National identity and re-identity in post-Soviet Estonia

ABSTRACT

Estonia’s national identity has been on a new journey since the restoration of independence in 1991. The dream of unimpeded nation-statehood has confronted a number of specific challenges, starting with the presence of a sizable Russian-speaking minority. Even after a certain stability was achieved in this realm, Estonia faced more soul-searching when dealing with a noticeable exodus of ethnic Estonians abroad and the prospect of having to admit a substantial number of foreigners in order to foster a more high-tech economy. A question loomed as Estonia embarked on its second centenary of de jure statehood: what would the new national project look like in a world of European integration and globalization?

KEYWORDS:

• Estonia
• National identity
• Russian-speaking minorities
• minority integration

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Lowell Barrington, Neringa Klumbytė, Rein Taagepera, and Kristina Kallas for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. Research for this work was partly funded by a Personal Research Grant (No. 717), sponsored by the Estonian Research Council.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The postwar figure noted here points to the fact that a notable, largely irreversible ethno-demographic change took place in Estonia between 1939 and 1945: the re-settlement of the centuries-old German minority to Hitler’s Germany in 1940, the destruction of the Jewish population by the Nazis, the flight of ethnic Swedes to Sweden in 1944, and a border shift vis-à-vis the Russian Federation in 1945 that transferred an important part of Estonia’s Russian population to the RSFSR. While most accounts of Estonia’s demographic transformation begin with citing the census data from 1934, this overlooks the fact that had Soviet in-migration not taken place, Estonia would have been a remarkably homogeneous country, much like Poland was following the Second World War.

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Vello Pettai

Vello Pettai has been studying the evolution of political development in Estonia since the early 1990s. During 1997-1999 he served as Advisor to the President of Estonia on minority issues and was a convenor of the Roundable on National Minorities. In addition, he has researched a range of other aspects of Estonian politics, including constitutional review mechanisms, elections and the party system, coalition governments, and transitional justice. Most recently he has contributed to the Varieties of Democracy network as a regional manager for the Baltic states.