Estonians (, previously ) are a
Finnic people closely related to the
Finns and inhabiting, primarily, the country of
Estonia. The Estonians speak a
Finno-Ugric language, known as Estonian. Although Estonia is traditionally grouped as one of the
Baltic countries, Estonians are linguistically and ethnically unrelated to the Baltic peoples of
Latvia and
Lithuania.
History
Prehistoric roots
Estonia was first inhabited about 10,000 years ago, just after the
Baltic ice lake had retreated from Estonia. While it is not certain what languages were spoken by the first settlers, it is often maintained that speakers of early
Finno-Ugric languages related to modern Estonian had arrived to what is now Estonia by about 5000 years ago. Living in the same area for more than 5000 years would put the ancestors of Estonians among the oldest permanent inhabitants in Europe. On the other hand, some recent liguistic estimations suggest that Fenno-Ugrian language arrived around the Baltic Sea considerably later, perhaps during the Early Bronze Age (ca. 1800 BCE).
The name "Eesti", or Estonia, is thought to be derived from the word
Aestii, the name given by the ancient
Germanic peoples to the
Baltic peoples living northeast of the
Vistula River. The Roman historian
Tacitus in 98 A.D. was the first to mention the "
Aestii" people, and early
Scandinavians called the land south of the Gulf of Finland "
Eistland" ("
Eistland" is also the current word in
Icelandic for Estonia), and the people "
eistr". Proto-Estonians (as well as other speakers of the Finnish language group) were also called
Chuds (
чудь) in
Old East Slavic chronicles.
The Estonian language belongs to the
Balto-Finnic branch of the
Finno-Ugric group of languages, as does the
Finnish language. The first book in
Estonian was printed in 1525, while the oldest known examples of written Estonian originate in 13th-century chronicles.
National consciousness
Although Estonian national consciousness spread in the course of the 19th century during the
Estonian national awakening, some degree of ethnic awareness preceded this development.
[Raun, Toivo U. (2003). . Nations and Nationalism 9.1, 129-147.] By the 18th century the self-denomination
eestlane spread among Estonians along with the older
maarahvas.
The Bible was translated in 1739, and the number of books and brochures published in Estonian increased from 18 in the 1750s to 54 in the 1790s. By the end of the century more than a half of adult peasants were able to read. The first university-educated intellectuals identifying themselves as Estonians, including
Friedrich Robert Faehlmann (1798–1850),
Kristjan Jaak Peterson (1801–22) and
Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (1803–82), appeared in the 1820s. The ruling elites had remained predominantly
German in language and culture since the conquest of the early 13th century.
Garlieb Merkel (1769–1850), a Baltic German Estophile, was the first author to treat the Estonians as a nationality equal to others and became a source of inspiration for the Estonian national movement, modeled on Baltic German cultural world before the middle of the 19th century. However, in the middle of the century, the Estonians became more ambitious and started leaning toward the
Finns as a
successful model of national movement and, to some extent, the neighbouring
Latvian national movement. By the end of 1860 the Estonians became unwilling to reconcile with German cultural and political hegemony. Before the attempts at
Russification in the 1880s, their view of
Imperial Russia remained positive.
Estonians have strong ties to the
Nordic countries stemming from important cultural and religious influences gained over centuries during
Scandinavian and
German rule and settlement. Indeed, Estonians consider themselves Nordic rather than
Baltic, in particular because of a close ethnic and linguistic affinity with the Finns.
Recent developments
From 1945–89, the share of ethnic Estonians in Estonia dropped from 94% to 61%, caused primarily by the deportations organized by the Soviet regime and the Soviet mass immigration program from
Russia and other parts of the former
USSR into industrial urban areas of Estonia, as well as by wartime emigration and Stalin's
mass deportations and executions. The ethnic Estonian population has now risen to 70%.
Most émigré Estonians live in Russia, Finland, Sweden, the U.S., Canada, or other Western countries. In neighboring
Latvia, there are about 2,700 ethnic Estonians (1997 census); in
Lithuania, the number was 600 in 1989.
Emigration
During
World War II, when Estonia was invaded by the
Soviet Army in 1944, large numbers of Estonians fled their homeland on ships or smaller boats over the
Baltic Sea. Many refugees who survived the risky sea voyage to
Sweden or
Germany later moved from there to
Canada, the
United Kingdom, the
United States or
Australia. Some of these refugees and their descendants returned to Estonia after the nation regained its independence in 1991.
See also
