Estonia
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Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia. The territory of Estonia consists of the mainland, the larger islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, and over 2,200 other islands and islets on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, covering a total area of 45,339 square kilometers (17,505 sq mi). The capital city, Tallinn and Tartu, are the two largest urban areas of the country. The Estonian language is the autochthonous and the official language of Estonia; it is the first language of the majority of its population, as well as the world's second-most spoken Finnic language.
The land of what is now modern Estonia has been inhabited by Homo sapiens since at least 9,000 BC. The medieval indigenous population of Estonia was one of the last pagan civilizations in Europe to adopt Christianity following the Papal-sanctioned Livonian Crusade in the 13th century. After centuries of successive rule by the Teutonic Order, Denmark, Sweden, and the Russian Empire, a distinct Estonian national identity began to emerge in the mid-19th century. This culminated in the 24 February 1918 Estonian Declaration of Independence from the then-warring Russian and German Empires. Democratic throughout most of the interwar period, Estonia declared neutrality at the outbreak of World War II, but the country was repeatedly contested, invaded, and occupied, first by Stalinist Soviet Union in 1940, then by Nazi Germany in 1941, and ultimately reoccupied in 1944 by, and annexed into, the USSR as an administrative subunit (Estonian SSR). Throughout the 1944–1991 Soviet occupation, Estonia's de jure state continuity was preserved by diplomatic representatives and the government-in-exile. Following the bloodless Estonian "Singing Revolution" of 1988–1990, the nation's de facto independence was restored on 20 August 1991.
Estonia is a developed country with a high-income advanced economy, ranking very highly (31st out of 191) in the Human Development Index. The sovereign state of Estonia is a democratic unitary parliamentary republic, administratively subdivided into 15 maakond (counties). With a population of just over 1.3 million, it is one of the least populous members of the European Union, the Eurozone, the OECD, the Schengen Area, and NATO. Nowadays, Estonia is often considered one of the three "Baltic countries" or "Baltic states". Estonia has consistently ranked highly in international rankings for quality of life, education, press freedom, digitalization of public services and the prevalence of technology companies.
Name
The name Estonia has been connected to Aesti, first mentioned by Roman historian Tacitus around 98 AD. Some historians believe he was directly referring to Balts (i.e. not Finnic-speaking Estonians), while others have proposed that the name applied to the whole Eastern Baltic region. The Scandinavian sagas referring to Eistland were the earliest sources to use the name in its modern meaning. From Scandinavian, the name spread to German and later reached Latin, with Henry of Latvia naming the region Estonia.
History
Prehistory and Viking Age
Human settlement in Estonia became possible 13,000–11,000 years ago when the ice from the last glacial era melted. The oldest known settlement in Estonia is the Pulli settlement, which was on the banks of Pärnu river, near Sindi, in southwest Estonia. According to radiocarbon dating, it was settled around 11,000 years ago.
The earliest human habitation during the Mesolithic period is connected to the Kunda culture. At that time, the country was covered with forests, and people lived in semi-nomadic communities near bodies of water. Subsistence activities consisted of hunting, gathering, and fishing. Around 4900 BC, ceramics appear from the neolithic period, known as Narva culture. Starting from around 3200 BC, the Corded Ware culture appeared; this included new activities like primitive agriculture and animal husbandry. The Bronze Age started around 1800 BC and saw the establishment of the first hill fort settlements. A transition from hunter-fisher subsistence to single-farm-based settlement started around 1000 BC and was complete by the beginning of the Iron Age around 500 BC.A large number of bronze objects indicate the existence of active communication with Scandinavian and Germanic tribes.
The middle Iron Age produced threats appearing from different directions. Several Scandinavian sagas referred to major confrontations with Estonians, notably when, in the early 7th century, "Estonian Vikings" defeated and killed Ingvar, the King of Swedes. Similar threats appeared to the east, where East Slavic principalities were expanding westward. In ca 1030, the troops of Kievan Rus led by Yaroslav the Wise defeated Estonians and established a fort in modern-day Tartu. This foothold may have lasted until ca 1061 when an Estonian tribe, the Sosols, destroyed it, followed by their raid on Pskov. Around the 11th century, the Scandinavian Viking era around the Baltic Sea was succeeded by the Baltic Viking era, with seaborne raids by Curonians and by Estonians from the island of Saaremaa, known as Oeselians. In 1187 Estonians (Oeselians), Curonians or/and Karelians sacked Sigtuna, which was a major city of Sweden at the time.
Estonia could be divided into two main cultural areas. The coastal areas of Northern and Western Estonia had close overseas contacts with Scandinavia and Finland, while inland Southern Estonia had more contacts with Balts and Pskov. The landscape of Ancient Estonia featured numerous hillforts. Prehistoric or medieval harbor sites have been found on the coast of Saaremaa. Estonia also has several graves from the Viking Age, both individual and collective, with weapons and jewelry, including types found commonly throughout Northern Europe and Scandinavia. In the early centuries AD, political and administrative subdivisions began to emerge in Estonia. Two larger subdivisions appeared: the parish (Estonian: kihelkond) and the county (Estonian: maakond), which consisted of multiple parishes. A parish was led by elders and centered on a hill fort; in some rare cases, a parish had multiple forts. By the 13th century, Estonia consisted of eight major counties: Harjumaa, Järvamaa, Läänemaa, Revala, Saaremaa, Sakala, Ugandi, and Virumaa; and six minor, single-parish counties: Alempois, Jogentagana, Mõhu, Nurmekund, Soopoolitse, and Vaiga. Counties were independent entities and engaged only in loose cooperation against foreign threats.
Little is known of medieval Estonians' spiritual and religious practices before Christianization. The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia mentions Tharapita as the superior deity of the then-inhabitants of Saaremaa (Oeselians). There is some historical evidence about sacred groves, especially groves of oak trees, having served as places of "pagan" worship.
Crusades and the Catholic Era
In 1199, Pope Innocent III declared a crusade to "defend the Christians of Livonia". Fighting reached Estonia in 1206 when Danish King Valdemar II unsuccessfully invaded Saaremaa. The German Livonian Brothers of the Sword, who had previously subjugated Livonians, Latgalians, and Selonians, started campaigning against the Estonians in 1208. Over the next few years both sides made numerous raids and counter-raids. A major leader of the Estonian resistance was Lembitu, an elder of Sakala County, but in 1217 the Estonians suffered a significant defeat in the Battle of St. Matthew's Day, where Lembitu was killed. In 1219, Valdemar II landed at Lindanise, defeated the Estonians in the Battle of Lyndanisse, and started conquering Northern Estonia. The next year, Sweden invaded Western Estonia, but were repelled by the Oeselians. In 1223, a major revolt ejected the Germans and Danes from the whole of Estonia, except Reval, but the crusaders soon resumed their offensive. In 1227, Saaremaa was the last maakond (county) to surrender.
After the crusade, present-day Southern Estonia and Latvia territory was named Terra Mariana, but later it became known simply as Livonia. Northern Estonia became the Danish Duchy of Estonia, while the rest was divided between the Sword Brothers and the prince-bishoprics of Dorpat and Ösel–Wiek. In 1236, after suffering a major defeat, the Sword Brothers merged into the Teutonic Order becoming the Livonian Order. In the next decades, several uprisings were against the Teutonic rulers in Saaremaa. In 1343, a major rebellion started, known as the St. George's Night Uprising, encompassing the whole area of northern Estonia and Saaremaa. The Teutonic Order finished suppressing the rebellion in 1345, and the Danish king sold his possessions in Estonia to the Order the next year. The unsuccessful rebellion led to a consolidation of power for the upper-class German minority. For the subsequent centuries, Low German remained the language of the ruling elite in both Estonian cities and the countryside.
Reval (Tallinn), the capital of Danish Estonia founded on the site of Lindanise, adopted the Lübeck law and received full town rights in 1248. The Hanseatic League controlled trade on the Baltic Sea, and overall the four largest towns in Estonia became members: Reval, Dorpat (Tartu), Pernau (Pärnu), and Fellin (Viljandi). Reval acted as a trade intermediary between Novgorod and western Hanseatic cities, while Dorpat filled the same role with Pskov. Many artisan and merchant guilds were formed during the period. Protected by their stone walls and membership in the Hansa, prosperous cities like Reval and Dorpat repeatedly defied other rulers of medieval Livonia. After the decline of the Teutonic Order following its defeat in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, and the defeat of the Livonian Order in the Battle of Swienta on 1 September 1435, the Livonian Confederation Agreement was signed on 4 December 1435.
Post-Reformation Era
"Academia Dorpatensis" (now the University of Tartu) was founded in 1632 by King Gustavus as the second university in the kingdom of Sweden. After the king's death, it became known as "Academia Gustaviana".
The Reformation began in central Europe in 1517 and soon spread northward to Livonia despite some opposition by the Livonian Order. Towns were the first to embrace Protestantism in the 1520s, and by the 1530s, most of the landowners and rural population had adopted Lutheranism as well. Church services were now conducted in vernacular language, which initially meant Low German, but already from the 1530s onward, the regular religious services were also held in the Estonian language.
During the 16th century, the expansionist monarchies of Muscovy, Sweden, and Poland–Lithuania consolidated power, posing a growing threat to decentralized Livonia weakened by disputes between cities, nobility, bishops, and the Order.
In 1558, Tsar Ivan the Terrible of Russia (Muscovy) invaded Livonia, starting the Livonian War. The Livonian Order was decisively defeated in 1560, prompting Livonian factions to seek foreign protection. Most of Livonia accepted Polish rule, while Reval and the nobles of Northern Estonia swore loyalty to the Swedish king, and the Bishop of Ösel-Wiek sold his lands to the Danish king. Russian forces gradually conquered the majority of Livonia. Still, in the late 1570s, the Polish-Lithuanian and Swedish armies started their own offensives, and the bloody war finally ended in 1583 with Russian defeat. As a result of the war, Northern Estonia became the Swedish Duchy of Estonia, Southern Estonia became the Polish Duchy of Livonia, and Saaremaa remained under Danish control.
In 1600, the Polish–Swedish War broke out, causing further devastation. The protracted war ended in 1629, with Sweden gaining Livonia, including the regions of Southern Estonia and Northern Latvia. Danish Saaremaa was transferred to Sweden in 1645. The wars had halved the population of Estonia from about 250–270,000 people in the mid-16th century to 115–120,000 in the 1630s.
While many peasants remained in the status of serfdom during the Swedish rule, legal reforms strengthened both serfs' and free tenant farmers' land usage and inheritance rights – hence this period got the reputation of "The Good Old Swedish Time" in people's historical memory. Swedish King Gustaf II Adolf established gymnasiums in Reval and Dorpat; the latter was upgraded to Tartu University in 1632. Printing presses were also found in both towns. In the 1680s, the beginnings of Estonian elementary education appeared, mainly due to the efforts of Bengt Gottfried Forselius, who also introduced orthographical reforms to written Estonian. The population of Estonia proliferated for a 60–70-year period until the Great Famine of 1695–97 in which some 70,000–75,000 people died – about 20% of the population.
During the 1700–1721 Great Northern War, the Tsardom of Russia (Muscovy) conquered the whole of Estonia by 1710. The war again devastated the population of Estonia, with the 1712 population estimated at only 150,000–170,000. In 1721, Estonia was divided into two governorates: the governorate of Estonia, which included Tallinn and the northern part of Estonia, and the southern governorate of Livonia, which extended to the northern part of Latvia. Russian administration restored all the political and landholding rights of Baltic Germans. The rights of local farmers reached their lowest point, as serfdom completely dominated agricultural relations during the 18th century. Serfdom was formally abolished in 1816–1819, but this initially had minimal practical effect; significant improvements in farmers' rights started with reforms in the mid-19th century.
National Awakening
The Estonian national awakening began in the 1850s as several leading figures started promoting an Estonian national identity among the general populace. Widespread farm buyouts by Estonians and the resulting rapidly growing class of land-owning farmers provided the economic basis for forming this new "Estonian identity." In 1857 Johann Voldemar Jannsen started publishing the first Estonian language daily newspaper and began popularising the denomination of oneself as eestlane (Estonian). Schoolmaster Carl Robert Jakobson and clergyman Jakob Hurt became leading figures in a national movement, encouraging Estonian farmers to take pride in their ethnic Estonian identity. The first nationwide movements formed, such as a campaign to establish the Estonian language Alexander School, the founding of the Society of Estonian Literati and the Estonian Students' Society, and the first national song festival, held in 1869 in Tartu. Linguistic reforms helped to develop the Estonian language. The national epic Kalevipoeg was published in 1862, and 1870 saw the first performances of Estonian theatre. In 1878 a major split happened in the national movement.
The moderate wing, led by Hurt, focused on developing culture and Estonian education, while the radical wing, led by Jakobson started demanding increased political and economic rights.
At the end of the 19th century, Russification began, as the central government initiated various administrative and cultural measures to tie Baltic governorates closer to the empire. The Russian language replaced German and Estonian in most secondary schools and universities, and many social and cultural activities in local languages were suppressed. Still, some administrative changes aimed at reducing the power of Baltic German institutions did prove helpful to Estonians. In the late 1890s, there was a new surge of nationalism with the rise of prominent figures like Jaan Tõnisson and Konstantin Päts. In the early 20th century, Estonians started taking over control of local governments in towns from Germans.
During the 1905 Revolution, the first legal Estonian political parties were founded. An Estonian national congress was convened and demanded the unification of Estonian areas into a single autonomous territory and an end to Russification. The unrest was accompanied by both peaceful political demonstrations and violent riots, with looting in the commercial district of Tallinn and in several wealthy landowners' manors in the Estonian countryside. The Tsarist government responded with a brutal crackdown; some 500 people were executed, and hundreds more were jailed or deported to Siberia.
Independence
The tricolor flags of Estonia were on display during the public announcement of the Declaration of Independence of Estonia in Pärnu on 23 February 1918. One of the very first images of the independent republic.
In 1917, after the February Revolution, the governorate of Estonia was expanded by the Russian Provisional Government to include Estonian-speaking areas of Livonia and was granted autonomy, enabling the formation of the Estonian Provincial Assembly.,mBolsheviks seized power in Estonia in November 1917 and disbanded the Provincial Assembly. However, the Provincial Assembly established the Salvation Committee. During the short interlude between the Russian retreat and German arrival, the committee declared the independence of Estonia on 24 February 1918 and formed the Estonian Provisional Government. German occupation immediately followed, but after their defeat in World War I, the Germans were forced to hand over power to the Provisional Government on 19 November 1918.
On 28 November 1918, Soviet Russia invaded, starting the Estonian War of Independence. The Red Army came within 30 km of Tallinn, but in January 1919, the Estonian Army, led by Johan Laidoner, went on a counter-offensive, ejecting Bolshevik forces from Estonia within a few months. Renewed Soviet attacks failed, and in spring, the Estonian army, in cooperation with White Russian forces, advanced into Russia and Latvia. In June 1919, Estonia defeated the German Landeswehr, which had attempted to dominate Latvia, restoring power to the government of Kārlis Ulmanis there. After the White Russian forces collapsed, the Red Army launched a major offensive against Narva in late 1919 but failed to achieve a breakthrough. On 2 February 1920, the Tartu Peace Treaty was signed by Estonia and Soviet Russia, with the latter pledging to give up all sovereign claims to Estonia permanently.
In April 1919, the Estonian Constituent Assembly was elected. The Constituent Assembly passed a sweeping land reform expropriating large estates and adopted a new highly liberal constitution establishing Estonia as a parliamentary democracy. In 1924, the Soviet Union organized a communist coup attempt, which quickly failed. Estonia's cultural-autonomy law for ethnic minorities, adopted in 1925, is widely recognized as one of the most liberal in the world at that time. The Great Depression put heavy pressure on Estonia's political system, and in 1933, the right-wing Vaps movement spearheaded a constitutional reform establishing a strong presidency. On 12 March 1934, the acting head of state, Konstantin Päts, declared a state of emergency under the pretext that the Vaps movement had been planning a coup. Päts, together with general Johan Laidoner and Kaarel Eenpalu, established an authoritarian régime during the "era of silence", when the parliament did not reconvene, and the newly established Patriotic League became the only legal political movement for the time being. A referendum adopted a new constitution, and elections were held in 1938. Both pro-government and opposition candidates were allowed to participate, but only as independents, as all political parties remained suspended under continued state of emergency. The Päts régime was relatively benign compared to other authoritarian régimes in interwar Europe, and the régime never used violence against political opponents.
Estonia joined the League of Nations in 1921. Attempts to establish a larger alliance together with Finland, Poland, and Latvia failed, with only a mutual-defense pact being signed with Latvia in 1923, and later was followed up with the Baltic Entente of 1934. In the 1930s, Estonia also engaged in secret military cooperation with Finland. Non-aggression pacts were signed with the Soviet Union in 1932, and with Germany in 1939. In 1939, Estonia declared neutrality, but this proved futile in World War II.
World War II
A week before the outbreak of World War II, on 23 August 1939, Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. In the Nazi-Soviet pact's secret protocol Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland were divided between USSR and Germany into "spheres of influence", with Estonia assigned to the Soviet "sphere." On 24 September 1939, the Soviet Union presented an ultimatum, demanding that Estonia sign a treaty of "mutual assistance," allowing the Soviet Union to establish military bases in the country. The Estonian government felt that it had no choice but to comply, and the treaty was signed on 28 September 1939. In May 1940, Red Army forces in bases were set in combat readiness, and on June 14, the Soviet Union instituted a full naval and air blockade on Estonia. On the same day, the airliner Kaleva was shot down by the Soviet Air Force. On 16 June, the USSR presented an ultimatum demanding the completely free passage of the Red Army into Estonia and establishing a pro-Soviet government. Feeling that resistance was hopeless, the Estonian government complied, and on the next day, the whole country was occupied. On 6 August 1940, Estonia was annexed by the Soviet Union as the Estonian SSR.
The USSR established an oppressive terror regime in occupied Estonia. Most of the country's high-ranking civil and military officials, intelligentsia, and industrialists were arrested and usually executed soon afterward. Soviet repressions culminated on 14 June 1941 with the mass deportation of around 11,000 people to Siberia, among whom more than half perished in inhumane conditions. When Operation Barbarossa (accompanied by Estonian guerrilla soldiers called "Forest Brothers") began against the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 in the form of the "Summer War" (Estonian: Suvesõda), around 34,000 young Estonian men were forcibly drafted into the Red Army, fewer than 30% of whom survived the war. Soviet destruction battalions initiated a scorched earth policy. Political prisoners who could not be evacuated were executed by the NKVD. Many Estonians went into the forest, starting an anti-Soviet guerrilla campaign. In July, German Wehrmacht reached south Estonia. The USSR evacuated Tallinn in late August with massive losses, and capture of the Estonian islands was completed by German forces in October.
Initially, many Estonians were hopeful that Germany would help to restore Estonia's independence, but this soon proved to be in vain. Only a puppet collaborationist administration was established and occupied Estonia was merged into Reichskommissariat Ostland, with its economy being fully subjugated to German military needs. About a thousand Estonian Jews who had not managed to leave were almost all quickly killed in 1941. Numerous forced labor camps were established where thousands of Estonians, foreign Jews, Romani, and Soviet prisoners of war perished.] German occupation authorities started recruiting men into small volunteer units. However, as these efforts provided meager results and the military situation worsened, forced conscription was instituted in 1943, eventually forming the Estonian Waffen-SS division. Thousands of Estonians who did not want to fight in the German military secretly escaped to Finland, where many volunteered to fight together with Finns against the Soviets.
The Red Army reached the Estonian borders again in early 1944. Still, its advance into Estonia was stopped in heavy fighting near Narva for six months by German forces, including numerous Estonian units. In March, the Soviet Air Force carried out heavy bombing raids against Tallinn and other Estonian towns. In July, the Soviets started a major offensive from the south, forcing the Germans to abandon mainland Estonia in September, with the Estonian islands being abandoned in November. As German forces were retreating from Tallinn, the last pre-war prime minister Jüri Uluots appointed a government headed by Otto Tief in an unsuccessful attempt to restore Estonia's independence. Tens of thousands of people, including most of the Estonian Swedes, fled westwards to avoid the new Soviet occupation.
Estonia lost about 25% of its population through deaths, deportations, and evacuations in World War II. Estonia also suffered some irrevocable territorial losses, as the Soviet Union transferred border areas comprising about 5% of Estonian pre-war territory from the Estonian SSR to the Russian SFSR.
Spanking in Estonia
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