. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania
remained autonomous but by the mid 16th century, the eastern borders of its
empire were increasingly threatened by an aggressively expansionist Russia. In
1569, the Lithuania nobles under fear of Russian menace agreed formal union with Poland under the Union of
Lublin which created with Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. As a result Lithuania
became a predominantly Catholic country whose religious and cultural tolerance attracted an expanding influx of Jewish
population fleeing eastwards from German persecution and speaking the
Germanic-influenced dialect Yiddish.
 World War 1 and re-emergence of Lithuanian independence:
Lithuania formed a key western defence line for the Russians in 1914, but within
a year the whole country had been overrun by German forces. With the Tsarist
regime's collapse, Bolshevik seizure of power and Russia's withdrawal from WW1,
Lithuanian nationalist leaders declared the country's independence which was
endorsed by the victorious Allies in 1918. It had been assumed that Vilnius
would became the new state's capital, but the Poles seized the city souring
relations with the newly independent Lithuanian and forcing the Lithuanians to
adopt Kaunas as their provisional capital. They also occupied the
German-speaking port city of Klaipėda in 1923. The emerging nation's democracy
was short-lived: in 1926 left wing moves to align with the Soviet Union caused
the nationalist leader Antanas Smetona (see right) to suspend parliament and establish a 15
year long benign dictatorship.
Independence loss under WW2 German occupation and 45 years of communist repression:
under the notorious 1939 Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, Stalin occupied all 3
Baltic states in 1940 and Lithuanian was absorbed into the USSR. As war
Post-communist Independence and Lithuanian
NATO/EU membership: the 1993 visit of Pope John-Paul II to Lithuania
served as a powerful signal of the country's break with its communist past. The
nationalist-conservative Vytautas Landsbergis (see right) remained the dominant figure in
the Lithuanian parliament during the first 10
Christianising Crusaders impose Germanic feudal aristocracy on Latvian serf
peasantry: the pagan tribes
who settled the Baltic lands coalesced into a series of loosely-allied isolated rural communities defended by stockade
forts, remaining wholly outside the influence of Western Europe until the 12th
century. Increasingly, crusading knights saw the opportunity for territorial
gain on the pretext of Christianising the Baltic pagans, and around 1200 AD Rīga
was
WW1, the 1917 Bolshevik Russian Revolution and the Latvian War of Independence: collapse of the eastern front following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia left Latvia fully in German control in WW1. But with Germany's surrender to the Western Allies in November 1918, a hastily 
convened Latvian National Council declared Latvia's
independence with Kārlis Ulmanis (see right) appointed as head of the provisional government.
With the 1918~20 Latvian War of Independence, Ulmanis
was powerless since the Latvian Bolsheviks supported by the Red Army formed a short-lived Soviet
Republic occupying Rīga and powerful German forces led by General
von der Goltz controlled the west of the country. Supported by the Baltic German
aristocracy, von der Goltz attempted to depose Ulamis and form a
German-dominated state. Ulamis and the provisional government fled to the port
city of Liepāja and with British support mustered a Latvian army to oppose von
der Goltz's German forces. The Germans expelled the Bolsheviks from Rīga
but were themselves forced out by Latvian forces with support from Royal Navy
warships. Ulamis returned to Rīga in July 1919 and after failure of a
further German attack on the capital in October, the Bolsheviks were driven out
in the winter war of 1919~20. A Soviet-Latvian treaty signed in August 1920
officially ended hostilities and the independent state of Latvia was finally established as a parliamentary democracy.
Interwar years and WW2: interwar Latvian politics was characterised
by a proliferation of small parties with
Kārlis Ulmanis' party ensuring a degree of stability during a succession of
short-lived coalition governments. Steadily rising economic growth was cut short
by the 1929 depression which led to public disillusionment with parliamentary
politics. The resultant emergence of anti-democratic, extremist right wing groups led to Prime Minister Ulmanis
declaring a state of emergency and appointing himself president in 1936,
suspending Latvia's liberal
The road to Latvian
independence 1991:
Mikhail Gorbachev's appointment as Soviet Communist Party's General Secretary in
1985 and his policy reforms of Glasnost and Perestroika enabled
Post-independence and Latvian membership of NATO and EU:
the immediate challenge facing the newly independent state was the
transformation of dysfunctional centralised state-controlled economy to
consumer-driven free market. The switch was achieved at remarkable speed but at
painful social cost, with a minority making fortunes from the transition while
the majority eked out a living on meagre wages.
Runaway inflation, soaring
unemployment, plummeting purchasing power, bank collapses wiping out savings,
and the end of basic but universal Soviet social welfare system provided a harsh
introduction for the Latvian people to their new freedom. The failure of
successive coalition
Prehistoric settlement and Crusading Christian feudal conquest:
the early Finno-Ugric settlers of what is now Estonia
lived a rural life in tribal farming and fishing societies, ruled by chieftains
from stockade-forts; they were undisturbed by the outside world until the 10th
century AD when Vikings set up trading posts along the north Baltic coast. By
the 13th century, King Valdemar II of Denmark
launched a crusading invasion of Estonia, founding the fortress city of Tallinn as
a base from which to subdue the pagan tribes and seize their lands. The locals
put up fierce
Estonia under Swedish and Russian control: by the 14th century, the
cost of pacifying the rebellious Estonian peasantry became too much for the
Danes who sold their land-holding in the northern Baltic to the Livonian Order
for 19,000 silver marks. A geographical distinction endured, the south of the
country known as Livland (Livonia) looking to Riga, and the north termed Estland
(which centuries later became Estonia) centred on Tallinn. Under the Livonian
Order, the gulf separating Estonian peasants from Germanic landowners and clergy
grew wider, while in
19th century Estonian National Awakening: at the start of the 19th
century, there was little in the way of an Estonian national conscience, and
those Estonians who had begun to advance themselves in the cities had become
thoroughly Germanised in order to do so. But some enlightened
Baltic Germans began to take an interest in Estonian language and folklore, and
the Estonian Learned Society was
founded at Tartu
WW1, the Estonian War of Independence
and inter-war years: collapse of the Tsarist regime with the 1917
Bolshevik Revolution in Russia
Estonia's 45 years under the Soviet repression (1945~91): by
September 1944 the advancing Red Army after fierce battles in the north west had
driven the Germans out of Estonia which once again became part of the USSR.
The second Soviet occupation was even harsher than the first: in 1949 a further
wave of deportations to Siberian forced labour and death camps removed some
20,000 people randomly selected,
Estonian Independence and EU/NATO membership: in
September 1992 Estonia's first fully free elections in over 60 years were held
under the new constitution
which established parliamentary government, the
Riigikogu (parliament), headed by a
prime minister with the president as head of state. The current President of Estonia
is Toomas Hendrik Ilves (see left). In the years that followed,
despite a number of political
So that's the chequered and turbulent background story of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia so far, 3 small and distant countries whose language and culture were almost suffocated by centuries of conquest by neighbours, not least by 45 years of brutally oppressive Soviet communism. As always we journey with a purpose: the intention that our travels will give the opportunity for learning more for ourselves about our 3 host-countries which have so resiliently withstood such oppression. We look forward also to discussing and understanding more about peoples' lives in these modern, fully-fledged EU democratic states, and their hopes for a politically and economically stable future. We set off shortly and as usual shall be publishing regular updates to our web site, with news-update and pictorial record of our travels. Add the site to your Favourites and be sure of sharing our travels; we should welcome your companionship.
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THE BALTIC
REPUBLICS 2011 -
Our
summer 2011 trip will be taking us further north-east than last year, to explore
in depth the three Baltic Republics, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. All 3 are fellow member states of the EU,
but despite their open Schengen-borders, are largely unknown to British
travellers.
Ethnicity and Language: the
ancestors of today's Estonians were Finno-Ugric nomadic tribes who migrated from
NW Siberia, settling in the northern Baltic region during the millennia following
the last Ice Age and sharing a closely related non-Indo-European linguistic and
cultural inheritance with the Finns. The linguistically and culturally related Latvians and Lithuanians
are
descended from the Balts, an ethnic group of peoples who migrated to the region around 2,000BC from
SW Asia, speaking an Indo-European dialect quite distinct from the languages of
their Slavic neighbours. Contemporary Lithuanian is said to be the closest of
living languages to Sanskrit, the ancient tongue from which Indian dialects are
linguistically descended. While Estonian like Finnish will doubtless cause us
some tongue-twisting headaches, at least the numerals in Latvian and Lithuanian
betray a familiar Indo-European affinity.
to Lithuania's
southernmost point on the Poland-Belarus border. These flat northern plains (the
highest point, Suur Munamägi in Estonia, is only 318m), scoured by the last
Ice Age's retreating glaciers, are covered with dark pine forests and plantations
of birch, and interspersed with bogs, wetlands and 1000s of lakes including
Europe's 5th largest, Lake Peipsi. The ice-sheets also left behind along the
Baltic coast long stretches of raised limestone banks, the great Baltic Glint,
now forming cliffs along Estonia's coast, and deposited gigantic erratic
boulders. Much of Lithuania's Baltic coast is formed by the dunes of the 100km
long Curonian sand spit, shared with Kaliningrad Russia. The
Baltics, with their food-rich wetlands, low usage of agricultural pesticides and
low population density, are seasonal home to Europe's largest population of
white storks nesting on poles and buildings.
reforms of the Russian Orthodox Church and sought
refuge from persecution settling around Lake Peipsi along the Russian border
with Estonia. Lithuania, the last pagan country of Europe, adopted the Catholic
religion after the medieval dynastic alliance with Catholic Poland; this
historical fusion of pre-Christian believes and Catholicism still influences
national traditions. One feature however that all 3 countries have in common is their
love of singing. The 19th century rediscovery of Baltic choral musical traditions was an important factor in reawakening an awareness of national identity
after centuries of foreign domination. During the dark days of Soviet occupation
when any expression of patriotic sentiment met with official displeasure, song
festivals fostered nationalist feelings; the expression Singing Revolution
characterised the independence movements of the late 1980s in all 3 states,
hence the appropriate musical accompaniment to this prologue edition.
Lithuania's disappearance into Tsarist Russia and 19th century National
Movement: having
taken control of Estonia and Latvia following the Great Northern War of 1700~21, Russia exerted increasing
control over the Polish Commonwealth, finally wiping Lithuania off the map with
the Partitioning of Poland in 1795. Lithuanians took part in the 19th century
Polish uprisings but failure and defeat brought brutal reprisals, a wholesale
programme of Russification and ban on any book publication in other than in
Cyrillic. Nationalistic feeling was kept alive among the intelligentsia by
research into Lithuanian folk traditions, and in the later 19th century
found expression in illicitly published literature. The leading ideologist of the Lithuanian national movement
was Jonas Basanavičius who promoted research into traditional folk culture, study of Lithuania's period of medieval
greatness, and edited the first prohibited
national revival newspaper Aura (Dawn). The 40 year ban on printing in
indigenous Lithuanian was only lifted in 1904.
with Germany loomed, Stalin tightened
his grip on Lithuania with a reign of terror, deporting 1000s of citizens to
Siberian gulags. In 1941, the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa against the
USSR, overrunning Lithuania within days. SS Einsatzgruppen
squads immediately went to work
supported by Lithuanian collaborators, rounding up the sizeable Jewish
population into ghettos. The systematic killing process continued until 1944,
with 100,000 shot in the remote
forests at Paneriai near Vilnius. About 90% of
Lithuania's Jewish population were murdered by the Germans; the few remaining
survivors emigrated after WW2. With the Red Army's advance into Lithuania in
1944, partisan resistance against Soviet rule began and despite KGB
infiltration, armed resistance continued for a decade. The post war Soviet
regime was led by Antanas Sniečkus, a
trusted servant of Moscow who enforced a programme of terror, deportations and
collectivisation of agriculture. By the mid-1980s Glasnost period,
political dissent began to re-emerge with the first anti-Soviet demonstrations
held in 1987 demanding publication of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Opposition grew into a mass movement with the openly pro-independence Sajūdis
Movement holding its first congress in 1988. Sajūdis gained a majority in the
Lithuanian Supreme Soviet, and their leader Vytautas Landsbergis declared
Lithuania's independence from USSR in 1990, the first of the former
Eastern Bloc countries to do so, and a landmark act in the USSR's breakup. The Kremlin responded with an economic blockade
which caused severe food and fuel shortages, and in 1991 the ham-fisted attempt
at military
clampdown led to Soviet tanks killing 13 demonstrators at the Vilnius TV tower.
With the Kremlin old guard's failure to unseat Gorbachev, Soviet power evaporated leaving Lithuania
joyously independent.
years post-independence and led
the country's
wholesale transformation to market economy, with privatisation of
former state-controlled monopolies and economic liberalisation during
the 1990s. The change however brought inevitable difficulties with the collapse
of loss-making industries, rising unemployment and declining living standards.
Up to 2007 with large amounts of foreign investment, the so-called 'Baltic
Tiger' economies had Europe's highest
growth rate; Lithuania's GDP growth rate was 7.5%. But worldwide recession
post-2008 led to serious decline in economic growth rates. The most notable
feature of post-independence politics has been the pro-Western orientation of
the country's foreign policy, with successive governments supporting the cause
of Lithuanian entry into NATO and the EU which the country achieved in 2004.
Continuing high levels of inflation however have delayed the planned adoption of
the Euro. In 2009, Lithuania elected Dalia Grybauskaitė as national President
(see left).
founded as a crusading city at the mouth of the Daugava River.
The surrounding Latvian communities were progressively conquered and their
confiscated lands divided among the Germanic knights. This confederation of Germanic feudal
aristocracy known as the Livonian Order consolidated its rule over a serfdom of Latvian-speaking peasantry,
and remained the dominant political force in the Latvian lands for 300 years. By
the 16th century, the expanding mercantile city of Rīga, which joined the
Hanseatic League in 1282, became focus of the
Reformation with the wealthy German nobility funding vernacular translations of
the Bible to popularise the Protestant faith among their Latvian serfs. With
decline of the German aristocracy's power during the mid 16th century Livonian Wars, the Swedish kingdom took control of Rīga and northern Latvia with
the south falling under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Russian control over Latvia and 19th century Latvian National Revival: Russia destroyed Sweden as a regional
power in the 1700~21 Great Northern War and the Partitioning of Poland
finally brought Latvia fully under control of the
Tsarist empire. Russian rule however brought no change for the Latvian
majority who continued working as serfs on estates owned by a German-speaking
ruling aristocracy. The Tsarist policy of Russification strengthened the
determination of the Latvian middle class which began to emerge in Rīga to develop their indigenous language and culture,
despite the Baltic Germans regarding Latvians as second class citizens who
should abandon pretensions to education and remain on their farms. The rising generation
of Latvian nationalists saw German culture as the language
of oppression to be overcome by encouraging a more widespread use of Latvian. Krijānis Valdemārs,
leader of the New Latvians nationalist movement, established the first Latvian
newspaper in 1862. Encouraged by Valdemārs, Krijānis
Barons set about a collection of Latvian folklore and dainas, traditional folk songs,
to give the Latvians a sense of their own cultural history. The 1905
anti-Tsarist Revolution which spread across the Russian empire was followed by merciless
reprisals under which a whole generation of Latvian nationalists were imprisoned
or exiled.
democratic institutions and establishing an authoritarian regime. Ulmanis' period of rule
resulted in rapid economic growth, during which Latvia attained a high
standard of living, albeit at
the cost of liberty and civil rights. Under the 1939 German-Soviet
Non-Aggression Pact, Latvia along with the 2 other Baltic States was forced to
accept Soviet military occupation; a puppet communist government voted for
Latvia's incorporation into the USSR. Ulmanis resigned from government advising his people "I shall remain in my
place, you
remain in yours"; he was exiled to Siberia where he died in 1942.
Baltic Germans fled westwards to Germany amid Soviet terror campaigns and in June 1941, Stalin began mass
deportations of Latvians to Siberia. Hitler launched his invasion of the USSR
the same month and within 2 weeks the German army controlled Latvia. Murder
squads immediately began work and over the next 4 years, 70,000 Latvian Jews
were eliminated (see right). Some Latvians welcomed the Germans as liberators, collaborating
in the round-up and murder of Jews. Others, fearing German defeat by the
Soviets, formed a Latvian SS unit which led Latvia's defence against the
Red army in 1944. In October 1944 Rīga fell to the advancing Soviets, and 1000s of Latvians were conscripted
into the Red Army in the bitter fighting to drive the Germans from Latvia. Some
130,000 Latvians fled west to escape the Soviet re-occupation of the country,
and 1000s of others joined the anti-Soviet Forest Brothers partisan movement.
During WW2, Latvia lost 450,000 people, 25% of its citizens.
Latvia under the Soviets (1945~90): it was immediately clear that
the Soviets were here to stay with the post-war years marked by
dismal and sombre events for the Latvian nation: communist
grip on the country was reinforced by sweeping waves of repression
carefully planned and orchestrated by Moscow with
1000s of Latvian citizens imprisoned, executed or transported to Siberian forced
labour camps.
The thriving economic infrastructure developed in the 1920s and 1930s was eradicated
and farming forced into collectivisation. Loyal Moscow-trained communists were
brought in to run the local party, and many 1000s of industrial workers were
migrated from the USSR intentionally decreasing the proportion of ethnic
Latvians. Stalin's death in 1953 brought some relaxation of ideological controls
but any opposition to official Kremlin policy was ruthlessly suppressed. Denied
any political freedom, patriotic Latvians focused on their cultural inheritance
and during the 1970s and 80s, folklore groups and choral societies enabled
expression of national sentiment without provoking clampdown by the Soviet
state.
Latvian intellectuals to raise issues which had been
taboo for years,
particularly the Soviets' illegal occupation of the
country in 1940. The Popular
Front mass movement in 1988~89 demanded democratic reform and restoration of
Latvian independence, with Latvians gathering in 1000s to sing previously banned
patriotic songs. Relatively free elections in 1990 produced a
pro-independence majority which announced restoration of the 1922 Latvian
constitution. With the 1991 power struggle in Moscow between reformists and
communist hardliners, people took to the
streets in Rīga with 700,000 strong pro-independence demonstrations.
Fearing Soviet military intervention as Soviet special forces opened fire
killing demonstrators, barricades were
erected around key buildings. Stung by international criticism, Gorbachev abandoned plans for
further Baltic crackdown. Soviet and international recognition of Latvia's
independence followed in September 1991.
governments to combat corruption and raise living standards
has resulted in an unimposing political climate with no single party or leader
commanding a clear mandate. The other contentious domestic issue was how best to
treat its substantial Russian-speaking minority, almost 30% of the population
and a direct result of resettlement policies pursued by the Soviet regime.
Despite nationalist claims that citizenship should be restricted to those
descended from the pre-1945 population, international pressure for a non-ethnic
approach to civil rights caused the Latvian government to grant citizenship to
post-1945 immigrants with basic language proficiency in Latvian. Those who
remained non-citizens retained the right to reside in Latvia but without voting
rights; currently the number of predominantly Russian-speaking non-citizens is
327,000, almost 15% of the population. Latvia was ably represented
internationally by the well-respected Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga (see left)
who served as President from 1999~2007 and who spearheaded the country's drive
to join both NATO and the EU. Despite Russian opposition to its
westward leaning foreign policy, Latvia became a NATO and EU member in
2004, but continuing high inflation has delayed Latvia adopting the Euro until
at least 2014. The current President of Latvia is Valdis Zatlers (see right).
resistance; but not only did the Danes' crusading invasion have papal blessing, legend has it
that at the 1219 Battle of Lyndanisse, with the Estonians close to defeating the
invaders, divine intervention signalled by a red banner with white cross falling from the
sky inspired the Danes to victory. From then this banner, the
Dannebrog was adopted as the Danish national flag.
In reality, the Estonians were no match for the heavily armed crusaders and by
the 1230s, the Danes along with the Livonian Order Germanic knights
had carved up the country between them. The locals were forcibly converted to
Christianity and their lands divided up among the new ruling class of knights
and bishops. Towns like Tallinn and Tartu were populated by German-speaking
immigrants attracted by mercantile opportunity, while the Estonians worked
the land of the feudal estates in serfdom to their conquerors, a situation which
remained virtually unchanged until the 19th century.
the towns German-speaking burghers and merchants were
served by an increasing population of Estonian servants and artisans. In the
16th century the Reformation was adopted enthusiastically by both aristocratic land-owners and
city merchants in their power struggle with the Church, transforming Estonia
from a Catholic country to a bastion of Lutheranism. The power vacuum left by
the declining relevance of the
Livonian order was exploited by the Swedish
Empire which captured Tallinn in 1556, using it as a base to take in the whole
of Estonia and driving the back the expansionist Russians. 17th century Swedish
rule is regarded as an enlightened period in Estonia 's long history of
foreign oppression: although the power of the German aristocracy remained
intact, Swedish rule brought a degree of improvement in conditions for peasants'
and extended primary education; Swedish King Gustav Adolphus (see left) founded Tartu
University in 1632 which produced a new cadre of competent administrators. All
this came to an end with the 1700~21 Great Northern War between Swedes and
Russians which laid waste to large areas of Estonia and made Russian Tsar Peter
the Great (see right) undisputed master of the Baltic region. With Estonia now part of the
Russian Empire, Peter won support of the German magnates by reaffirming their
privileges and offering top jobs in the imperial administration. As
manorial estates flourished, conditions for Estonian peasants worsened; the
abolition of serfdom in 1816 actually led to further impoverishment with
peasants now forced to work as seasonal labourers for meagre wages.
University to promote the
study of local history and culture. Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald used
traditional Estonian folk tales as the inspiration for his national epic poem Kalevipoeg in 1857,
the first large scale piece of
narrative fiction written in the Estonian
language. Johann Voldemar Jannsen (see left) published the first Estonian language newspaper the
Pärnu Courier in 1857 despite imperial censorship, founded the still flourishing Eesti Postimees
in Tartu, and played a crucial role in the Estonian National Awakening by
organising the first nationwide All-Estonian Song Festival in 1869; he also
wrote the words for what became the Estonian national anthem Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm (My
Fatherland, My Happiness and Joy). His daughter,
Lydia Koidula (see right), who anonymously contributed to his writings, was also a major
literary figure writing lyric poetry and made a lasting contribution to Estonian
literature. Her patriotic poem Mu isamaa on minu arm
(Land of my fathers, land that I love) was set to music for the 1869 Song Festival (Laulupidu),
and was later sung at Song Festivals during the Soviet occupation uniting
Estonians in defiance of the communist authorities. In the 1890s the Tsarist authorities began an intense programme of Russification which only served to radicalise the Estonian national movement.
Support for the failed 1905 anti-Tsarist revolution brought setback with most national leaders forced into exile.
revived hopes for the Estonian national movement and in 1918 a newly constituted
Estonian
government under Konstantin Päts (see right) declared independence in Tallinn. A
newly formed Estonian army under former Tsarist General Johan Laidoner (see
left), supplied with arms by the British, drove back resurgent Bolsheviks
forcing them to accept peace terms in 1919, and defeated the Baltic German army
in the south securing Estonia's borders. The Constituent Assembly established a
democratic republican government presided over by the State Elder, but initial
post-war prosperity was brought to an end by the 1929 Great Depression. Many of
those who had fought in the War of Independence were disillusioned with the
state's inability to provide the expected jobs and increased living standards
and joined a fascist pressure group, the Vaps Movement, demanding authoritarian
rule. Konstantin Päts with support from the army carried out his own
authoritarian coup d'état: political parties were banned and replaced by the
Fatherland Union to give the country a unifying ideological focus, and Päts was
elected Estonia's first President.
mainly women, children and elderly, 2.5% of the
Estonian population; more than half of these died in exile and most survivors
never returned home to Estonia despite amnesties after Stalin's death. Most of
those deported were from the countryside leading to a collapse in agricultural
production, made worse by enforced collectivisation. Huge scale immigration of
industrial workers from other parts of the USSR meant that by 1970 native Estonians
constituted only 60% of the population ethnic mix. 1000s of young Estonians
joined the anti-Soviet Forest Brothers partisans, believing that help would come
from the West. Large areas of the country particularly coastal areas and the
islands were declared secret militarised zones with
access highly restricted. During the post-Stalin thaw of the 1950s Khrushchev era, Estonians were allowed
greater freedom of contact with western countries and
in the 1960s, a Tallinn~Hellsinki ferry link was opened. In the 1970s Estonians were
able to watch Finnish television and had more information on current affairs and
more access to Western culture and thought than any other group in the Soviet
Union. This heightened media environment was significant in enabling Estonians
to take greater advantage of perestroika during the late 1980s Gorbachev era.
The
Singing Revolution (1988~91):
Gorbachev's policy reforms of Glasnost reawakened long repressed national
feelings of resentment in Estonia. Protests in Tallinn in 1987~88 demanded greater self-determination for Estonia
and in September 1988 250,000 Estonians gathered at Tallinn's Song Festival
Grounds in a mass demonstration for independence from the USSR with TV images of
flag-waving singing crowds giving the title of the Singing Revolution for
the independence movement. In August 1989, the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression
Pact, 2 million people formed a human chain along the 600 km Baltic Way stretching from Tallinn through Riga
to Vilnius (see right) demanding secession from the USSR. In November 1988, the Estonian
Supreme Soviet, now controlled by Popular Front Members and pro-independence
communists, issued the Estonian Sovereignty Declaration, and despite threats of
Soviet military intervention, a March 1991 referendum on full independence
gained 65% support; in August the Estonian legislature proclaimed full
independence, and with the collapse of the anti-Gorbachev faction in Moscow,
Soviet and international recognition quickly followed.
realignments, successive governments untainted by politics of the Soviet
era have consistently pursued a successful transition to free-market economy.
The speed of Estonia's transformation into a modern capitalist state readily
positioned the country for EU membership, and a referendum on accession received
overwhelming support in 2003, paving the way for full EU membership in May 2004.
Estonia's stable economy enabled the country to adopt the Euro in January 2011. Estonia also joined NATO in 2004 confirming the county's position as a fully
integrated member of the Western community. Estonia's international
realignment toward the West however has been accompanied by a general deterioration in
relations with Russia. The enduring issue from the 45 year period of Soviet occupation, which continues to
disturb Estonia's relations with Russia, is the
continuing presence of the Russian-speaking 30% of the country's population, descendents of immigrants
brought in from the USSR during the Soviet era. Qualification for Estonian
citizenship required non-Estonians to pass a language test, and despite EU
assistance with this, 100,000 'non citizens' debarred from voting rights
currently remain, almost 8% of the
population. Internally relations between the Estonian majority and the
Russian-speaking sizeable minority remain fractious, a situation alleged to be
covertly incited by Russian agencies.
