Chatting with Estonians, the feeling that I am living in an alternate-universe Wisconsin, where the US lost the Cold War, suburbs were replaced by Soviet apartments, the cows mysteriously vanished (famine? Stalinist whim?), and slightly more Finns settled, yet spring, fall, and all the barn swallows remained untouched, and wonder if I've instead found a different alternate universe, a colder Israel, a bit like Michael Chabon's Alaskan Zion.
The default state of the Estonian museum is to recount the endless history of Estonians in their native land. Again and again, in barely differing language, the visitor is reminded that archaeologists have established that proto-Estonians, growing bored of the Urals, settled in Estonia 11,000 years ago, making them "one of Europe's oldest peoples." It hardly matters if you're at the Estonian History Museum (with its exhibits asking questions like "Have Estonians been happy in their own land?" (the answer is, of course, "no.")), the Estonian National Museum(s), the Estonian Road Museum, or whatever the Maarjamäe Palace is, the same themes are eternally recurring, and likely will for the next 11,000 years. Estonian museums are hardly homogenous, and I'll merrily return to their quirky exhibits at a later time, but even the posterboard exhibits in the corners of malls are heartily nationalistic, and this is a common theme.
This theme also asserts itself in Jewish culture and memory. Even anti-Zionists are acutely aware of their ancient history in that awkward elbow of dry land so popular with hostile armies. American racists can only wish to have such an ancient claim on land, then take out their anger and jealousy by ranting about the Elders of Zion, or perhaps burning an Israeli flag. This ancient claim to land, made a bit ridiculous by having mostly left it for nearly two thousand years, is at the heart of Israel's existence and legitimacy.
So, the Estonians have managed to survive in one place since before history! That makes them more fortunate than their neighbors the Western Balts (such as the Prussians, whose vanquishers eventually took on their names), the Kreevins, the Livonians (as of two years ago), and perhaps soon the Izhorians. But while Estonia isn't all that small (everywhere looks tiny next to Estonia, which is larger than the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, or West Virginia (with the panhandle cut off), it has only 900,000 Estonians, plus another 400,000, mostly Russophones. You see, Estonian history is a series of wars, famines, and deportations, mixed with slavery.
Aside from a few moderately wealthy Hanseatic ports, the territory has never been worth much, but has been a popular stop for armies marching elsewhere. Although Estonian islanders once raided the Vikings, they were conquered by Germanic Crusaders (the Danish flag comes from a victory outside what is now Tallinn, whose very name comes from "Taani linn," or "Danish Castle)." A series of rebellions never resulted in long-lasting victories, and Estonian territory was handed off to a series of independent bishops (Tartu was once an independent bishopric---most of my classes were where its castle/capitol once stood) and crusader states somewhat akin to those in the Holy Land. Danish, Swedish, German, Polish, and (especially) Russian armies wiped out huge segments of the populace, and explain why the only medieval buildings left in Estonia, save for a few isolated churches, are the remains of massive castles, several of which were once the largest in Northern Europe. The Livonian War between Ivan the Terrible and Sweden, Denmark-Norway, Poland-Lithuania, and local Livonian (Estonian/northern Latvian) lords was barely kinder than centuries of German noblemen who bought and sold Estonian serfs at lower prices than contemporary black slaves (at one point, one of Ivan the Terrible's officers reported that there was nothing left to burn or loot). Massive Swedish and Russian armies, the latter using scorched Earth tactics at Peter the Great's request, rendered much of Estonia wasteland, which led to a wave of Finnish settlers arriving to build homesteads in burned-down farms. The Revolution of 1905 was put down by bayonet, while many Estonian conscripts were sent to the front lines nine years later with little more than those same bayonets. The German invasion in 1917 was relatively bloodless for the locals, but independence came only via war with the Red Army, White Russians, and Baltic German Freikorps (random fun fact: Tartu is home to a British lord who wanders around wearing an expensive suit and backpack, financing memorials to the Royal Navy, which aided the Baltic States during this time, even housing the fledgling Latvian government on a destroyer after Baltic Germans took Riga following World War I). Although the next twenty years are seen as a golden age, when Estonia was slightly wealthier than Finland, it ended with a domestic dictatorship, a Soviet occupation so horrible that the locals greeted Nazi invaders as liberators shortly afterwards, followed by battles, massacres, and mass deportations that eventually broke the back of the "Forest Brothers," anti-Communist partisans that hid in bunkers and executed officials for years, holding out for an American invasion. The decades that followed are hardly viewed with joy.
And yet, the Estonians have persisted. Like the Jews, their history is a series of invaders trying to wipe them out, enslaving them, and outlawing their culture. And they love to remember this! Oh, sure, unlike with Jews, every holiday doesn't involve eating food that symbolizes the people who tried to kill them (surely charoset and hamantaschen will be replaced by edible swastikas and Hitler mustaches in a thousand year's time), but every historical film involves lost struggles with ancient enemies, every history museum features weeping elderly and rail carriages, and even the military recruitment ads feature fighters from the War of Independence charging at the Red Army, then turning into today's soldiers, running in the same direction, under the same fire. The current state was based upon the interwar state (although they didn't go so far as to adopt the interwar constitution, as the Latvians did). Reminders of the long and painful Estonian past are a big part of popular culture, although not always serious and depressing, as we'll see soon. The future seems far less clear, and perhaps a bit less important, than the past, which continues to weigh down upon people, almost literally in the case of the stooped, often osteoporotic elderly. Interestingly, the Nazis are not seen in as poor a light as the Soviets--Stalin obviously occupies the place in the American and Jewish mind as Hitler, but one can see books devoted to members of the Estonian Legion, a unit of the Waffen SS (it was largely, but not entirely, apolitical), and people dressed in t-shirts celebrating said unit, while Estonian awards often resemble their wartime German counterparts. Estonians fought on both sides of WWII, often against their will, and their story is a complicated one (if you can, hunt down the recent film "1944").
All of this can seem like a burden, and make one sympathetic to one interwar Italian proto-fascist/futurist who, calling Italy a pile of shit too obsessed with the past to proceed into the future, called for Italians to smash their statues and ruins, and "turn this pile of shit into a grand monument to the future." Fortunately, Estonians (at least the younger generations) are able to make fun of their past, even if the Estonian sense of humor isn't as celebrated or as self-deprecating as its Jewish counterpart. I'm going to link to two examples from Tujurikkuja ("Mood-killer,") a popular sketch comedy that airs on New Year's Eve, and makes fun of Estonian history, and the last year's events.
This first video mocks the Estonian obsession with how painful its past was as masochistic and self-centered, but also provides a neat little overview of that history. Estonia being a small town and all, I've also visited some of the places where it was filmed.
This second video is sillier, but portrays the Soviet deportations.
It's a bit ironic how many Estonians (and loud ex-pats online) are opposed to housing refugees. On a cold rainy night 70 years ago, penniless refugees fled war via aging and underpowered boats seeking refuge across a narrow but stormy sea (the boat pictured above was powered with oars and a car engine as it carried DPs to Sweden). Some fled to Finland to fight against the Soviets there, but many others made it to Sweden, and from there, to Canada and the US. With independence, they and their descendants returned, to teach my classes (both of my thesis supervisors were emigres), start businesses, and serve in the government (I interviewed several emigre ministers for my thesis, and the current president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, grew up in New Jersey, and met Bruce Springsteen before either of them became famous). While the government-in-exile has been forgotten (it lasted from 1953 to 1992, but was mostly symbolic), the current government has prepared for a potential Russian resurgence and invasion by backing up the data of the state and its people in six embassies worldwide, so that the state can continue to function even if Tallinn is lost. During the Cold War, there was limited contact with emigres, but some trips were allowed in either direction across the Iron Curtain (as described by my thesis and many of its interviewees), which allowed the diaspora to keep tabs on its homeland. When the Singing Revolution began and Soviet control began to falter, emigre professionals began to flood in and make aliyah. Much like their young Israeli counterparts, young Estonians have been emigrating in large numbers in search of work and better living conditions, but if the large number of ex-pats in Estonia with foreign spouses and life partners is any guide, most Estonians only emigrate temporarily. Much like Israel, the large Estonian community in the US (although a bit smaller than the community in Canada, especially Toronto), has given the Estonian state strong ties with the US, improved by its economic and political foundations in American policy (its first elected prime minister famously based the economic on a book by Milton Friedman, while the head of its central bank is an American trained in Harvard formerly employed by the World Bank). An understandable obsession with hostile neighbors has made both Israel and Estonia recipients of American military aid, and made them willing allies, but has also brought about a siege mentality.
I learned a joke the other day: "The Russians complained that they were underrepresented in TV programming. Now the police TV show airs twice a week!"
While Estonia has always had an ethnic Russian population, especially in the corners which are now part of Russia, and along Peipsijärv, the lake where Alexander Nevsky defeated a Crusader/Estonian army crossing the lake's ice, where Old Believers latter settled as they fled Russian Orthodox reforms (the Estonians call them "Onion Russians"), this population exploded during the Soviet era, as massive industrial works and residential districts were built, then populated with workers from throughout the Soviet Union. While not all of these workers were ethnic Russians, they are referred to as such for simplicity. Fears that Estonians would become a minority in their own homeland helped trigger the "Singing Revolution," which began with protests against a strip mining project involving imported workers and massive environmental damage, and ended with the breakup of the Soviet Union. With its decisively national character, the fledgling Estonian government passed strict citizenship laws granting citizenship only to those whose ancestors were in Estonia in 1940, when the first Soviet occupation began. However, fears of secession, and strong outside pressure, resulted in these laws being relaxed and reformed, yet those without Estonian ancestry, or who were not born in Estonia, must still pass an Estonian language test to gain citizenship. While some elected to attain the Russian citizenship the Kremlin offered, many have remained stateless, able to work for Euros in Estonia, and shop in rubles next door. I've just blown past 2,000 words, so I'll save this topic for another day, but, much like Israel, Estonia has a large population that is disaffected, has a foreign mother-tongue, predates the establishment of the modern state, and is underrepresented. Yes, of course, the living standards of Ivan O. Ivanovich is far better than his Palestinian or Israeli Arab counterpart---hatred and fear of Russians hasn't translated into violence (save for the "Bronze Nights," when the movement of a Soviet war memorial triggered riots by Russophones and the shutdown of Estonia's internet by Russian hackers), toleration is increasing, and there is little interest in secession amongst the inhabitants of the border town of Narva (where 90-95% of the locals are Russophones), but Estonia's Russians remain an Other,
This is in part due to the siege mentality that the above situations have led to. A tiny nation with few real defensive features, a military lacking tanks and armed aircraft, and with an aggressive neighbor, the threat of invasion is a constant topic. I once met a member of the Kaitseliit ("Defense League,") a paramilitary force trained to support the regular military during war, and to serve as partisans once Estonia is invaded (half an hour or so after the first tank appears, why Russia would invade. What could it have that would be worth war? The man said, simply, "They always do." Tartu celebrated "Victory Day" earlier this month with a demonstration of the Kaitseliit defending a roadblock from "terrorists," while a conscript training base is literally just down the road from me, less than a kilometer away, within the ruins of a Soviet air base that once housed nuclear weapons. The foreign ministries of Russia and Estonia routinely trade barbs, and Russia answered Obama's visit to Tallinn by promptly kidnapping an Estonian intelligence officer from near the border, scarcely 48 hours later (the officer, charged with spying, is still awaiting trial). Although on the best possible terms with most of its neighbors, Estonia retains a siege mentality, with a nationalist government, museum exhibits, and recent memory driving fears and expectations. Much as in the case of Israel, the military is hardly a rare sight, and the threat of invasion and annihilation in the back of everyone's minds.
Each of these comparisons deserves a more comprehensive and balanced explanation, but this entry is already far too long. For your sake and for mine, future entries will be more pithy!
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