Estonia is a country in Eastern Europe, bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Livonia and the east by Russia.
History
As the German Army entered present-day Estonia and Livonia in 1920, in the last days of the Great European War, the Treaty of Kiev the following year ended two centuries of Russian domination to have the Baltics joining the new Mitteleuropa : but instead of becoming a puppet kingdom, it would become the Grand Duchy of Livonia, becoming a constituent state of the German Empire. Put under the reign of Duke Adolf Friedrich zu Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the new German territory relied on seven centuries of continued German presence, dating back to the Crusades of the Sword Brethren and the Teutonic Knights, to justify the annexation.
With the government seating in Riga, Estonia was seen as the lesser partner of the German Grand Duchy : present-day Estonia (then known as Estland) had always been predominantly Estonian (save for major cities such as Reval) and out of scope of the Baltic German implementation and later, from German settlers. The 1924 Reval uprising, led by nationalist student Artur Sirk, reflected the Estonians’ ambivalence towards German rule. The Germans, as compared to Livonia, restricted the influx of Pan-German settlers to the major cities and allowed for the rise of a Germanized Estonian elite, their domination being relied on political decisions from Riga and investments, such as the port and shipyards of Reval, whose importance became prevalent during the 1937-1939 Finland crisis.
As the German Empire was totally occupied by the Syndicalists in 1944 during the World War, the question of the evacuation of the German Army to continue the fight became tantamount, even more as the Russian armies swept over Mitteleuropa. The Third Army, led by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, swept across East Prussia and Livonia to reach Reval, hoping to embark to Finland before it was caught between the Reds and the Russians. The Finnish government, led by Carl Mannerheim, decided to come to the rescue and landed massively in Estonia starting from 26 July 1944, securing a massive bridgehead to save Estonia from sharing the same fate as Livonia, which was being invaded by Russia. The Mannerheim Line (going east as far as Narva and south to the Dorpat-Pernau line) held on, Rundstedt’s troops were able to transit to Finland to continue fighting the Syndicalists in Scandinavia, and the Grand Duchy of Livonia ended in a whimper, reduced to a mere Estonia under Finnish military occupation, welcoming German, Baltic German and Latvian refugees.
Even after Mannerheim was compelled to resign to secure a Russian-German alliance against the Reds in 1947, Finland showed no design to cave in to Russian claims over Estonia and the Conference of Philadelphia, concluding the World War, allowed Finland, in good graces from Germany, to keep all their conquests from the World War, including Estonia, as long as the Baltic Germans were protected and not expropriated. Nationalists, who had always considered Estonia as rightful Finnish territory as the Estonians were a Finnic people, rejoiced in Helsinki. Nevertheless, Estonia was now a territory under heavy military occupation, overwhelmed by refugees and surrounded by Russia, that still considered the Baltics as their rightful lands.
Enticed by her strategic success in Vilnius and Poland, and the development of her own nuclear weapons, Tsarina Olga decided to test Finnish resolve on 26 June 1954. That day, Russian armies entered Finnish Estonia and Karelia. The Estonia War (1954-1956) was one of the hottest points of the Greater Game : Germany, worried of starting a new large-scale war against Russia, limited their help to Finland on equipment and financing, leaving the Finns to defend themselves. Estonia was quickly overwhelmed , but Reval managed to defend against the Russian siege, supplied by air and sea, with Estonians, Baltic Germans, Latvians and Finns fighting shoulder to shoulder against the besiegers, forming the bond of which the Germans had dreamt of during the days of the Grand Duchy. The Treaty of Petrograd, on 22 October 1956, ended the war : as of Estonia, the integration to Finland was acknowledged, with Narva being annexed and the border following the Mannerheim Line down to Dorpat and Pernau. The Finnish enclave was to be totally demilitarized.
The ordeal of the Siege of Reval led to a complete reconstruction of the old Hanseatic city, benefiting from its status of a neutral country just next to Russia and the booming of Finnish economy. In this context, even as Baltic Germans occupied most of the cultural and economic scene, an Estonian middle class began to emerge, fueled by the Scandinavian-style welfare state, becoming richer and able to speak for itself politically. To the dismay of Finnish irredentists, Estonians never considered themselves as true Finns but as an equal partner ; the ethnic makeup of the small province became more and more complex with time, Estonians and Germans judging and avoiding each other, with both scorning Livonian refugees. On 18 January 1973, a referendum on independence was held in Estonia, as promised by the Kekkonen administration : the “yes” vote won an overwhelming 74 %, with almost all the ethnic Estonians voting in favor and Baltic Germans abstaining.
On 1 January 1975, Estonia finally became independent, proclaiming its neutrality to avoid angering the Russians, its economy being as strong as the Scandinavian ones there, and even choosing as its king Prince Alexander of Hesse, cousin to the King of Finland and brother to the Grand Duke of Hesse, in order to underline its integration to modern Europe and its connections to Germany and Finland. Under the reign of Aleksander I, Estonian and German were both the official languages of Estonia. Nevertheless, the 1983 economic crisis put an end to this situation. After years of upheavals, Baltic German corporations bankrupted one after another in 1988, forcing the military to take control of the government, tanking the Estonian economy, sending dozens of thousands of Estonians into unemployment and triggering large-scale riots in the cities, targeted at Baltic German homes and business.
The pyrist Freedom Fighters Union, or Vaps Movement, won the 1989 elections, led by Enn Tarto and Ülo Nugis, and enacted an ultranationalist agenda, ending recognition of German as an official language, adopting an irredentist policy and officially supporting neo-pagan revivals : a red line was drawn when Estonia renounced its neutral stance in 1991, rearming massively and drawing official protests from Germany, Russia and Finland. In 1994, taking advantage of the chaos in Russia following the Vladivostok terrorist attack, Estonia sent its army to conquer Narva. It was the final draw for Finland, that sent a military expedition to occupy Estonia, ending control of the Vaps Movement and disarming the Estonian Army, before leaving in 1998. Since, Estonia continued its course as a strong economic partner, bestowing citizenship on descendants of Livonian refugees in 2003 and joining the European Community in 2007.
Political situation
Estonia, since independence in 1975, has been an unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The executive is split between the king, who has only ceremonial powers, and the Prime Minister, designated by both houses of Parliament. Legislative power in vested in the Riigikokgu, the bicameral Parliament composed of the National Council, a consultative chamber designated by the king, the Prime Minister, members of Parliament, mayors, region governors and other great electors, and the Chamber of Deputies, democratically elected every five years. The judiciary is independent from the other powers and is inspired by the Finnish system, split into two systems of regular courts and administrative courts.
The reigning monarch is Aleksander II, who succeeded his father Aleksander I upon his death on 30 April 2011. Hailing from the House of Hesse, he is thus directly related to both the reigning monarchs of Hesse and Finland. The young king remains popular but is nevertheless deeply opposed, as his father was, by the ultranationalists, resenting him as a symbol of German and Finnish domination.
The current Prime Minister is, since 3 March 2019, Indrek Saar, leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDE, centre-left, social-democratic). A former actor, Saar has entered politics in 2007 and is considered as part of the European New Left ; even if he doesn’t condone Neo-Syndicalism at all, he has supported the maintenance of a welfare state along with closer cooperation with the European Community. Prime Minister during the Wuchang Pneumonia pandemic, he has taken advantage of the crisis to relaunch nationalizations along with new laws on reducing weekly work hours and implementing remote work.
Social situation, population
Closely aligned on Scandinavia, Estonia has an aging, urban and reducing population, rejuvenated by migration from China and the Middle East, with natalist policies being encouraged by the government to avoid any papy boom anytime soon. As in the rest of Scandinavia, Estonia enjoys a very strong social system, with most civil rights being guaranteed by the law and Constitution and almost free access to health care and higher education, the Estonian system being regularly quoted as a prime example of a healthy welfare state, as was evidenced by the successful handling of the Wuchang Pneumonia and the successes of same-sex marriages.
The most unusual feature of Estonia is its multiethnic makeup : the prime example being the name given to the capital ; any foreigner will use the name “Reval” as it has been for centuries, but should he use “Tallinn”, you know you’re speaking to a devout Estonian nationalist. Ethnic Estonians form the overwhelming majority of the country’s population, with historically large proportion having gone employed in Finland : as of now, many Estonians have double nationality, Finnish or Estonian : all in all, Estonians consider themselves as a Nordic people and have been well aware of their cultural uniqueness. The Germans form now roughly 5 % of the country’s population, formed the economic and cultural elite during the Russian and German eras and are still overrepresented in economic, intellectual and landowning circles. Yet again, within the German population, there is a gap between the urban Baltic Germans, who self-identify as a totally distinct Germanic identity, coming from the days of the Teutonic Knights, and rural Germans who settled in the Grand Duchy in Livonia in the interwar era, who were mostly ardent and antisemitic Pan-Germanists who dreamt of a true German country in Mitteleuropa. According to a popular joke, it’s a gap “between the castle-dwelling monocled aristocrat and the cabin-dwelling crazy racist farmer”. A big concern was also the fate of Livonians, who had taken shelter in Estonia after the Russian invasion : if many emigrated in other countries after the World War, many remained in Estonia and were in legal limbo, in complete statelessness and confined to labor : it was only in 2003 that ethnic Livonians were able to apply for Estonian citizenship and statelessness was made illegal. Since independence and the Vaps rule from 1989 to 1994, resentment and xenophobia is running high, mostly in Estonian nationalist circles, but all communities to live separately, in relatively good intelligence.
Economy
Estonia’s GDP is closely aligned on Finland’s and, as such, is considered as one of the strongest economies in Europe, having updated its economy following the 1980s economic crisis and enjoying the confidence of foreign investors, looking for better opportunities than in Scandinavia. Reval, even since Hanseatic times, is a massive hub for trade in the Baltic Sea, joining Petrograd, Stockholm, Dantzig, Helsinki or Hamburg. Very much dependent on foreign trade, mostly from Russia, for its supplying in energy, Estonia’s economy is focused on services, mostly manufacturing, computer software and hardware, electronics, shipbuilding, chemical products, fishing, high technology and finance ; Estonia is also quoted as one of the leaders in sustainable house building, having turned its large forests into construction material, ready for exportation throughout Europe and the world. Due to the vigor of its economy, Estonia has been a major destination for migrants from Russia, the Middle East and China.
Since the days of German colonization, the economy of Estonia had mostly relied on the Baltic German community, putting in place massive corporations, led by the landowners and the local barons, that lasted until the 1980s and the massive bankruptcy of 1988. Even if the remodeling of the economy in the 21st century, Baltic Germans tend to be overrepresented in the high circles of the economy, due to their past cultural hegemony.
Military
Save from 1991 to 1994, Estonia has no army and maintains a neutral policy, maintaining a small Self-Defense Force, protecting its borders and maritime areas in the case of foreign aggression. Even if the country relies on German equipment, Estonia is not a member of the Reichspakt. Neverthless, even under supervision from Finland during the 1994-1998 occupation, disarmament of the former Estonian Army is considered to have had limitations, and it’s suspected that many far-right and irrendentist militias still have military-grade weapons in caches, still ready to commit ethnic cleansing on Germans or Russians, as was evidenced by the far-right terrorist attacks in Reval, in 2004.
Culture
The cultural life of Estonia has spread far beyond its borders, upholding its reputation as the “seventh Scandinavian nation” : not only is Reval renowned for its nightlife, in a cityscape rebuilt extensively after the Estonia War, but its artists are renowned throughout Europe, such as Jaan Kroos, Robert Kurvitz, Arvo Pärt, Vanilla Ninja, Priit Paam and Lennart Meri. The Estonia telegame industry is also booming, as was 2019’s multi-awarded No Truce With the Furies, soon to be adapted for a TV series.
Owing to its very fragmented history, religion is mostly Lutheran Protestant, along with a small Eastern Orthodox fraction. Neo-Paganism, be it Tarraism among Estonians, Dietuviriba among Livonians or Asatru among Germans, has been on the rise : among the German community, it’s more spread among the descendants of Pan-Germanic settlers in the early 20th Century than among the Baltic Germans, while Tarraism was officially supported during the Vaps rule in the early 90s. It is more associated to the far right and anti-Germanism than any other.