With a POD in the 1700's have Finnish and Estonian use the Cyrillic alphabet. How would that change history and would they ever change it in the future?
I don't see this as being too hard. Russia had plenty of opportunities to conquer Finland and Estonia from Sweden from the 1700s and forward.
It wasn't until the 19th century that written Finnish was used outside religious situations. So basically, Russia conquers Finland, forces the Finnish bible to be rewritten in Cyrillic, there you go. I imagine something similar would happen to Estonian.
How to get Finland and Estonia to retain the Cyrillic alphabet to present day? Too many butterflies to say for certain, but I don't think there would be any resistance to Cyrillic writing as long as Russia remains a respected country, unlike the pariah it is now.
The Estonian national awakening was explicitly against the Baltic Germans, the long time feudal rulers in Estonia. In fact, for some time Russia supported this movement to weaken the Baltic Germans - including expanding the usage of Estonian written of course in the Latin alphabet.You need to shift the Estonian National Awakening away from the Baltic Germans and into the hands of the Baltic Russians, which requires a liberal mindset of the Russians in the region for that to work.