Is there such a thing as an Estonian Perspective, an Estonian way of looking at the world, that all Estonians have in common? It's an interesting question. To begin with, there is, to my knowledge, no Estonian exact equivalent of the expression 'common' sense - a sense that all Estonians have in common. This, I suspect, is because Estonians, as a rule, tend to be independent thinkers.
They could afford to be independent, because historically the Estonian farmers - and fishermen and hunters - have always been essentially self-reliant. When Estonians of my father's generation talked about people who have 'common sense', they would describe them as being 'sensible' (môistlik) or as having the 'wisdom of farmers' ('talupoja tarkus'). This is not to say that all attempts to get Estonians to work together towards common goals have always failed. There is, in fact, an Estonian word for those who are committed to a common cause ('ühismeel'), but the fact is that Estonians, on the whole, are generally slow to warm to ideas that they have not thought through.
Is this 'reluctance to commit' one of the qualities that is an important part of the Estonian Perspective?Perhaps. While, on the one hand, I do agree with those who believe that all 'human beings are basically alike', I do not believe, on the other hand, that being 'basically' alike is the same thing as being 'exactly' alike or even 'essentially' alike.
Life changes people, and it seems to me that what Estonians have experienced, not just during the last one hundred years, but for hundreds of years, has made them different from everyone else.
What about Latvians, you may ask? And what about Finns? Yes, we probably are more similar to Latvians and Finns than anyone else. But, while it is true that the Estonian and Finnish languages are very similar, our terrains are different. And while the terrain of Estonia and Latvia are similar in certain ways, as linguists will point out, the Estonian language belongs to the Finno-Ugri group of languages, and Estonian has a lot more in common with Hungarian than Latvian.
These differences turn out to be significant. In the last days of World War Two, Estonia was overrun by the Red Army. Helped by her terrain, Finland was not. As far as Latvia is concerned, Estonian schoolchildren learn early in life that Latvians joined the Teutonic Knights who invaded and colonized Estonia in the thirteenth century.
If this is true, then this may be why a common language did not develop between Latvia and Estonia. If this version of history is untrue, or if it is a significant distortion of the truth - if the majority of Latvians hated the German invaders just as much as the Estonians did and if only very few of them joined in the conquest of Estonia - the fact remains that, rightly or wrongly, a climate of distrust and hostility has existed between Latvia and Estonia for centuries.
In fact, feelings of distrust, suspicion and hostility, a concern with loyalty and a fear of betrayal, have been important consequences of the 'Estonian experience'. These emotions have influenced the way in which Estonians view not only the world but each other.
An important Estonian novel, ÜMERA JôEL, by Mait Metsanurk, published seven hundred years later, based on historical research and conjecture,is essentially about a battle with the Teutonic Knights in 1210, but throughout the novel, Metsanurk also describes various ancient religious practices of Estonians and suggests that when the monks, who accompanied the Teutonic Knights, began persuading Estonians that they should become Christians, the Estonians gradually came to accept their teachings, but they initially suffered a tremendous amount of anguish because they were being forced to be disloyal to their religious beliefs and traditions.
Some Estonians, after being Christened by the hated Germans, would run away and wash off the 'christening waters' as soon as they were able to do so.
At the start of another novel, TASUJA, by Eduard Bornhöhe, a young Estonian starts out by having friendly feelings towards the son and daughter of a German landowner.
Gradually, the hero's feelings towards the Germans change, triggered by the fact that his young German friend has given his dog the slightly modified name of the traditional Estonian God - Taara.
The hero realizes that if he continues to be friends with Germans, he will become a traitor to his own people. These, and many other novels written and widely read by Estonians, novels that deal with the themes of loyalty and betrayal, as well as their own life experiences, have greatly influenced the attitudes and conduct of Estonians. Perhaps the most famous Estonian novel written about the First World War, during which Estonia, after seven hundred years, became free once again, is NIMED MARMORTAHVLIL, by Albert Kivikas.
The young hero of the novel has a father and a brother who are both Communists, and who are viewed as traitors by patriotic Estonians. The hero is torn in several directions. He does not want to join his classmates in a war against Russia, because his brother is in the Red Army. He is afraid that once Estonia becomes an independent state, it can easily become a corrupt, capitalist state. But he also has strong feelings of loyalty towards Estonians, and he finds it very hard to believe that Communists who have promised land to his father, will keep their promise. There is no doubt that in the years following Word War One, Estonia did not become a corrupt state, run by ruthless capitalists. Instead,Estonians demonstrated a remarkable ability to build a Just Society along the lines outlined in Plato's REPUBLIC.
But when the Red Army occupied Estonia in 1940, some Estonians - a small minority - felt that a 'conversion' to Communism was not a treacherous betrayal of their own people but, rather, a realistic acceptance of the inevitable disappearance of all small, unviable countries.
Then, when the Germans drove the Red Army out of Estonia in 1941, many Estonians believed that joining Germany in the war against Communism would not be an act of disloyalty towards their own people but, rather, they would, by helping the Germans, get Germany to do - what Germany would not do when the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact was in force -to guarantee Estonia's independence. All through these years and through all the years since the end of World War Two, Estonians have been deeply concerned about the degree to which the unavoidable and inevitable need to associate with the 'enemy' can make people into 'enemies of their own people'. And yes, there were traitors among Estonians, who helped to torture and deport and murder their own people. The important thing is that according to all available evidence, very few - a very small number of Estonians - did actually 'cross the line' and become outright collaborators and war criminals during the years when Estonia was occupied by Russia, then Germany and then Russia, once again.
It seems to me that this is so, is because loyalty and trustworthiness are qualities that Estonians have always valued above all others.
It also seems to me that one of the characteristics of Estonians is not to trust people easily. It is because of this that it will take both time and effort before Estonians, whose experiences during the past fifty years have been very different, will realize how alike they still are and how they can, once again, start to work together toward common goals and the common good. Ain Söödor
Loyalties and Betrayals
Archived Articles | 21 Jan 2002 | EWR
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