CSIS, the Center (sic) for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, has just published a long report on the Russian speakers of Estonia. Some comments follow.
1. The Russophone community in Estonia is not as homogeneous as it appears in the report and attention to this would make the recommendations more cogent. The Russophones can be grouped under five headings, each with somewhat different attitudes to the Estonian state, language and the Estophones themselves. The first is the north-east, where knowledge of Estonian is poor, where the level of integration is lowest. It is worth adding that whereas the population of Narva was, in effect, completely newly imported after 1945, implying that the third generation Narvans is now active, Kohtla-Järve and Sillamäe were only populated in the 1970s and after. Their rootedness is less intense. They are, for all practical purposes, in the same category as the North Africans in France, the Turks in Germany or the South Asians in the UK – an immigrant minority. The second category are the Russians of Tallinn and Paldiski, where the younger generation has fair competence in Estonian, though here too there are variations as their date of settlement, e.g. Lasnamäe was only built in the 1980s and was overwhelmingly settled by Russians, though this has been diluted to some extent by the vagaries of the housing market. The third category are the Russians of Tartu and Pärnu, whose knowledge of Estonian is reasonable. The fourth category are the Old Believers, who had citizenship in the interwar Republic and reacquired it as of right. The fifth category are the non-Russian Russophones (Ukrainians, Tatars etc), who do not automatically identify with the Russians. I would guess that one of the explanations for why an ethnic Russian party never got off the ground in Estonian politics could be found in this diversity, a diversity that the Russian state would obviously like to condense into a single Russian identity.
2. The report might have noted that some of the stateless prefer to keep their Russian papers as this makes it far easier for them to travel to Russia (no visas etc.). This applies above all to the older generation.
On the broader issue there is more than one way of reading the problem of the stateless. If one were to compare the situation with Lithuania, which went for the zero option on independence, it is far from clear that the Russophones in that country are significantly better off by reason of having acquired citizenship. Or, if to make a wider comparison, the Hungarians of Slovakia, who automatically acquired Czechoslovak citizenship in 1918, were then stripped of it in 1945 and were readmitted to citizen status after 1948, are hardly a positive example of the benefit of citizenship. From this perspective, the stateless of Estonia may actually benefit from that status, because that status focuses both Russian and wider international attention on them and paradoxically offers them a measure of protection. As Estonian citizens they would lose that. Besides, if one examines the ageing dynamic, one will see that in a relatively short time, a decade at most, the issue will simply disappear as the stateless die out or, maybe, emigrate.
3. It should also have been noted that around two-fifths of the police forces active during the Bronze Soldier riots were Russophones (details of the incident can be found on p.5 of the CSIS report).
More broadly on the Bronze Soldier affair, it is clear enough that if the statue had been removed immediately after independence, it would have been accepted, though Moscow might well have protested. The monuments of the former colonial power are frequently eliminated in this way. Thus ironically it was the tolerance of the Estonians that gave rise to the problem many years later, and problem there was – the statue became the focus not or not only of symbolising a Russophone presence in Tallinn, a sacralised Russian space, but thanks to Nashi-inspired activity, with backing from Moscow, it acquired an aggressive function that could no longer be ignored. True, the way in which it was removed was crass, there was no attempt by the government to consult those for whom the statue was significant – majorities are frequently insensitive to minority concerns of this kind, but some steps did have to be taken. One should never underestimate the significance of sacralised spaces and symbols – imagine the outrage that would erupt if someone were to try to erect a statue of Benedict Arnold, “the patriot”, in the middle of Boston.
4. Then, the report never really asks the question what integration actually means and should mean. In general, minorities prefer to maintain some boundaries towards the majority for fear of losing their identity and can see “integration” as the code word for assimilation. How far, therefore, should majorities move towards and minority and vice-versa? There is a major debate in Germany, France or the UK over the failure of multiculturalism and this has turned precisely on this issue, that immigrant minorities have actively resisted adopting many of the mores of the majority and have frequently pursued a strategy of equally actively constructing strong boundaries, sustaining the identity habits brought from their countries of origin and resisting the “blandishments” of majority culture. Something similar applies to non-immigrant, historic minorities, though generally the threshold of assimilation is much easier cross than with non-European immigrants (e.g. Hungarians in Slovakia, whose numbers are diminishing slowly but seemingly inexorably). What this adds up to is that minorities prefer to live in parallel societies rather than in an “integrated” one, as this better secures their cultural future. Solitude is preferred to disappearance.
5. One of the key problems in any strategy of accommodation in Estonia is the weakness of the Russophone elite, with the consequence that the Estonian majority has no real interlocutor. It is clear enough that the Ansip government made no attempt to find an interlocutor before moving the Bronze Soldier statue, but it would not have been easy in the first place. This incompleteness and relative thinness of the social structure of the Russophone community may change as the generation born or raised in Estonia takes up leading positions. Whether either the Russophones or Estonians have evolved strategies for coming to terms with this shift is another matter entirely. Crucially, it is vital for the success of any such strategy that the upcoming Russophone elite demonstrate its commitment to the Estonian state and, just as importantly, their understanding of Estonian anxieties as to the future of their language and cultural reproduction. Small language communities face this problem all the time in an era of globalisation and especially in relation to another, stronger language community.
6. The central difficulty in all inter-ethnic contact is the divergence in the narratives of the collective self. The report alludes to this, in the context of different historical narratives, but does not – it seems to me – get to grips with the pivotal aspects of the problem. These narratives of self are constitutive of the collective identity itself and are not really negotiable, because they are lived as “the truth”. This is a universal principle, not in any way unique to Estonia and its Russophones. Clashing narratives are exacerbated when cultural trauma comes into play. In the Estonian context, the significance of the loss of statehood and subsequent subordination cannot be overestimated – indeed, it is hard to see any event as traumatic as the loss of state independence (cf. Poland). The entire colonial past outside Europe is bedevilled by this problem. Furthermore, in the Estonian case incorporation into the Soviet Union resulted in a series of radical and irreversible transformations, like the loss of population through exile and deportation, a coercive industrialisation, the physical changes to the landscape, overrapid urbanisation with the construction of (rather shoddy) housing complexes and the demographic transformation through the settlement of tens of thousands of (alien) incomers.
The Russophones, of course, cannot even begin to see it this way. They see the Soviet experience as benign, as a time when Russia was helpful to Estonia and gave it access to modernity. Neither side can really begin to see the other’s point of view and the two narratives cannot be reconciled. Again, this is not a unique case. Thus Americans cannot see that for Mexico the incorporation of sizeable territories that had been a part of Mexico into the US in the 19th century is still a source of resentment.
In the Estonian context, the objective is to find a narrative around which both Estonians and Russophones can find common ground. A narrative of this kind could then, putatively, become the foundation for a constitutional patriotism. I am persuaded that at this time this is impossible, unless the Russophones are ready to make concessions, above all by detaching themselves from the Moscow narrative and adopting one that identifies directly with Estonia (narratives of this kind could certainly be constructed).
If this route is taken, then it would have to involve Estonians as well and, it may well be, that a Truth and Reconciliation Commission could help to bring about such an outcome. Conceivably this could include a solemn pledge of commitment by the Russophones, a rejection of Moscow’s Compatriot strategy and the construction of a shared rituals, like an annual festival or some such which is accepted by both parties. Clearly, this would be a long term project and would be fraught with difficulties, not least because both parties would have take some things on trust. Trust at this time is a commodity in short supply, though not entirely absent.
So, in effect, what I am suggesting is the evolution of a Russian-identity-in-Estonia, obviously connected to Russia through language, literature and culture, but much less so through history and necessarily politics. The Russophone identification with Europe that the report notes is a helpful condition, as Russians in Russia are much less well disposed towards the EU, European integration and Nato, signifying that some disconnect between the Russophones of Estonia and Russia has already come into being. Note that the advantage of this strategy is that it largely by-passes Russia itself, which still has a very long way to go before it even begins to recognise the imperialism of its own Soviet past.
Finally, I have the sense that the report sees the role played by the Russian state towards the Russophones as generally positive or neutral. I’m not so sure about this. Some of Russia’s motivations could well be actuated by support for their Compatriots and the question of the stateless is a clear point of entry in this connection. Note that Russia is seemingly relying on Francophonie as its model for relations with Russophones outside Russia, but the Moscow version has a significantly stronger political content. However, at the same time, Russia has pursued a long term policy of making trouble in the former communist states (and elsewhere) in order to weaken the EU which it sees as a rival in its strategy of reconstructing “the common European home” by its own criteria. From this angle, the Russophone minority can be and is instrumentalised in the service of the Russian state and this does not necessarily serve the interests of the Russophones. Thus when Russia imposed an export stop after the Bronze Soldier affair, many Russians in Tallinn were disproportionately affected, but that troubled Moscow not at all.
The suspicion that Moscow is not sincere when it comes to the Russophones in Estonia (and Latvia too) is deeply rooted in the majority and will not be easily dispelled. Particular concern was caused by declarations from Moscow in the context of the Russian-Georgian war and the use of Russians in South Ossetia as a pretext for intervention. A precedent was set that could be employed in Estonia too, indicating that Russia would not abjure violence as a policy instrument. This makes the political separation of the Russophones from Russia all the more important if the objective is to strengthen the sense of security of the Estonian majority, which is, as I have been arguing, the most effective road to integration into a viable, shared citizenship concept.
Sch. Gy.
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