Legal Restorationism and the Estonian Diplomacy of Survival, 1980-1994

• In Event: Post-Communist Statecraft

Abstract

After a successful independence campaign, Estonia entered a difficult period of state-building, clouded by difficulties in relations with Russia and criticism from the West. Why Estonia, along with Latvia, chose a nationalizing state-building strategy despite the problems it created internationally has interested scholars ever since. While some pointed to the revival of extreme nationalist ideas of the 1930s (Lieven 1993), others referred to the othering of the Russian minority and the Soviet past as pillar of identity (Mole 2013). This paper (based on a book manuscript) agrees with Pettai (2004) who argues that the problem was not as much in nationalism as in Legal Restorationism, which envisioned the re-establishment of the states according to legal continuity.
However, I argue that Restorationism was not rooted in domestic politics but in international politics. Restorationism became the dominant paradigm not because of its social appeal but for its value in what I call the Estonian “diplomacy of survival”. The non-recognition of Soviet annexation had been the trump card for Baltic diaspora activists throughout the Cold War. Baltic dissidents had learned to highlight the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The idea was picked up by the national movements, leading to the first major diplomatic triumph – the condemnation of the MRP by Russia in 1989. As the Estonian national movement thought it was engaged in an existential struggle to stave off demographic collapse and imperial domination, Restorationism promised the cleanest break with the past. As the Battle of Assamalla showed, Western criticism could delay but not prevent Estonia’s “return to Europe” but a willingness to compromise was also important.

Short Bio

Kaarel Piirimäe (PhD University of Cambridge 2009) is an Associate Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Tartu and researcher at the University of Helsinki. He specializes in the international history of the Baltic states. He is the author of "Roosevelt, Churchill and the Baltic Question: Allied Relations during the Second World War" and many edited volumes, chapters and articles about the history of the Baltic states.

Author

• Kaarel Piirimäe, University of Tartu