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Ethnicity in Estonia

Estonian official policy concerning ethnic issues was created with the emergence of Estonian statehood in 1918. The Independence Manifesto (addressing all Estonian nationalities) offered cultural autonomy to all Estonian ethnic minorities. The policy of cultural autonomy was a cornerstone of Estonian ethnic policy, and in 1925 the Cultural Autonomy for Ethnic Minorities Act was enacted, giving minority groups whose membership exceeded 3000 the right to self-determination in cultural matters, with financial support provided by the state. The Cultural Autonomy Act also made provisions for receiving education in indigenous languages. Germans and Jews were the two groups who made full use of the Act. Apart from Estonian language education, it was possible to receive education in four minority languages - German, Russian, Swedish and Yiddish.

The ethnic minorities in the Republic of Estonia had historical roots. The German settlement dated back to the 13th century, when Estonia became part of Old Livonia through the rule of the Teutonic knights and German bishops.

German settlers had played a significant role in Estonian history. Although Estonians had had close ties with their western neighbours in the earlier times and Estonian customs and values were related to Scandinavian ones, the boundary between East and West was drawn along the border between the Teutonic Order and Russia (the Novgorod feudal republic), that is, along the Narva River and Lake Peipsi. Culturally and ethnologically as well as religiously. This was also the border between the Western Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. The situation today can be characterised by the existence of these cultural boundaries. Admittedly, the German settlement caused tensions, characteristic of the relationship between feudal overlords and peasantry. The Baltic German nobility enjoyed a privileged status until the First World War. For centuries the Germans constituted about 6% of Estonia’s population; but, due to mass emigration, the percentage had fallen to 1.5 by the time Estonia gained independence.

The Jewish minority can be traced to a much more recent date. During the times of the Teutonic Order and Swedish rule (late 16th to 17th century) only a small number of Jews lived in Estonia, and a larger Jewish community was established only in the second half of the 19th century. The Jewish settlement in Estonia was never very big: in 1934 it amounted to 0.4% of the population, or approximately 4000 people.

The Germans and the Jews had no compact area of settlement, but lived mostly in cities: for this reason they stood to benefit most under the Cultural Autonomy Act.

Prior to the Second World War, Russians were numerically the largest minority in Estonia. The Russian minority in those days could be divided into two groups. The Old Believers, who lived near Lake Peipsi, had settled down in Estonia in the 17th-18th centuries as a result of the church reform initiated by Nikon which led to their subsequent persecution in Russia. The second and larger group of Russians were the settlers in Petserimaa and on the Narva River, who were in the majority in those areas. The Russian minority had a compact settlement and did not show much interest in cultural autonomy. In addition, about 20 000 refugees settled in Estonia after the War of Independence. Russians made up 8% of the population: that is, there were more than 90 000 people.

The Swedish settlement was mostly on the islands of western Estonia and the Noarootsi peninsula on the west coast. The Swedish were an old minority group, with origins most probably dating from the 13th century. By 1918, the number of Swedes amounted to approximately 7700 people. There were more than 5000 Latvians who mostly lived in Petserimaa and on the southern border. Other minorities (Finns, Gypsies, Tatars, etc.) were represented by less than 3000 people.

Nevertheless, Estonia in the interwar period was a predominantly mono-national state, where Estonians constituted about 88% of the population.

Estonian minorities suffered a destructive blow in the Second World War. In 1939-41 Hitler called for the departure of Germans, and 14 000 out of 16 000 Germans left Estonia. During the Soviet occupation the Germans who remained denied their nationality, being afraid of repressions. The Jews either fled from the German army or fell victim to Nazi genocide. Estonian ethnic Jews are now in a minority among the Jews living in Estonia today. The majority of the Swedish population fled from the invading Soviet army in 1944 and settled in Sweden. Due to the alteration of Estonian frontiers, a large part of Petserimaa and areas on the Narva River were annexed in 1944-45 and the larger part of Estonia’s Russian minority came to live in Russian territory. After the Second World War (1945) Estonia was one of Europe’s most mono-ethnic states - more than 97% of its population were ethnic Estonians.

However, the policy of colonisation and Russification adopted by the Soviet occupation authorities radically changed the composition of the Estonian population over the next 45 years. During the war, Estonia’s population had diminished by 25%. In 1949 the Soviet authorities carried out a mass deportation of Estonians to Siberia. At the same time, immigration to Estonia from the Soviet Union was supported and even forcibly carried out. By 1989, Estonians made up 61% of the population, and the number of immigrants had risen to more than 35%. The proportion of foreign-born inhabitants to indigenous population was remarkable by European standards. After Estonia regained its independence, more than 100 000 former Soviet immigrants returned to their homeland or resettled in other countries. Emigration figures have now stabilised and it may be presumed that the ethnic composition of Estonia will remain the same in the near future.

Newly-independent Estonia has returned to good practices as regards cultural autonomy. The law enacted in 1993, which starts from the same principles as the pre-war law, gives the right of cultural autonomy to each minority group with more than 3000 members. In addition to nationals belonging to minority communities, resident aliens may also be subject to cultural autonomy.

The present Estonian population of 1.5 million has sometimes been divided simply into two, with Estonians as the indigenous people (970 000) and Russian-speakers (that is, Russians) as immigrants (520 000). This division is not correct. Firstly, more than 50 000 ethnic Estonians are either immigrants or returnees. When Estonia regained its independence, they were not Estonian citizens. Most of them have now become nationals. At the same time, parts of the non-Estonian population - about 40 000 Russians, as well as Latvians, Jews, Finns, Poles, Gypsies, Tatars, etc. - have maintained long-standing ties with Estonia. Consequently, about 80 000-100 000 non-Estonians are nationals by right of birth. Then there are ethnic and religious subdivisions within the Estonian-speaking population itself: for example, more than 90% of Estonians are Lutheran, and 7% are Greek Orthodox. The Setu people (13 000), who live in the south-east corner of Estonia, are ethnically distinct: they are Orthodox and speak their own Setu dialect, one of several South Estonian dialects.

The non-Estonian population is even more varied. The largest ethnic group after Estonians is Russians; according to the 1997 census there were just over 400 000 Russians (82-85%). Nor are the Russians homogeneous. Some ethnic Russians have been integrated into Estonian society for historical reasons, and have no problems with nationality, allegiance or Estonian language proficiency. Among these the Old Believers, who number approximately 5000 and who have lived on the western shores of Lake Peipsi for more than 300 years, are ethnically distinct.

The rest of the Russians in Estonia are ‘foreign-born’: they are Soviet immigrants and their offspring, of whom 60 000-70 000 are Estonian nationals, just over 100 000 are citizens of the Russian Federation, and about 150 000 have not specified their nationality. The last two groups are problematic: their knowledge of Estonian is poor, the level of their integration into Estonian society is low and their national allegiance uncertain. Their social problems are also acute: higher-than-average unemployment, insufficient qualifications for gaining work in Estonia, social non-participation, high rates of crime and drug abuse, etc.

The third largest ethnic group is the Ukrainians. According to the 1989 census, they numbered more than 48 000 and almost all were born in Estonia. They have lived in the same areas as the Russians and are facing some serious problems, such as the preservation of their native language and the establishment of their own school. The same problems are shared by the Belorussians (ca 28 000) and other ethnic groups from the former Soviet Union.

Estonian Finns have had a peculiar fate. In Soviet times they numbered nearly 20 000. Most of them used to live in Ingermanland, in Russia’s Leningrad oblast, and fled to Estonia after the Second World War to escape Stalinist genocide. In the 1990s a number of these Ingrians settled down in Finland. Some of the Ingrians in Estonia have merged with the Estonian community, some of them with the Russians population.

There are indigenous ethnic Jews as well as Jewish Soviet immigrants in Estonia. Their total number in 1989 was 4600, but this has diminished due to their emigration to Israel.

Besides the Estonians, eight ethnic groups are represented by more than 3000 people and 13 more groups are represented by more than 1000. It is important to note, however, that with the exception of the smaller groups (Russians on Lake Peipsi, ethnic Jews, ethnic Tatars, etc.) the minorities do not have a distinct ethnic identity. They tend to be organically linked to their compatriots across the borders and their ties with their relatives are much stronger than their ties with their compatriots in Estonia. Parts of them nonetheless have been assimilated into the Estonian or Russian communities. This is sociologically valid for all immigrant groupings in the world.

Another false presupposition is that Estonia is regionally divided between Estonians and non-Estonians. There are in fact no rural areas with a non-Estonian majority. The non-Estonian population is predominant in some industrial cities established between the fifties and the eighties, for example, in Narva and Kohtla-Järve, and in the former Soviet army bases, such as Paldiski and Sillamäe. The largest proportion of non-Estonians reside in Tallinn. The cities with a non-Estonian majority are undoubtedly a problem, as they are isolated from the rest of Estonia. The large numbers of the immigrants, and their concentration in isolated non-Estonian settlements are the chief reasons why the integration of the non-Estonian population into Estonian society has attained such great importance.

The aim of integration is the breaking of isolation and the social adaptation of non-Estonians. The target groups of integration are obviously those who have so far been outside Estonian society. Two target groups may be characterised:
1. Predominantly foreign-born people (more than 60% of non-Estonians were born outside Estonia) and their offspring;
2. Non-Estonians who live in isolation and whose ties with people outside Estonia are stronger than with people in Estonia. These ties need not be physical contacts: they might include information exchange by mail and media, education received on the basis of foreign educational programmes and materials, etc.

The pockets of isolation persist due to the existence of several barriers, such as that of language, and related information disadvantages. A poor knowledge of Estonian has made it impossible for these people to communicate with Estonians and has deprived them of any Estonian-language information: that is, of information about Estonian society. The substitute has mostly been Russian-language information about Russia, reflecting Russian views. The Russian school, which uses textbooks published in Russia, has been an efficient instrument in maintaining isolation. Integration is the dissolution of these barriers.

Integration will only be successful provided that non-Estonians are prepared and motivated to integrate, provided that Estonians are prepared to accept non-Estonians as equal members of society, and provided that the state creates conditions for integration. At the moment there are shortcomings in all three respects.

Last summer, the Estonian Parliament passed a resolution in favour of integrating non-Estonians into Estonian society by outlining a set of problem areas and measures to facilitate integration, which also serves as a guideline for the Estonian government. On the basis of this resolution, the government has worked out an action plan concentrating on four issues:

Firstly, information. It is necessary to make information about Estonia available to non-Estonians. The number of Estonian television and radio programmes which address Russian-language audiences has since increased. The press has unfortunately remained Russia-centred rather than emphasising Estonian problems. Programmes which address other ethnic groups (Ukrainians, Finns, Belorussians, Tatars, etc.) are also badly needed.

Secondly, education. We need to provide Russian-language schools with Estonian textbooks and materials which focus on Estonian language, literature, culture, history, geography and citizenship. This does not mean the exclusion of Russian-language education. Russian-language proficiency is an advantage which could enable Estonian nationals to mediate between East and West: potential should be developed in the interests of Estonian and non-Estonian alike.

Thirdly, social issues. This will entail the improvement of employment opportunities for non-Estonians and the creation of retraining programmes, crime-prevention and drug-control initiatives, etc.

And fourthly, legal issues. These pertain to nationality and permits of residence, and to a certain extent, to socio-economic problems, such as the purchase of land by non-nationals.

Integration will not come about without the active participation of the non-Estonians. It is important for the non-Estonian organisations in Estonia to be involved in the process. A number of them exist in Estonia at present, notable among which are the Estonian Association of Nationalities, which recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, the President’s Round Table of Minorities, which has been a central forum for exchanging ideas on issues concerning the non-Estonians, and a score of ethnic societies, some of which have joined under an umbrella organisation called Lyra.

A major issue in the integration process is funding. The financing of the state integration programme is obviously the responsibility of the state. This year the government has allocated 6 million Estonian kroon to the Integration Foundation for the programme’s implementation. The integration programme has found considerable support abroad, mostly from Scandinavian countries and international organisations such as the UNDP, the EU’s PHARE programme, the OSCE, etc.

It might be argued that the launch of the integration programme in Estonia has come rather late. The problems are aggravating, and if the state does not respond in time, society will suffer. But, it might be said, better late than never. Relations between different ethnic groups in Estonia have never been so bad as to incite violent outbreaks. One of the aims of integration is the promotion of mutual understanding, which should ease the tensions. But there will be practical outcomes too. Only through integration could the non-Estonians, formerly seen as a problem, begin to be viewed as carriers of unique experience and contributors to national potential. This would open up new opportunities for Estonia in a highly competitive world. Once integrated, non-Estonians will have the combined experience of western and eastern worlds. They know western patterns of behaviour as well as the Russian mentality, while at home in Estonian society. Through integration, members of Estonia’s minorities might become highly valued mediators in the developing European Union.

Integration is also vital for Estonia at the moment. There is only one alternative - the continuing exclusion of non-Estonians which would increase isolation and opposition. Integration is in the interests of Estonians and non-Estonians, the Estonian State, and wider European stability.

In conclusion, we might ask what kind of Estonia we would like to see in the future.
The answer was given when Estonia regained its independence and its constitution was written. We want Estonia to become an independent and democratic European state, which promotes the development of the Estonian nation and the preservation of the Estonian language, and which gives opportunities for self-realisation to all ethnic groups in Estonia; a state which might be an equal and reliable partner to all other states whose inner problems are solved by peaceful and acceptable means. Integration is a significant component of this, which must increase the security of all. For Estonians it will bring reassurance about the future of the Estonian nation and its identity, for non-Estonians better opportunities for getting on in Estonia and in Europe, for the Estonian State it will bring stability and security, and for Europe it will bring a prospectively peaceful partner. Estonia’s integration into Europe will require the inner integration of Estonian society.

Mart Nutt

The Estonia Page > Society

This fact sheet is published by the Estonian Institute in February, 1997 and is intended to be used for reference purposes. It may be freely used in preparing articles, speeches, broadcasts, etc. No acknowledgement is necessary.