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ABSTRACT
The article approaches the controversial topics of (post-)Soviet Estonian nationalism from the perspective of Postcolonial Studies, drawing upon nationalism theory, as well as comparative literary and cultural analysis. It is argued that the global context of postcoloniality allows reflective intellectual space that enables analysis of Estonian nationalism’s problems and potential in their cultural and political embeddedness, without idealizing or demonizing it.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Acknowledgments
I thank Linda Kaljundi, Mikko Lagerspetz, and George Schöpflin for stimulating debate and good advice. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers and to the editor Epp Annus for useful suggestions how to improve the paper. I am grateful to Eneken Laanes for introducing me to the work of Pheng Cheah.
Notes
1. The deliberation if and how the Soviet Union fits the criteria of an empire and why it has received relatively little consideration in the framework of the Postcolonial Studies will not be outlined here, as it has been treated by the sources just cited, as well as in Epp Annus’s editorial introduction to the present volume. It is enough to say I support the argumentation that despite several considerable differences between the Soviet and western European empires, the phenomenon of the Soviet rule over the non-Russian territories still corresponds to the understanding of colonialism as “appropriation and exploitation of another geopolitical territory, together with an organized interference in its rule and culture” (Anne McClintock’s definition quoted in Childs and Williams Citation1997, p. 227). As any field, the Postcolonial Studies came into being in a particular historical-cultural context and with respective outlook and goals, but it could usefully benefit from considering (post)colonial structures and ideologies in a greater variation than it has done so far.
2. The period of eighteenth–nineteenth century has been discussed as (post)colonial by Jansen (Citation2007) (see especially p. 13); (Peiker Citation2006b; Plath Citation2011).
3. The widespread notion of the “two Estonias” stems from the open letter 26 Estonian social scholars published in the daily Postimees, 23 April 2001 (discussion in English by Lagerspetz and Vogt (Citation2004), pp. 57–58). In the letter it primarily refers to the cleavage between the political power elite and the general population. However, as shown by a poll conducted by the survey firm Emor, it quickly acquired more varied connotations, also understood as the rich and the poor, the elite and the marginalized, the advanced and the lagging, etc. (Saarts Citation2002). On the other hand, testifying to the isolation of the Russian-speakers only 10% of the ethnic non-Estonians surveyed by the poll were aware of the notion (Saarts Citation2002).
4. The term neoliberalism has been in use since late nineteenth century (Thorsen Citation2009, p. 10) and the thought paradigms associated with it have varied considerably (Collier Citation2011, pp. 1; 9–12). It is presently frequently, mostly critically, used to characterize the global spread of corporate capitalism, and has in turn been criticized for having become an “imprecise exhortation” (Thorsen Citation2009, p. 1) that chooses to ignore important minor paradigms of neoliberalism and overlooks the internal diversity both in neoliberal theory and in practical reforms (Collier Citation2011, pp. 9–12). I still decided to use it as shorthand for the radical economic liberalism that developed from 1980s associated with the theories of Milton Friedman and the policies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. I see it as a form of liberalism with a strong concern for individual commercial liberties and private property rights that correspondingly de-emphasizes some other traditional liberal preoccupations, such as participatory democracy, fair equality of opportunity, and culture of free political debate. It prescribes the role of the state as minimal: primarily to safeguard and, if they are lacking, to create, the free markets. Such a division of roles implies “relocation of power from political to market-economic processes” (Thorsen Citation2009, p. 16), both on the national and international level: economic processes appear as a natural phenomenon, not as an object of political debate and intervention. Thus if the democratic process interferes with neoliberal policy-making, it is right that “democracy ought to be sidestepped and replaced by the rule of experts” (Thorsen Citation2009, p. 16). Neoliberal national politicians also typically assume the role of market experts, as this expertise is seen as key legitimation of political power.
5. This cultural heritage can be of any kind the community considers important as a shared focus, the particular object of sharing is not significant. Thus it is not really useful to distinguish between “ethnic” and “civic” nations in this context: whether a community imagines itself on the basis of a common founding law or common ancestors does not change the main dynamic.
6. The reason for that may also be that Hobsbawm sees all nationalisms as similar and does not differentiate, for example, between imperialist and anti-imperialist nationalisms. On the other hand, Suny (Citation1993) interprets its contemporary nationalism analogically to its role in the nineteenth century as “a form of self-defense. In a world chronically unevenly developed … those who are disadvantaged try to find their own way to modernity without falling prey to imperial subordination” (p. 156).
7. Though these dangers were already pointed out by many anticolonial nationalists themselves, such as Cabral, Césaire, or Fanon (Chrisman Citation2004, p. 188).
8. This critique has been made by previous authors; see, for example, Lazarus (Citation1999, pp. 68–143) and Chrisman (Citation2004).
9. Cheah’s concept of prosthesis grows out of his construction and rereading of the German philosophical lineage (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Marx considered in detail) that sets up organic life “as the paradigmatic metaphor for social organization and political life” (Cheah Citation2003, p. 8). Kant’s path breaking organismic metaphor for the emerging republican state rejects the earlier hierarchical “head and limbs” analogy of the body politic. Instead, he posits “an egalitarian interdependence between citizens and the state similar to the relation of parts and whole in an organism” (Cheah Citation2003, p. 91). However, the self-actualization of the free political “organism” is only possible through the techne of modern organizational technologies (like the auto-causality of the human organism is at its origins predicated on the, “other,” inhuman, techne of nature) (especially pp. 106–113). Cheah (p. 352) likens the techne to a prosthesis (e.g., artificial limbs or teeth), a “foreign body” in the organism. It can both serve the life of the host body organically and enhance its Bildung, and pervert its self-actualization by usurping and infecting the organism (p. 205).
10. Cheah reinterprets Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International.
11. Cheah (Citation2007) does talk about “the exclusionary dimension of popular nationalism” that “can always be manipulated by state elites” (p. 105) to hinder postcolonial national Bildung.
12. In April 2007, the Estonian government abruptly relocated the only remaining Soviet “liberation” memorial in Tallinn (“the Bronze Soldier”) from the city center to an outskirts military cemetery. It had been the location of many Russian-speaking Tallinners’ celebration of 9 May and the decision was linked to some Russian and Estonian extremists’ altercations at the monument. The removal was accompanied by a demonstration of mainly Russian-speaking defenders of the monument, which turned into violent street riots. In protest against the Estonian governments’ actions, the Estonian Embassy in Moscow was besieged by pro-Kremlin youth movements and the websites of Estonian government institutions, banks, newspapers, etc., were attacked in Russia. See Petersoo and Tamm (Citation2008); in English, for example, Ehala (Citation2009) and Lagerspetz and Vogt (Citation2013, pp. 57; 61–62).
13. Kalev, Lumi, and Saarts (Citation2009) that approaches Estonian national politics with a wider focus than ethnic vs. civic identity politics provides a more complex and fluid picture. It is broadly compatible with my own following account.
14. The “Singing Revolution” period “was characterized by the highest possible level of civic participation” (Lauristin and Vihalemm Citation2009, p. 7) by the Estonian-speaking population. There is estimated almost 100% involvement in the social movements, which involved not only mass rallies, but also heated nationwide debates over the economic future of Estonia; the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the legal status of the Soviet power under international law; the best strategies for pursuing Estonian interests (to liberate taking cue from the perestroika or to aim for the full “restitution” of the interwar Estonian Republic), etc. (cf. Lauristin and Vihalemm Citation2009, pp. 7–8; 11). The impact of comparable formative experience of participatory politics on people’s political mentality and expectations has parallels elsewhere in the former Soviet bloc (Isaac Citation1999).
15. In the USA and the UK where inequality is even bigger than in Estonia fewer than 30% of the respective populations perceive it as a problem (Roosalu Citation2013, pp. 116–117).
16. In retrospect one can view the idiosyncratic 2010 Unified Estonia performance project by the NO99 theater as the symbolic inception of this change. The theater troupe attracted national attention when it created a fictional new political movement, Unified Estonia, through which it parodied and exposed the mechanisms of Estonian party politics for six weeks, inviting popular critical enquiry and participation.
17. Marju Lauristin, a Singing Revolution leader and later Social Democrat politician, as well as a social scholar, tracks and contemplates this development in a memoiristic form in Lauristin (Citation2010), especially p. 136.
18. Ivanov is an Estonian author writing in Russian. He is widely read in the country and has won several literary awards. Peotäis põrmu has presently been published only in Estonian translation, not in Russian.
19. Interestingly Jüri Böhm, an Estonian agitator who ignited a confrontation at the monument in 2009 has said that his aim was to awaken the Estonian nation numbed by the welfare society; Russophone agitators used similar ideas, warning the Russians they were being torn away from their historic roots and made well-fed slaves of the Estonian nationalists (Ehala Citation2009, p. 153). It would perhaps have been more exact to call Estonia a consumerist society, rather than a welfare society, but clearly the inciters found a lot of people ready to be awakened.
20. This does not concern only Estonians with stronger “nativist” strands. Despite theoretical openness, in practice broader Russian-speaking population remains largely uninvolved, and male-led initiatives like Charter 12 typically do not involve women.
21. Unless otherwise indicated, translations are mine.
22. This line of tropology has relativity with the Estonian “defensive nationalist” criticism of the onslaught of “European” values (civic nationhood, “political correctness”). Of course, the “civic” voices symmetrically answer with expressing their abomination, charging the opponents with ultra-nationalism, fascism, and Nazism.
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Piret Peiker
Piret Peiker is a lecturer in comparative literature at the Estonian Institute of Humanities at Tallinn University and board member of the Estonian Semiotics Repository Foundation. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Turku in Finland. Her research focuses on the topics of nationhood, modernity, postcolonialism, and genre studies.