History of Estonia

Human settlement in what is now Estonia became possible 13,000,000–11,000,000 years ago, after the ice from the last glacial era had melted, and signs of the first permanent population in the region date from around 9000 BC.

[8] However, such a linking of archaeologically defined cultural entities with linguistic ones cannot be proven, and it has been suggested that the increase of settlement finds in the period is more likely to have been associated with an economic boom related to the warming of climate.

[9] The burial customs of the comb pottery people included additions of figures of animals, birds, snakes and men carved from bone and amber.

By the 13th century the following major counties had developed in Estonia: Saaremaa (Osilia), Läänemaa (Rotalia or Maritima), Harjumaa (Harria), Rävala (Revalia), Virumaa (Vironia), Järvamaa (Jervia), Sakala (Saccala), and Ugandi (Ugaunia).

[19] Varbola Stronghold was one of the largest circular rampart fortresses and trading centers built in Estonia, Harju County (Latin: Harria) at the time.

In 1217 the German crusading order the Sword Brethren and their recently converted allies won a major battle in which the Estonian commander Lembitu was killed.

[23] Despite the rebellions, and Muscovite invasions in 1481 and 1558, the Middle Low German-speaking minority established themselves as the dominating force in the society of Estonia, both as traders and the urban middle-class in the cities, and as landowners in the countryside, through a network of manorial estates.

Pews and seats were installed for the common people to make listening to the sermon less of a burden, and altars often featured depictions of the Last Supper, but images and statues of the saints had disappeared.

Compared to the Harrien-Wierland gentry, the Reval city council, and hence probably the majority of citizens, demonstrated a much more reserved attitude towards Denmark and King Magnus of Livonia.

Having rejected peace proposals from its enemies, Ivan the Terrible found himself in a difficult position by 1578, when the Crimean Khanate devastated southern Muscovian territories and burnt down suburb(posad) of Moscow (see Russo-Crimean Wars), the drought and epidemics had fatally affected the economy, the policy of oprichnina had thoroughly disrupted the government, while the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had united with the Kingdom of Poland and acquired an energetic leader, Stefan Batory, supported by the Ottoman Empire (1576).

After Magnus von Lyffland died in 1583, Poland invaded his territories in the Duchy of Courland and Frederick II decided to sell his rights of inheritance.

The Duchy of Estonia placed itself under Swedish rule in 1561 to receive protection against Russia and Poland as the Livonian Order lost their foothold in the Baltic provinces.

Nonetheless, the legal system, Lutheran church, local and town governments, secondary and higher education continued mostly in German language until the late 19th century and partially until 1918.

Under the imperial Russian rule, from the 1720s to the First World War, in Estonia the local Baltic German minority continued to own most of the land and businesses, and dominated in all cities.

[28] By 1819, the Baltic provinces were the first in the Russian empire in which serfdom was abolished, enabling an increasing number of farmers to rent or purchase land, as well as triggering a wave of internal migration of landless rural Estonians into the growing cities.

The general population, as well as the students and faculty of the multicultural University of Tartu, were largely uninterested in the Russification programmes introduced by the imperial Russian central government in the 1890s.

Elections for a provisional parliament, Maapäev, was organized, with the Menshevik and Bolshevik factions of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party obtaining a part of the vote.

However, the Vaps Movement was thwarted by a pre-emptive self-coup on 12 March 1934, by then Head of State Konstantin Päts, who established his own authoritarian rule until a new constitution came to force in 1938.

[35] Moscow demanded Estonia assent to an agreement which allowed the USSR to establish military bases and station 25,000 troops on Estonian soil for the duration of the European war.

The military occupation of the Republic of Estonia was rendered official by a communist coup d'état supported by the Soviet troops,[45] followed by parliamentary elections where all but pro-Communist candidates were outlawed.

[50] After Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, and the Wehrmacht reached Estonia in July 1941, most Estonians greeted the Germans with relatively open arms and hoped to restore independence.

As the Germans started to retreat on 18 September 1944, Jüri Uluots, the last Prime Minister of the Estonian Republic prior to Soviet occupation, assumed the responsibilities of president (as dictated in the Constitution) and appointed a new government while seeking recognition from the Allies.

This electronic "window to the West" afforded Estonians more information on current world affairs and more access to contemporary Western culture and thought than any other group in the Soviet Union.

Tallinn was selected to host the sailing events at the 1980 Summer Olympics, which led to controversy[59] since many governments had not de jure recognized ESSR as part of the USSR.

Despite the emergence of the Popular Front and the Supreme Soviet as a new lawmaking body, since 1989 the different segments of the indigenous Estonian population had been politically mobilized by different and competing actors.

Their emphasis was on the illegal nature of the Soviet system and that hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of Estonia had not ceased to be citizens of the Estonian Republic which still existed de jure, recognized by the majority of Western nations.

Despite the hostility of the mainstream official press and intimidation by Soviet Estonian authorities, dozens of local citizens' committees were elected by popular initiative all over the country.

The Popular Front coalition, composed of left and centrist parties and led by former Central Planning Committee official Edgar Savisaar, gained a parliamentary majority.

Through a strict, non-confrontational policy in pursuing independence, Estonia managed to avoid the violence which Latvia and Lithuania incurred in the bloody January 1991 crackdowns and in the border customs-post guard murders that summer.

[81] On 4 April 2005, President Rüütel nominated Reform party leader Andrus Ansip as Prime Minister designate and asked him to form a new government, the eighth in twelve years.