Estonian national awakening

[1] Although Estonian national consciousness spread in the course of the 19th century,[2] some degree of ethnic awareness in the literate middle class preceded this development.

By the end of the 18th century more than half of the country's rural adult male population was able to read, and the literacy rate in urban areas was already significantly higher.

According to the 1897 census, the Estonians had the second highest literacy rate in the Russian Empire after the Finns in the Grand Duchy of Finland (96.1% of the Estonian-speaking population of the Baltic Provinces 10 years and older, roughly equally for males and females).

[3] In response to a period of Russification initiated by the Russian empire in the 1880s, Estonian nationalism took on even more political tones, with intellectuals calling for greater autonomy.

As the Russian Revolution of 1905 swept through Estonia, the Estonians called for freedom of the press and assembly, for universal franchise, and for national autonomy.