Russia's war against Ukraine has accelerated Estonia's efforts to convince its Russian speaking population to speak Estonian, more than 30 years after regaining independence from Soviet Union, writes Daily Beast.
All Baltic countries have been ardent supporters of Ukraine since the beginning of the war nearly 12 months ago. In Estonia, almost three-quarters of the population supports financial and military aid to Ukraine, despite the fact that a quarter of the country’s population is ethnically Russian.
Estonian officials have been slowly pushing for the language shift ever since their country gained independence from the Soviet Union. The war in Ukraine, however, has accelerated this process, said Narva mayor Katri Raik.
“At the beginning of the war, a situation developed where Estonians and Russian-speaking residents had quite different understandings of the situation in the world,” the mayor said, explaining that the war had exposed how the country had failed to establish schools that “unified Russian and Estonian students.”
Narva is building two new high schools, a primary school, and a kindergarten — and even though 95 percent of the population of Narva speak Russian at home, the primary language taught in those schools will be Estonian. One of those new schools, a high school, is expected to open by September.
“This school must protect the Estonian language and Estonian culture in this border city,” said Irene Käosaar, the future principal and current head of a neighboring immersion school
Four months ago, the Estonian Minister of Education, Tõnis Lukas, laid the cornerstone for the new high school. It’s something of a prestige project for Lukas, whose ministry is leading the way in promoting the use of Estonian in the country.
The government has been investing heavily in the Estonian language as of late. By raising the salaries of teachers who are fluent in Estonian, they hope to motivate educators to come and work in the north-eastern regions of the country.
Starting in 2024, all Russian-speaking kindergartens in Estonia are expected to switch over to the Estonian language. A legislative proposal is also being prepared to require, among others, taxi drivers and food couriers to be proficient in Estonian.
These developments have not been welcomed by everyone in the country. The language goals, and compulsory use of Estonian in kindergartens, are perceived as an imposition by some ethnic Russians in Estonia. The Estonian-based NGO Russian School of Estonia, committed to the position of the Russian-speaking community in Estonia, has even characterized the decisions as discriminatory.
“If I were worried about Russian politics every day, I would not be able to work in Narva.” “The reform in the education field is aimed not only at optimizing the school system but at the gradual eradication of Russian education in Estonia, which would eventually lead to the assimilation of the minority,” the group said in a statement urging the Estonian government to reconsider this new language policy.
The Russian government, for its part, has even gone so far as to accuse Estonia’s prime minister of Hitlerism for encouraging Ukrainian refugees in the country to take Estonian language courses.
“Hitler would be proud of you [the Prime Minister of Estonia]. Without you, it would be much more difficult to prove the dehumanization of the collective West. Estonia for Estonians, right?,” Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson of Russia’s foreign affairs ministry, said on Telegram. “Say it, at last, stop wrinkling the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with sweaty palms.”
Though some Estonians worry that Russia will use the new language policy to justify threats against their country, Raik says she’s not frightened. “If I were worried about Russian politics every day, I would not be able to work in Narva. Of course, I sincerely hope that Estonia will not come under Russian attack. This does not imply that we should consider our neighbor when enacting state policy,” she told The Daily Beast.
Veronika Gorbatenko, a spokesperson for the ministry, emphasizes that Estonian has always been the language of instruction in all state-funded schools “The recently passed legislation will extend that to privately operated schools or schools that operate under local governments,” she told The Daily Beast.
Estonian as a primary language is also necessary for integration, at least when it comes to education, according to Käosaar. Her new school, she argues, will provide more opportunities for Russian-speaking students in the future. “Otherwise, they cannot study in the future, in high school, for example, or they have fewer choices in the labor market,” she said. “This school has the potential to change that in Narva."
