Roland Papp
The independence of Estonia and the Russian speaking minority
My presentation will be about a state and its ethnic situation in the years following the
collapse of the Soviet Union.
During the second half of the 20th century, after a few decades of independence the Baltic
states were the part of the Soviet Union; the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of
them. In the years of the first Estonian Republic the vast majority of its inhabitants were
ethnic Estonians. Due to Soviet national policies and migration, by the end of the 1980s only
61.5% of the inhabitants were ethnic Estonian. This nationality issue became the main
problem during the years following independence, and it has remained one of the biggest
problems of the new Estonian Republic as well.
Over the years of glasnost and perestroika, the Estonian nation began to question the Soviet
past. Public opinion came to view Estonia’s incorporation into the Soviet Union as military
occupation. Initially the goal was to see the Estonian SSR continue its existence in a federal
Soviet Union; this changed over the course of a few years and the will was formed to achieve
full sovereignity and an independent Estonian Republic. Finally, Estonia became an
independent state again on 20th August 1991. At the time it was not clear what options the
Russian speaking minority would have in the future.
During Soviet times, this population was seen as being in the majority. They were the only
major ’Soviet nation’ that held power in every state and city of the Soviet Empire. The Party
always emphasised the role of these people in the cohesion of the union. Most of them were
ethnic Russians; the highly Russified Ukrainian and Belorussian population comprised around
5% of the population of the ESSR in 1989 but most of them also used the Russian language in
day to day life.
This group could move anywhere within the Soviet Union and mostly had better opportunities
than the native population. They were never forced to learn any other languages and the elite,
both in industry and the Party, mostly also came from this ’internationalist’ population. As a
result, it was a shock to them when they suddenly became the minority in a small independent
state after being part of the majority in a huge empire. Initially, most of them had no
citizenship either.
The immigrants were a very diverse group. The vast majority of them were workers, in
various different industries. They were essentially migrant workers who had come to Estonia
for a few years only; as a workforce, they only resided in certain regions, mostly the industrial
regions of Northeast Estonia (Ida-Virumaa). In the city of Narva, only 4% of the population
was ethnic Estonian and in the capital city of Tallinn, by the end of the 1980s, around half the
population was ethnic Russian. In other cities and villages the proportions were different; in
rural areas of the ESSR, Russian speakers were still a small minority.
Roland Papp
In the Gorbachev era, the Russian speaking population (including ethnic Russians and other
Russified Slavic groups) did not share any common ground or goals with the Estonians. One
reason for this was the lack of locally integrated intelligentsia. The elite of the Estonian SSR
had far more in common with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and leaders in
Moscow. The vast majority of them did not speak Estonian well, if at all; albeit Estonians
were not forced to use Russian in everyday life, there was huge pressure on them to learn it.
This nationality cleavage continued to be significant following the independence of Estonia. It
was not until the end of the 1980s that ethnic Estonians got into important positions in
politics. Newly formed political organisations such as the Popular Front of Estonia, the
Congress of Estonia etc. were predominantly ethnic Estonian; however, each of these groups
had a small proportion of non-Estonian members too. In May 1990, 96% of ethnic Estonians
and 26% of non-Estonians supported independence from the Soviet Union.
However, a group of ’internationalists’ continued fighting against ’nationalist Estonians’ and
supported the unity of the empire. This group, Interfront, was unsurprisingly controlled from
Moscow. They draw support from a vocal section of Russian workers in Estonia who were
worrying about losing their privileges in the new regime. Unlike ethnic Estonians, nonEstonians did not have a shared identity or history except for perhaps victory in World War 2,
which to the local population signified the beginning of the occupation.
Not every inhabitant of the new Republic of Estonia was granted Estonian citizenship.
According to the new nationality law, only those who lived in the jurisdiction before 1940
(and their descendants) automatically became Estonian citizens. Most of the local nonEstonian population, however, remained in the new state and only a few per cent of them
moved ’back’ to the Russian Federation. Inhabitants of the state who either did not wish to
take up the new citizenship or could not pass the exams required became non-citizens,
otherwise known as aliens. This issue has remained as one of the toughest for the state;
however, much has been done for integration in the last 21 years.
In sum, in the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, the local ethnic Estonian majority were
only a minority in the whole empire. Due to Soviet policies and migration, a significant
proportion of the population was non-Estonian, mostly ethnic Russians. This problem became
visible in the transition years as Estonians were demanding their own rights. Nevertheless,
non-Estonians were not a homogenous group of communists; a significant number of them
took part in the so-called Singing Revolution which paved the way to the newly independent
Republic of Estonia, where this particular issue has not been resolved over the last two
decades.