Signatures on the Peace Treaty of Tartu
Russian-Estonian border by the Treaty
(, literally "Tartu peace") or
Treaty of Tartu was a peace treaty between
Estonia and
Russian SFSR signed in
February 2,
1920 ending the
Estonian War of Independence. The terms of the treaty stated that
"Russia unreservedly recognizes" the independence of
Republic of Estonia de jure and renounced in perpetuity all rights to the territory of Estonia.
Treaty provisions
The treaty established the border between Estonia and Russia, affirmed the right of Estonian people to return to Estonia and Russian people to return to Russia and required that Estonian movable property evacuated to Russia in the
World War I be returned to Estonia. Russia also agreed to absolve all debt from Tsarist times and to pay Estonia 15 million gold
rubles, a proportional share from gold reserves of former
Russian Empire. Additionally Russia agreed to grant concessions to exploit one million hectares of Russian forest land and to build a railway line from the Estonian border to Moscow. In return, Estonia undertook to allow the
RSFSR to build a free port at Tallinn or some other harbour and to erect a power station on the
Narva River.
[Georg von Rauch, The Baltic States: The Years of Independence 1917-1940, Hurst & Co, 1974, p73] Signatories
The treaty was signed by
Jaan Poska on Estonian side and
Adolf Joffe for the Soviet Russia as well as by other representatives of both parties.
Significance
The Tartu Peace Treaty has been regarded as the birth certificate
of the Republic of Estonia because it was the very first de jure recognition of the state. The treaty was also of utmost importance to the diplomatically isolated Soviet Russia, with Lenin expressing satisfaction with the treaty as "an incomparable victory over Western imperialism''"
[. Some members of the Entente opposed the treaty with the intention to keep Soviet Russia in international isolation.] Aftermath
After signing, Soviet Russia failed to fulfill several points of the treaty, e.g. the museological collections of the University of Tartu have not been returned to this day from Voronezh and the migration of Estonians was obstructed. See also
