The causes and possible solutions of the ethnic conflict between Russians and Estonians in Estonia.

Despite the fact that youngsters do not feel the impact of the discriminatory regulations all that much, they inherit their opinions from their parents, who face the selectiveness of the society every day. However, lately even students at schools have been forced to endure the biased treatment of the government, which passed a law requiring all Russian secondary schools to teach all lessons in Estonian, with the justification that Estonian is the only official language of the Republic. The problem is that the previous teaching level of Estonian has not been sufficient to enable students to understand subjects like chemistry or mathematics or literature in Estonian. Hence this appears like an attempt to deprive Russians of access to higher education and, hence, professional and managerial job prospects. Furthermore, many Russians consider this regulation to deprive them of their cultural heritage, assimilating the minorities instead of integrating them into society: “What is happening now… For example turning all schools into Estonian-taught schools. Which Russian would approve of that?” As young people cannot make themselves heard by the government and cannot change the situation, they turn their frustration onto Estonians as a whole.

As mentioned before, Russians form the biggest ethnic minority in Estonia at thirty per cent of the population. Furthermore, Russians are, in general, poorer, less employed and non-citizens, accepting any jobs and willing to work for smaller wages, thus taking jobs from Estonians. Realizing that Russians are therefore more competitive on the labor market, the government has passed several laws in order to protect Estonians looking for work. The constitution of Estonia clearly states: “all employees of businesses, non-profit organizations, and official organizations, must use Estonian when offering their services.” The knowledge of Estonian is periodically tested by special commissions, who demand official certificates of having passed the examination. However, the language exams are so difficult, that even minister of culture, being an Estonian woman, could not pass her examination.

Another step in order to restrict and control the Russian minority has been constraint of all political and some civil rights of non-citizens. The constitution of the Republic states: “Only citizens are allowed to elect their government,” “Political parties can be formed only of citizens of the Republic of Estonia,” and “Positions in governmental organizations can be held only by citizens of the Republic of Estonia.” At the same time, quotas have been set on how many applications for citizenship are consented every year. These actions have led to growing discontent of Russian Diaspora, causing more conflicts as frustrated minorities, who are deprived of their rights, turn against and attack all Estonians, believing that all of them are responsible for the government’s decisions.

Education as a cause of the ethnic conflict

The younger population of the republic is influenced most by their education. In most Estonian schools while lecturing about the history of Estonia, history teachers, most of who are Estonians, often express derogatory opinions about Russians, making them seem a cruel, violent and unreasonable nation that has greatly harmed Estonia in the past and poses a grave danger to the present state. Thus, my history teacher V. Kuldna said during one of the lessons: “And in 1939 cruel and barbaric Russians invaded our harmless state with their gigantic and brutal army...”. History books and study-guides describe the Soviet rule as one of the worst periods in the course of history of Estonia and imply that all Russians were behind the regime, neglecting the fact, that, in the Soviet Union as a whole, Russians were in fact the ones who suffered the most under communism. This is the reason why most Estonians still suppose that Russians would like to bond Estonia to the Russian Federation, attitude leading to physical conflicts, as teenage students want to protect their homeland from losing its independence.

In Russian schools on the other hand, literature teachers often argue that Estonians do not have a culture, as Estonian literature only began in late eighteenth century, with the rise of ‘folk’ nationalism across Europe, and not many authors are well known outside the republic. On the other hand, they also boast that Russian literature and culture is known and respected worldwide, implying that Russians have background and traditions. Thus, teacher of Russian literature L. Semjonov said “And we, Russians, should not even talk to people like Estonians, because they do not have any culture or history.” These opinions and mind-sets are transferred from teachers to students, resulting in dismissive attitude towards Estonians, ending with conflicts.

The role of the media in escalating the conflict

Yet another factor fanning the flames of the ethnic conflict is media. Although minorities form a large part of society in Estonia, the Russian media is isolated from Estonian media. This gives rise to subjective articles in both Russian and Estonian newspapers, hence forming stereotypes of the representatives of opposing nation and deepening the disagreement.

Thus, Estonian media describes Russians as drug-addicts, criminals and HIV-infected, who are only looking for a chance to bond Estonia to Russia once again. Whenever problems with illegal drugs or AIDS are discussed, pieces in the media focus upon Ida-Virumaa, the northeastern region of the country mostly populated by Russians. This has resulted in the fact that most Estonian adolescents blame Russians for all the problems in Estonia, as can be seen from the comments to such newspaper articles on the Internet: “All Russians should be sent to Siberia, as they sent us. Or even better, let’s just shoot them all!”

Russian media in turn describes Estonians as chauvinistic nationalists, whose only desire is to deport all Russians. Some papers go even further, accusing the government of intentional deterioration of living standards of non-citizens. The Russian media portrays Estonians in general as being narrow-minded and dim.

The bigotry of the media becomes extreme when discussing conflicts between Russians and Estonians, such as the street-fights between Russian and Estonian youngsters, which take place every spring. Estonian periodicals usually blame Russian teenagers in being cruel and violent, attacking Estonians without any reason. Russian newspapers in turn write that Estonians instigate the conflicts by attacking Russians on the ground of Russians being communists and followers of Stalin.

However, during the last year, Russian media has become more objective as many articles are adapted from Estonian periodicals and therefore, as articles are changed from being completely one-sided, more information is added and thus news become more impartial.

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Different forms of conflict

Over the years, there have been different forms of the clash between the two nationalities, differing from harmless verbal quarrels to violent physical attacks. The situation is especially critical in the regions with large proportion of Russian population, such as the capital city and the surroundings, Ida-Virumaa, or Tartu. There, youngsters gather into large groups distinguished by nationalities, agree on the time and place, assemble armed with baseball bats, knives and other weapons in order to trounce each other. As a result, several teenagers are hospitalized after every collision with serious injuries, and over the past five years, three or four adolescents have died. The police have arrested some of the agitators, but the usual policy towards these conflicts is the one of ignoring. The officials claim that there is no ethnic reason behind the clashes, skillfully avoiding the fact that even the fighters themselves admit the ethnical causation of the confrontation.  In 1999 and 2000, the situation was especially extreme as youngsters would form smaller groups and attack any passersby from the other nationality, despite their age or gender. The officials refused to comment on the state of affairs.

Another very common form of the conflict is the denial of it. Russians confess that they feel discriminated against and that there is a conflict between them and Estonians. However, Estonians reject the existence of the clash claiming that they are open-minded and tolerant nation and therefore there cannot be any collisions based on ethnic origins. At the same time, surveys show that only 30 per cent of Estonians consider Russians trustworthy and loyal to the country. Disbelief leads to the conflicts as Russians feel they are not confided in and they believe that it is justified therefore they feel discriminated. Mistrust on the one hand, discontent on the other side cause misunderstandings, and deepen the conflict. However, the quiet opposition, denial, and verbal abuse are the most common forms of the clash, only rarely going to extremes.

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Past attempts to solve the conflict

Integration through education

There have been many attempts to solve the present and prevent future conflicts through integration. The process of integration has been supported on various levels, there have been state-supported campaigns and private actions, furthermore, many families try to solve the problem of integration on their own.

One of the most popular solutions to prevent conflict and assimilate with the majority is to educate a Russian child in Estonian schools and kindergartens. Growing up in Estonian surroundings, Russian children acquire not only the language but also traditions and culture of the country, thus being able to understand Estonians better and helping Estonians to understand Russians, thus averting ethnic conflicts.

However, there are drawbacks to this method of integration. Some children do not manage to learn Estonian perfectly but as they are educated in Estonian schools, they also do not learn Russian flawlessly, thus ending up knowing two languages partially and being disregarded by both Russians and Estonians. Another possibility is that children forget their origins and become assimilated. They no longer consider themselves Russians but rather Estonians. They become ashamed of their parents, resulting in interfamily conflicts. Yet another possibility is that Russian children are not accepted in their Estonian classes or groups, leaving them isolated. As a result, Russians do not learn Estonian or become integrated, but rather the opposite. In this case, the conflict between Russians and Estonians in the particular class or group becomes worse with time and there is no integration.

Another popular method to integrate Russians and Estonian children has been combining Russian and Estonian kindergartens and schools in the same building. This gives youngsters the opportunity to learn their mother tongue and culture but at the same time, they become aware of the existence of other equal cultures and learn to accept each other. Being forced to grow-up and study next to one another and share territory, Estonians and Russians communicate more and often become good friends. In this case, more Russians are integrated into society and as larger groups are involved, future conflicts can be averted on the larger scale. However, in some cases, especially in the areas where one or the other side is more numerous, real integration is rare and conflicts flourish. This can be seen from Merje Meerits’ recollections: “We had a mixed kindergarten – one half of the building was under Russian groups and the other half was for Estonians but there was more Russians than Estonians. Outside, in the playground the same border existed and therefore Russians had all kinds of toys and games while we only had two sandboxes. Still, Estonians never crossed the border, Russians on the other hand were often intruders on our territory and this always ended with fights.” 

The same fact is confirmed by students of Russian schools as well: “people have been unable to create good relationship between Russian and Estonian schools.”

If so-called forced integration, where children of different interests, hobbies and nations are studying together, has failed, methods that are more specialized have succeeded. In recent years, it has become prevalent to create different groups of activities, where Russians and Estonians are involved side by side, for example drama clubs, debating societies, dancing studios, etc. People united by similar interests forget about national intolerance and help each other in learning languages or understanding each other culture.

One of the events gaining popularity and attention of media is the annual trilingual debating tournament. For these championships both Russian and Estonian debating teams come together to discuss the problems of ethnic minorities and possible solutions of those. Topics debated vary from whether the government’s policies concerning citizenship are justified to whether the government should subsidize Russian media. Through the discussions, students learn to see the dilemmas from different perspectives, understanding one another and through this reducing the conflict.

However, despite the success of mixed clubs, there are not many of those as the state refuses to fund them and not many private entrepreneurs are willing to spend their money on integration projects.

Political ways of solving the problem

Realizing the fact that often the conflict is caused by the language barrier, the government has tried to persuade Russians to learn Estonian by public campaigns and organizing free language-courses. Still, the promotion did not give any positive results, rather negative ones, as the strategy chosen for agitation, namely large images of people with sown-up mouths, was rejected by Russians, as it was considered discriminative. Free possibilities to learn the official language attracted a lot of people put the funding was cut down sharply and only a small percentage of those interested could use the opportunity to study Estonian.

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Possible future ways out of the conflict

Despite the fact that the ethnic conflict in Estonia has a long history and many attempts to solve it have failed, it is possible to achieve integration. However, it requires big effort to put a stop to the clash, as major changes need to be carried out in educational system as well as constitution of the republic. Alongside this, public awareness needs to be raised so that people would tolerate and accept a large percentage of minorities in the country.

As childhood plays a great role in forming one’s mind-sets, reforming education is one of the key steps to be taken by the government. History courses should be reviewed to ensure objectiveness of facts produced to students. However, even more important is raising impartiality of the teachers by professional training.

Another essential change in education concerns the present policy of turning all Russian schools into Estonian-based schools. Ethnic minorities should be able to continue their education in their native language, as this would concede youngsters their heritage and therefore the feeling of security, raising their contentment with Estonia, averting future conflicts.

Further action should be taken to incorporate the media, giving Russian media equal opportunities to compete with Estonian media. Cooperation between Russian and Estonian media would improve standards of the information and guarantee more impartiality, consequently improving the relationship between the two biggest nationalities in the country. With the help of media, people can be made aware of each other’s cultural differences, important events, and essential problems, and through this, Russians would be accepted as equal part of the society, destroying one of the key causes of the ethnic conflict.

However, most difficult but at the same most significant change concerns the constitution, as the laws regarding rights of non-citizens have not been changed since 1993, although they have caused many complaints. Non-citizens should be allowed to have a say in the political life of the state and should be granted all civil rights.

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Conclusion

The ethnic conflict between Russians and Estonians has been a problem in Estonia since the beginning of the Soviet rule, and although the society has changed in many ways since then, the clash of the nations is still one of the biggest concerns. Searching for the responsible group for the conflict, one soon understands that it is impossible to blame anybody. Being caused by the policy of the Soviet Union, the collision has been deepened with following years because of discriminative policy of the new government, education, and isolation of the media. Although many attempts to solve the problem have failed, there are solutions to this situation; however, they require a lot of work and willingness from the both sides involved.

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