| Total population |
|---|
| 345,000 (est.) (25% of total population) |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Tallinn, Ida-Viru County |
The beginning of continuous Russian settlement in what is now Estonia dates back to the late 17th century when several thousand Russian Old Believers, escaping religious persecution in Russia, settled in areas then a part of the Swedish empire near the western coast of Lake Peipus.[1]
In the 17th century after the Great Northern War the territories of Estonia divided between the Governorate of Estonia and Livonia became part of the Russian Empire but maintained local autonomy and was administered independently by the local Baltic German nobility through a feudal Regional Council (German: Landtag).[2]
In the aftermath of World War I Estonia became an independent republic where the Russians, comprising 8 percent of the total population among other ethnic minorities, established Cultural Self-Governments according to the 1925 Estonian Law on Cultural Autonomy.[3] the Republic of Estonia had become a Russian Orthodox spiritual center and a home to many Russian émigrés after the Russian October Revolution in 1917.[4]
After the Soviet Occupation and annexation of Estonia in 1940 Soviet repressions of Estonian Russian activists followed. The territory of Estonia remained annexed to the Soviet Union as Estonian SSR until 1991. During the era the Sovet government initiated population transfer in the Soviet Union, thousands of Estonia's citizens were deported to inner Soviet Union and various Russophone populations from Soviet Union were relocated to Estonia. Between 1945–1991 the Russian population in Estonia grew from about 23,000 to 475,000 people and the total Slavic population to 551,000, becoming 35% of the total population.[5]
After the collapse of the Soviet Union Estonia regained independence in 1991. the Soviet citizens who had arrived to the country during the Soviet era were regarded as immigrants who would need to apply for Estonian citizenship. Between 1992 and 2007 about 147.000 people acquired Estonian citizenship bringing down the proportion of stateless residents from 32% to about 8 percent.[6]
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The Estonian name for Russians vene, venelane derives from an old Germanic loan veneð referring to the Wends, speakers of a Slavic language who lived on the southern coast of Baltic sea.[7][8]
Prince Yaroslav the Wise of Kievan Rus successfully raided Tartu in 1030, burning down the Estonian stronghold[9]. The Russian foothold Yuryev built on its ashes survived until 1061, when Kievan Rus were driven out by Estonians, making most Early East Slavic settlements at the time in Estonia intermittent only and not continuous[10].
Outside of south-east Estonia archeologists unearthed a mediaeval Russian settlement in Kuremäe (Ida-Viru County). Russian Orthodox community in the area built a church in the 16th century and later Pühtitsa Convent was created on its site.[11] Russian cultural influence had its mark on Estonian language, with a number of words such as "turg" (trade) and "rist" (cross) adopted from East Slavic[12].
The Estonian Crusade started in the Baltics by the Teutonic knights was resisted by all the natives of the region Slavs as well as Estonians.[12]. In 1217 allied Russian-Estonian army defended fort Otepää from German knights. Russian prince Vyachko died in 1224 with all his druzhina defending fortress Tharbatu (modern Tartu) together with his Estonian allies against Livonian Order led by Albert of Riga. Russians were gradually driven out of Estonia[13].
The conquest of what is now Estonia and Latvia by Denmark and the German crusaders in the beginning of the 13th century greatly reduced Slavic and Orthodox Christian influence in the region. Russian Orthodox Saint Isidore of Tartu was drowned in 1472 in the ice holes of the Emajõgi river for his refusal to adopt Roman Catholicism together with 72 Orthodox Christians.[14]. Nonetheless, Orthodox churches and small communities of Russian merchants and craftsmen came into being in the towns of medieval Livonia (i.e., Estonia and Latvia) as did close trade links with Russian Novgorod, Pskov and Polotsk principalities. In 1481, Ivan III of Russia laid siege to the castle Viljandi and briefly captured several other towns in eastern Livonia in response to a Livonian attack on north-west Russia. Between 1558 and 1582, Ivan the Terrible captured much of mainland Estonia, in the midst of the Livonian War, but eventually the Russians were driven out by Polish and Swedish armies. Tsar Alexis I of Russia once again captured towns in eastern Livonia, including Tartu and Vasknarva in modern Estonia between 1656 and 1661, but had to yield his Livonian and Ingrian conquests to Sweden. In the late 17th century several thousand Russian Old Believers, escaping religious persecution in Russia, settled in areas of Estonia (then controlled by Sweden) near the western coast of Lake Peipus.
The second period of influx of Russians followed the Imperial Russian conquest of the northern Baltic region, including Estonia, from Sweden in 1700–1721. Under Russian rule, power in the region remained primarily in the hands of the Baltic German nobility, but a limited number of administrative jobs was gradually taken over by Russians, who settled in Reval (Tallinn) and other major towns. However, a relatively larger number of ethnic Russian workers settled in Tallinn and Narva during the period of rapid industrial development in the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century. After the First World War, the share of ethnic Russians in the population of independent Estonia was about 10%, of which about half were indigenous Russians living in the areas in and around Pechory and Izborsk which were added to Estonian territory according to the 1920 Estonian-Soviet Peace Treaty of Tartu, but were transferred to the Russian SFSR by the Soviet authorities in 1945.
In the aftermath of World War I, Estonia became an independent republic where the Russians among other ethnic minorities established Cultural Self-Governments according to the 1925 Estonian Law on Cultural Autonomy.
After the Soviet Occupation and annexation of Estonia in 1940 Soviet repression of Russian activists in Estonia followed: Sergei Zarkevich, an activist of Russian organizations in Estonia, The owner of a book store "Russian Book": arrest order issued by NKVD on June 23, 1940, executed on March 25, 1941. Oleg Vasilovski, a former General in the Russian Imperial Army. Arrest order issued by NKVD on July 1, 1940. Further fate unknown. Sergei Klenski, one of the former leaders of the Russian Peasants Labor Party. Arrested on July 22. On November 19, 1940, sentenced to 8 years in a prison camp. Further fate unknown. Mikhail Aleksandrov, Arseni Zhitkov.[15] Other ethnic Russians in Estonia arrested and executed by different Soviet War Tribunals in 1940–1941. Ivan Salnikov, Pavel Mironov, Mihhail Arhipov, Vassili Belugin, Vladimir Strekoytov, Vasili Zhilin, Vladimir Utekhin, Sergei Samennikov, Ivan Meitsev, Ivan Yeremeyev, Konstatin Bushuyev, Yegor Andreyev, Nikolai Sausailov, Aleksandr Serpukhov, Konstatin Nosov, Aleksandr Nekrasov, Nikolai Vasilev-Muroman, Aleksei Sinelshikov, Pyotr Molonenkov, Grigory Varlamov, Stepan Pylnikov, Ivan Lishayev, Pavel Belousev, Nikolai Gusev, Leonid Sakharov, Aleksander Chuganov, Fyodor Dobrovidov, Lev Dobek, Andrei Leontev, Ivan Sokolov, Ivan Svetlov, Vladimir Semenov, Valentin Semenov-Vasilev, Vasili Kamelkov, Georgi Lokhov, Aleksei Forlov, Ivan Ivanov, Vasili Karamsin, Aleksandr Krasilnikov, Aleksandr Zhukov, etc. Full list at:[16]
In 1939 ethnic Russians comprised 8% of the population. Most of the present-day Russians in Estonia are migrants from the Soviet era and their descendants. Following the terms of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1940. Soviet authorities carried out repressions against many prominent ethnic Russians activists in Estonia and Russian White emigres[17]. . Many Russians in Estonia were arrested and executed by different Soviet War Tribunals in 1940–1941.[18] After Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, the three countries quickly fell under German control. Many Russians, especially Communist party members who had arrived in the area with the initial annexation, retreated to Russia; those who fell into German hands were treated harshly, many were executed.
After the war, Stalin initiated population transfer in the Soviet Union. Various Soviet ethnic groups that were relocated to Baltic states were mostly working class who settled in major urban areas, as well as military personnel stationed in the region in significant numbers due to the border location of the Baltic States within the Soviet Union. Many military retirees chose to stay in the region, which featured higher living standards compared to other parts of Soviet Union. By the 1980s, ethnic Russians made up a third of the population in Estonia.
During the Singing Revolution a large fraction of Russian-speaking Soviet immigrants who were organised in Intermovement actively opposed Estonia regaining its independence.
One of the most notable Russians who has lived in Estonia has been Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. After the KGB had confiscated some of his materials in Moscow, during 1965–1967 the preparatory drafts of The Gulag Archipelago were turned into finished typescript while hiding in an Estonian farmhouse near Tartu. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had shared a cell in the KGB Lubyanka Prison with Arnold Susi, a lawyer and former minister of Education of Estonia. Solzhenitsyn completed The Gulag Archipelago at the Susi's family home. After completion the original Solzhenitsyn's handwritten script was kept hidden from KGB in Estonia until 1998 by Arnold Susi's daughter Heli Susi.[19][20]
In Estonia, most Russians live in Tallinn and the major northeastern cities of Narva and Kohtla-Järve. The rural areas are populated almost entirely by ethnic Estonians, except for some areas in eastern Estonia near Lake Peipus which have a long history of settlement by Russians, including the Old Believers' communities.
After regaining independence in 1991 the restored Republic of Estonia recognised citizenship of everybody who was a citizen prior to the Soviet occupation of 1940 or descended from such a citizen (including the long-term Russian settlers from earlier influxes, such as those around Mustvee near Lake Peipus), but did not grant any new citizenships automatically. This affected people who had arrived in the country after 1940, the majority of whom were ethnic Russians. Knowledge of Estonian language and history were set as conditions for naturalization.[21] The government offers free preparation courses for the examination on the Constitution and the Citizenship Act and reimburses up to EEK 6,000 (approximately 380 euros) for language studies.[22]
Under Estonian law, residents without citizenship may not vote in elections of Riigikogu (the national parliament) or European Parliament elections, but are eligible to vote in local (municipal) elections.[6]
The perceived difficulty of the initial language tests necessary for naturalisation became a point of international contention, as the government of Russian Federation and a number of human rights organizations objected on the grounds that they made it hard for many Russians who had not learned Estonian to gain Estonian citizenship in the short term. As a result, the tests were somewhat altered and the number of stateless persons has steadily decreased. According to Estonian officials, in 1992, 32% of residents lacked any form of citizenship. In May 2009, the Population Registry of the Estonian Ministry of the Interior reported that 7.6% of Estonia's residents have undefined citizenship and 8.4% have foreign citizenship[23].
Russia being a successor state to the Soviet Union, all former USSR citizens qualified for natural-born citizenship of Russian Federation, available upon mere request, as provided by the law “On the RSFSR Citizenship” in force up to end of 2000.[24]
A number of Russian activists continue to allege job, salary and housing discrimination on account of Estonian-language requirements. Russian government officials and parliamentarians echo these charges in a variety of forums. Such claims have become more frequent during times of political disagreements between Russia and these countries and waned when the disagreements have been resolved.[25][26][27][28][29] Both the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) mission in Estonia and the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities have declared that they cannot find a pattern of human rights violations or abuses in Estonia.[30]
Noteworthy modern Russians who at some point lived in Estonia include:
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   | Mustvee - Maps, Weather, and Airports for Mustvee, Estonia |
| | An excess of conscience - Estonia is right and Amnesty is wrong - Edward Lucas: Estonia and Amnesty |
| | The Russian Diaspora in Latvia and Estonia: Predicting Language Outcomes - Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development |
| | A short overview of the history of Tartu - Visittartu.com - Tourist Information Tartu and Tartu County |
| | Miljan, Toivo. Historical Dictionary of Estonia - Historical dictionary of Estonia - Google Books |
| | Historical background of Orthodoxy in Estonia - Historical background of Orthodoxy in Estonia |
| | Pühtitsa (Pyhtitsa) Dormition Convent - Pühtitsa Dormition Convent |
| | An excess of conscience - Estonia is right and Amnesty is wrong - Europe.view | An excess of conscience | Economist.com |
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