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Estonia
By Clare Thomson Bravo Ltd
Copyright © 2007 Kuperard
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-85733-616-0
CHAPTER 1
LAND & PEOPLE
Bigger than Belgium but smaller than Slovakia, Estonia is the historical meeting point of East-West trading routes. Lying on the northwestern part of the rising East European platform, on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, south of the Gulf of Finland, Estonia shares borders with Latvia and Russia, with which it is still disputing territory illegally taken by Stalin at the end of the Second World War. The capital, Tallinn, is home to a fast-developing transit port. The country's low, flat, marshy terrain is sprinkled with more than a thousand natural and artificial lakes, one of which, near Tallinn, has given its name to the airport: Ülemiste.
Covering an area of about 17,462 square miles (45,226 square kilometers), Estonia has a population of around 1.3 million, making it one of Europe's most sparsely populated countries, with wide stretches of unspoiled natural landscape. This divides into two areas: the flat north, with a boulder-scattered coastline, and the mildly hilly south, around the skiing capital of Otepää. The highest point, at 1,043 feet (318 meters), is the modestly named Suur Munamägi (Great Egg Mountain), which is also the highest point in the Baltic region.
Estonia has 2,357 miles (3,794 kilometers) of coastline, characterized by bays, straits, and inlets, steep limestone cliffs along the Gulf of Finland, and a string of sandy white beaches to the west. There are 1,520 islands and islets, most of them small and uninhabited. The largest is Saaremaa, ("island land"), followed by Hiiumaa, Muhu, and Vormsi. The Pärnu and Emajõgi ("Mother") are the most important of the country's rivers. The latter flows through Estonia's second city, the university town of Tartu. Most of the border with Russia slices through Lake Peipsi, which, at 1,373 square miles (3,555 square kilometers), is the largest lake in the land, and the fourth biggest in Europe. The second-largest lake is the fish-filled Võrtsjärv, which lies west of Tartu.
Marshland is prevalent in central and eastern Estonia; the best place for trekking through bogs is the peat-rich national park of Soomaa ("bog land"). About half the country is coated in forest — mainly spruce, birch, and pine — and inhabited by elk, roe deer, beavers, boars, bears, lynxes, and wolves. Estonia has also become popular with bird-watchers, with Matsalu, on the western coast, perhaps the favorite venue for this activity. In the southeastern region of Tartumaa you can still find primeval forest that no longer exists in other parts of Europe. A popular area for following nature trails is Lahemaa ("land of bays"), a sprawling national park along the northern coast. Wooded meadows are particularly rich in flora: the meadow of Vahenurme, in the southwestern region of Pärnumaa, contains around seventy species of flora per square yard. Natural resources include peat, phosphorite, and oil shale, which provides more than 75 percent of the country's energy supply and is produced in northeast Estonia, near the border with Russia.
CLIMATE
Estonia's climate is temperate and humid, modified by air brought in by cyclonic winds from the North Atlantic. These bring cool air in summer and warm air in winter. The climate is more continental in the east and southeast, and generally milder in the western and northern coastal areas. The average temperature ranges from 61°F (16°C) on the islands to 63°F (17°C) inland in July (although temperatures in recent years have frequently reached the low thirties), and from 26°F (-3.5°C) on the islands to 18°F (-7.6°C) inland in February. The lowest temperature, -45°F (-43°C), was recorded in central Estonia in 1940.
The best time to visit Estonia is between May and September. The worst is November, when daylight is minimal and there is no guarantee of snow to brighten the gloom. The seasons are pronounced, and characterized most dramatically by changes in the amount of daylight. In midwinter, it gets dark around 3:00 p.m.; in June, it doesn't get dark at all, with eerie grey midnights and bright dawns. The wettest time is late summer. For those who like snow and winter sports, such as cross-country skiing through forests, the ideal month to visit is February. The sight of the frozen sea on a sunny winter morning, or splashed with pinks and purples at sunset, is unforgettable. Unfortunately, there is no longer any guarantee that it will freeze in winter. Forget vanity and wrap up well, with hat, gloves, and sturdy boots, or you will probably be scolded by warmly clad locals.
A BRIEF HISTORY
Owing in part to its strategic position, Estonia has had an eventful and tragic history, and has suffered dramatic population losses over the centuries due to famine, plague, war, deportation, and flight. The country has had a long history of successive invasions, occupations, and fragmentation. The outline that follows helps to convey what makes today's Estonia "Estonian," and what distinguishes it from nearby Russia and Finland.
Prehistory
Hunting and fishing communities similar to those in Latvia and southern Finland were present in this land from about 6,500 BCE. The Finno-Ugric ancestors of the Estonian people are thought to have settled in Baltic coastal territory five thousand years ago, after migrating from an area west of the Ural Mountains. There is controversy over their exact origins, but archaeologists believe that the most likely original "homeland" of these tribes was somewhere between the Volga River and Scandinavia. Whatever the facts, Estonians take great pride in telling you that they are thought to be one of the longest-settled peoples in Europe.
Agriculture and cattle- and sheep rearing appear to have been well established by 1,500 BCE. Some five hundred years on, a Finno-Ugric culture involving the creation of hill forts developed on agricultural lands and along trade routes such as the Emajõgi River. By contrast, the southern Baltic territory (most of present-day Latvia and Lithuania) was inhabited by Indo-European Balts.
The name "Aestii" ("Eesti" in Estonian) may come from "Aesti," a word used by Germanic people to describe those living northeast of the Vistula River. The first written reference to the "Aestii" people was made by Tacitus in 98 CE.
Knights of the Sword
The somewhat skeptical Estonians are proud to point out that their territory was one of the last patches of pagan Europe to be converted to Christianity. There was fierce resistance to crusaders from northern Germany, who established a stronghold in Riga following Pope Celestine III's call for a crusade against the heathens of northern Europe in 1193. Estonia was finally defeated by the German Order of the Brothers of the Sword in 1217, after which the territory was split between the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order, the Bishopric of Dorpat (now Tartu), and the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek. The last corner of Estonia to be conquered was the island of Saaremaa — and the islanders are, of course, still proud of that. In 1219, Danish crusaders under the command of King Waldemar II landed in Estonia and defeated locals at the Battle of Lyndanisse. Despite the presence of a German-speaking ruling class, Tallinn was theoretically a Danish possession until 1293. During that time, Tallinn won its town charter, based on the Lübeck Law, in 1248, and in 1285 became a member of the Hanseatic League — the powerful confederation of free towns and cities that dominated the Baltic trade and its relations with Flanders and England — thus becoming one of the most prosperous towns in northern Europe.
In 1344, the Baltic German landowners quashed a popular rebellion on the island of Saaremaa and northern Estonia, today remembered as the St. George's Night Uprising. (A memorial to this stands on the highway to Narva, near Tallinn.) In 1345 the Danes sold Tallinn and their other lands in northern Estonia to the Teutonic Order. Russia attempted but failed to invade the territory in 1481 and 1558, the latter time under Ivan the Terrible. The well-established Baltic German administrative and commercial presence in Estonia ensured the country's commitment to the Protestant Reformation and continued, despite various occupations, until the country achieved self-determination following the First World War.
The "Good Old Swedish" Period
In 1561, as a consequence of the Livonian War, Estonia became a Swedish dominion. When Ivan the Terrible invaded the country, he was confronted by an alliance of Poland-Lithuania and Sweden. Sweden first gained control of northern Estonia. Southern Estonia fell under Polish rule. By 1625, the whole of the mainland had been conquered by the Swedes. Although many locals starved to death during periods of famine, when locally produced food was transported to Sweden, most Estonians fondly remember the rule of Gustavus Adolphus, who in 1631 granted the downtrodden local peasants and serfs greater autonomy from the German nobility. Gustavus also opened the prestigious university of Dorpat (now Tartu), which attracted students from across Europe — though not, initially, local Estonians.
The Turn of the Tsars
It was, once again, not the will of the Estonian people that decided what happened to their land next, but yet another international conflict: the Great Northern War (1700–21). On one side was Sweden, with help from the Ottomans; on the other, a coalition uniting Russia, Denmark-Norway, Saxony-Poland, and, from 1715, Prussia and Hanover. By the end of the war, Estonia had become a province of Russia — though still with a Baltic German ruling class — which had supplanted Sweden as the dominant power on the Baltic Sea.
It had long been Peter the Great's ambition to secure a "window on the west." As a result, the Finno-Ugric people of Estonia found themselves caught between the two very different cultures of Germany and Russia. Baltic German administrators continued to run the legal system, local government, the Lutheran Church, and education, but Russia owned the territory. Things here were rather different from the rest of the Russian empire. The "backwater" Baltic provinces were the first in the empire to see, in 1819, the abolition of serfdom, which allowed Estonian peasants to own their own land and to enjoy freedom of movement. This was celebrated fifty years later by the first Estonian song festival, held in Tartu.
National Awakening
Greater freedoms inevitably encouraged the trend for nationalism and self-determination that was spreading throughout Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. In Estonia, this was chiefly a cultural movement, encouraging the use of Estonian, not German, in schools, the creation of Estonian literature, poetry, and newspapers, and the song festivals that continue to this day. One of the leaders of this movement was the poet Lydia Koidula, whose father, J. W. Jannsen, had launched a daily Estonian-language newspaper in Pärnu in 1857. One of its main themes was the value of education, still treasured by Estonians today. Koidula's poetry remembers the past and hopes for a brighter future. Meanwhile F. R. Keutzwald, who was of Baltic-German origin, began compiling Kalevipoeg, a tale of heroism and "rising again" that was to become the Estonian national epic. It was published in both German and Estonian in 1861. Tsar Alexander III (1881–94), who did not much care for all this patriotic activity, introduced a government-sponsored policy of Russification. Many institutes, including the University of Tartu, had to conduct all their activities in Russian.
Inevitably, the revolution of 1905 had a huge impact on neighboring Estonia. Calls for freedom of the press and of assembly, and for universal franchise, went hand in hand with the demand for national autonomy. That year, scores of Estonian demonstrators were massacred by Tsarist troops just outside Tallinn's Old Town. During this unstable period (1905–17), Estonians dared to imagine that their country could become an independent state. Amid the chaos that followed the disintegration of the Russian empire, Russia's provisional government granted Estonia autonomy, but the path to independence was complicated by both Russian and German claims on the territory. The Bolsheviks outlawed Estonia's first popularly elected assembly, although this did not prevent it from proclaiming the Republic of Estonia on February 24, 1918 — a date still celebrated as Independence Day. The following day, German troops invaded. They withdrew in November, enabling the formation of a provisional Estonian government. Within days, Soviet Russia invaded, beginning the Estonian War of Independence (1918–20), with stretched Estonian troops receiving support from the British navy and volunteers from Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. On New Year's Eve, 1919, Bolshevik Russia and the Republic of Estonia finally agreed to a truce, resulting in the Tartu Peace Treaty of February 2, 1920, according to which Russia renounced all claims to Estonia forever. The Republic of Estonia won international recognition and joined the League of Nations in 1921.
Independent Estonia
Democratic Estonia introduced a liberal constitution that proclaimed the supremacy of parliament, the Riigikogu. Land reforms ensured that the property of the Baltic nobility was redistributed to Estonians, many of them workers and peasants. Tartu University was now an Estonian university, with mainly Estonian students. Cultural and academic life thrived, and Estonia became the first country in Western Europe to guarantee cultural autonomy to minority groups, including Jews. The country found export markets, especially for agricultural products, in Western Europe and the USA, as well as the Soviet Union. The standard of living was soon higher than that in Finland.
The country's liberal political system was, however, shaken by the world economic crisis of 1929, which fueled both socialist and fascist extremism. Changes to the constitution in 1933 restricted the power of parliament and considerably strengthened the authority of the head of state, President Konstantin Päts. Estonia's policy of neutrality was sabotaged by the Nazi-Soviet Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, according to which Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to assign Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland to either Soviet or Nazi spheres of influence. The Soviet Union offered Estonia an ultimatum: accept Soviet military bases on Estonian territory, or be invaded. Päts complied, and by the end of June the following year, the Soviet occupation was secure. The Soviet Union demanded the formation of a pro-Soviet puppet government, followed by "elections," for which only pro-Communist candidates were allowed to run. The new "parliament" proclaimed the Estonian Socialist Republic in 1940 and asked to become part of the USSR. The occupation and annexation of Estonia was considered illegal by the United States and other Western states, including Britain.
Soviet and Nazi Occupations
Soviet Estonia's immediate priority was to eliminate all "enemies of the people." More than eight thousand people, including politicians and members of the military, were arrested and executed in Estonia or transported to prison and labor camps in Russia. President Päts died in a psychiatric institution in Kalinin in 1956. During the mass deportations of June 1941, about ten thousand civilians, including five hundred members of the 4,500-strong Jewish community, were sent to Russia, many to Siberia. Women and children were separated from the men, many of whom perished in labor camps, their fate often unknown to surviving relatives until the 1960s. Half of the civilians deported did not survive the harsh conditions imposed on them in Russia. After the German invasion of Russia on June 22, more than thirty thousand Estonian men were transported to Russia, supposedly to join the Soviet army. Nearly half died in "labor battalions."
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Excerpted from Estonia by Clare Thomson. Copyright © 2007 Kuperard. Excerpted by permission of Bravo Ltd.
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