New society – new identity

The rapid evolution of the Estonian statehood and abrupt social changes have by the outset of the 21st century created a sense of crisis. This past century has accommodated so many endings and beginnings that the slogan of the early 20th century Young Estonia movement, “let us remain Estonians, but let us also become Europeans” has now, on the threshold of the 21st century, turned into a source of scepticism and apprehension – despite the hopes voiced by Kaarel Robert Pusta in 1926: “The happiness of our fledgling freedom would be perfect, if Europe became one big democratic union, if the Estonian citizen’s passport were simultaneously a passport of a European citizen, which entitles the holder to counsel, assistance and protection in any place on the European continent.” One of the prime reasons for insecurity is the controversial nature of the continuity of Estonian patriotism. On one hand, we are speaking of continuity supported in homeland and in exile alike. On the other hand, we are speaking of disruption, of a nation that has experienced numerous occupations and liberations, a nation whose story does not quite fit into the big history of Europe. On the threshold of another new beginning, Estonians are afraid of losing not just their national currency, but also their history and thus their national identity. And the reasons for these fears lie outside Estonia as well as in Estonia itself.
Reflections
Strangely enough, the same issues were discussed with prescience ninety years before the greatest beginning of all, the birth of the Republic of Estonia. Set against the backdrop of the First World War, the articles in the 1915 almanac Sirvilauad. Eesti rahva tähtraamat voiced hope for a new national awakening, but also exposed the concomitant fears. Hans Kruus providently wrote in his article “Nations without history in Russia” about the difficulties of preserving the national identity: “A war is always a temporary, short-lived phenomenon. The fight of “nations without history” against national ravage, on the other hand, is permanent, endless, a so-called “chronic war”.” Providence was also exercised by Villem Ernits, who in his article “War, national question and national cultural aspirations” pointed at the need to respect the concepts that stand for important things: “The meanings of the terms “nationalism” and “nationalist” should not be allowed to degenerate, get stale, but should be kept high, free of all vilification attempts. Let us better seek new, more appropriate names for the bastard forms of nationalism!”
Similarly, the principles that were defined in Estonia before the next beginning – the occupation – appear as if tailored to the present day. In 1937 Eduard Laaman wrote in the Looming journal about the interrelationship between national/ethnic and state/public: “We must not confuse the ethnic culture with commonplace patriotism. Patriotism cherishes the same phenomena that are held in high esteem in any other nation, aspiring to similarity or even superiority to the others on the same matters. It measures itself with alien measuring sticks. Ethnic culture, however, appreciates things that are not appreciated by the others. It has its own measuring stick. Culture is, essentially, superiority. It has no need for outlandish measures.” A little earlier, in 1935, Harri Moora had answered the Tudengileht questionnaire “Of our modern culture” like this: “At last people begin to understand that the past matter in its raw shape has nothing to contribute to our contemporary culture; archive and museum do not let themselves be transferred to the ethnic culture. The idea of the work conducted in these spheres is to digest the past for the purposes of the present.” Such cultural coherence cannot be achieved without the help of experts. And the institution to produce these people is a university with well-balanced “academic, pedagogical and social functions”, as Oskar Loorits put it. In 1938 Loorits wrote that “to create a new society we inevitably need to breed new people. We need to cultivate a new mentality, cultivate and inculcate this mentality as a holy conviction, not just relying on formal propaganda and enforcement, which is still common practice. And what penchant do we have in our personality development at the time when the world is inclined to rear so many functionaries and “cells” in place of an individual?”
In the early years of the Republic of Estonia, Gustav Laurentius in a booklet published in Rakvere and entitled Individualism, nationality and statehood (1923), lamented the drab similitude of the intellectuals at the helm of the state: “The problem is that our intellectuals are like peas in a pod, products of the old Russian school. They stick together because of their identical upbringing, but are too trite, with too few ideas and ideals, and they demonstrate hardly any degree of originality or Estonian initiative.” A few years prior to the occupation, Rein Eliaser Jr. wrote in the Akadeemia journal (1937) about two groups of intellectuals – the intellectual upstarts and intellectual aristocrats –, dragging down the former and putting the latter on a pedestal: “The most important characteristic of the mentality of intellectual aristocracy is that its representatives never tackle or attempt to solve any problems until they have reached sufficient level of maturity to be able to do that. From the viewpoint of this mentality, it is especially wrong to prematurely address said issues in any sphere where the public is concerned.” In contemporary Estonia, post-Soviet conservatism[PT1] and infantilism are likewise the two acutest problems.
These random quotations prove that we can in principle reflect all our contemporary problems on the past. It certainly makes sense to collect and analyse these reflections. And maybe reassemble them into various new reflections to teach us a lesson here and now. The existing texts can be combined into stories about the Estonian independence, its loss and recovery. All these stories make up the history of our independence, upon which the story about the Estonian identity is built.
Identities
Even though history offers plenty of opportunities for creating stories about the Estonian identity, the Republic of Estonia is sadly lacking a relevant concept. It is either due to the conservatives’ reluctance to remind themselves of the past, or the infantile politics’ inability to appreciate history. It may also be that the idea of turning to the past for support has been compromised by idealists rushing to exploit history, and by the tendentious attempts to fill in the blank spots in the recent and more distant past. As an official story, Estonia’s idea of identity collides with the self-suggested urge to adapt to the European idea of history and refuse to acknowledge certain events that have transpired, thus disowning some of the forebears of modern-day Estonians. As a national concept, the discourse of identity must seek support in the global opportunities and trends for want of an original academic and political treatment combining the local relationships and the possible manifestations of identity. Indeed it seems easiest to adopt the concept of multi-cultural identity complete with pluralism and cosmopolitanism, and separatism as the polar opposites – albeit forgetting that the centre of gravity is contained in the ethically and legally motivated concept of political correctness linking the two poles. The non-existence of the concept of identity blurs the lines between integration and assimilation, social and ethnical identities. It is, however, the perception of these boundaries that investments into education, social sphere and economy, and into sustaining the coherence of society depend upon. For example, a crucial role in assimilation efforts is played by investments into teaching Estonian to non-natives and into the unification of school education. Supporting integration processes would eventually prove more resource-consuming, requiring multi-lingual identity education, i.e. domestic “Welcome to Estonia” type projects in various languages, mediation of the Estonian culture and history, the Estonia-centred advancement of non-Estonian media, etc. And the requirement to master the official language thrown in for good measure. The former approach would at least guarantee limited bilingualism, while the latter would aim at functional diglossia, maintaining the prestige of the mother tongue. Several researchers in bilingualism perceive limited bilingualism as a hazard to the communication environment, adversely affecting the language usage of all communicating parties in terms of vocabulary, and putting the linguistic instinct of mother tongue speakers in jeopardy.
Estonia has an ambition to become a modern nation state. In the days of the Congress of Estonia, one part of ethnic identity, perhaps best defined as ethnicity, acquired particular importance. It was the moment when formal ethnicity, i.e. the parents’ nationality and birthplace secured an individual the status of a citizen of a nation state. However, during this period of social rebirth there were others in need of a new identity to replace the political one. The affective component of ethnic identity, i.e. the sense of belonging to one’s own ethnic group, the cognitive component, i.e. awareness of the group’s characteristics and the sense of participation, and the mythological component, i.e. familiarity with stories and symbols, make up a composite identity, which can theoretically be adopted by an individual hailing from a different ethnic background. In reality, however, the interrelationship of the social and ethnic identities went unspecified. While in theory, ethnicity is potentially a part of ethnic identity which, in turn, is part of the social, or civic identity, in Estonia these interrelationships remained largely unregulated in the formal sense, i.e. there never came to be a formally declared identity built upon these interrelationships. In the context of the new European identity, the focus shifts to an analysis of the present state of affairs, aimed at specifying the nature and role of ethnic awareness, ethnic self-definition, negative ethnic identity, and the transformed, or pseudo-identity under Estonia’s circumstances.
Identity is nothing unchangeable or monolithic. The modern concept of identity postulates that an individual or a group may have several identities on various levels, in which case we should speak about bilateral or trilateral identity, or simply about individual or collective identity. Identity is, among others, also a spatial concept, with social significance attached to the spaces where identities are created or constructed.
Spaces
Israel, for all its ancient history, did not achieve a distinct political identity until the 20th century. To this day the region suffers from tensions pertaining to the living space. Apart from the physical space there is also the mental space – this is what Rafi Israeli, then senior lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, wrote in 1989 about the search for a new identity for the Israeli Arabs. During the first years of statehood, Israeli Arabs predominantly adopted the Israeli identity, while after 1967, especially with the rise of the PLO, the Arabs in Israel discovered the Palestinian identity. With the expansion of the battlefield, the Arabian identity became an option, evolving into the Islamic identity during the Islamic revival. At the same time there were 100,000 Christians among the Israeli Arab population, who were happy to put some distance between themselves and the Islamic revolution. The author maintains that the Israeli component of Arab identity has been greatly reduced as a result of these developments in the Arab community and the shifting of the mental frontiers, and in a bid to relieve the tensions within the community and the state, it would be correct to speak about the new identity of Arabs as a national minority. Hence the importance of the way identity is being declared.
The equal role played by the physical and mental spaces gains particular prominence in the context of forced migration. Displaced Karelians and Estonian repatriants back in their homeland from Siberia have not led pampered lives in Finland’s upcountry and Estonia respectively. As a cooperative effort, the Russian Red Cross and the Moscow University publish materials pertaining to the victims of forced migration, analysing their fate in general and the psychological assistance they receive. One of these surveys dating from 2001 describes the Chechen refugees in Russia’s Rostov region, a group including ethnic Chechens as well as ethnic Russians. It appears that the Chechens who were forced to flee their homes adapt more easily, mostly because of the tendency to stick together and rapidly establish contacts with the local compatriots ready to lend a helping hand. The ethnic Russians returning to their homeland, however, often remain in isolation even after settling their residence and job problems. They sense a difference between themselves and the local Russians in terms of language usage, gestures, habits, which makes them feel like strangers. Thus the mental limits or the impact of acculturation on the individual identity should not be underestimated.
Any forcible interference with how identity is shaped may lead to the actualisation of unexpected forms of identity, with destructive or at least conflicting results, which the events that took place in the Balkan Peninsula and are now taking place in Iraq are typical examples of. These two examples demonstrate the importance of the human geographical aspect in identity policies. From the human geographical perspective, the events in the Balkan Peninsula or the Middle East can be perceived as a topomorphic revolution, or a dramatic transformation of the traditional locational relationship all the way to a total annihilation of the location, or “topoclasm”. Ruins and other signs of social trauma will be there for a long time, obstructing the restoration or shifting of the mental limits. From the perspective of identity, of course, the reverse process has an equally great significance. If the renewal of society in time is backed by the reorganisation of space, we can speak about topotherapy, the healing impact on identity of the new spatial relations, the expansion of the space of identity into those parts of society that have become ghettos in terms of space and are reflecting the traumatic past. The planning of space in Tallinn’s Lasnamäe district or the cities of North-eastern Estonia is without doubt an identity policy problem of some magnitude.
Times
Beside the space of identity, time plays a role no less important. Changes in the identity space prompt a treatment of time where tolerance is exercised. Like in the above example, where the Israeli Independence Day is for Arabs a day of mourning, which they liken to the Holocaust, holidays are celebrated differently in Estonia. The said situation on one hand generates the need for accepting different memory systems, showing tolerance for widely diverging historical experiences, yet it also generates the need to manipulate memory. In the context of memory manipulations and understanding of identity mechanisms, Paul Ricoeur has employed the concepts of excess memory and memory deficit, the former denoting misuse of memory, and the latter standing for misuse of forgetfulness. Memory is without doubt a concept crucial for identity, and on the social level, the evolution of mnemo-techniques, primarily assisted by education and the media, as well as the interrelationship of the co-existing processes of remembrance and recollection, play a significant role.
Remembrance and recollection are indeed the processes that have prompted this discussion pertaining to the new identity of a new society. The Republic of Estonia was restored quite some time ago. This story of restoration, however, is not something that is readily agreed upon. Participants remember different facts, and for different reasons people are urged to remind others of details that have been long forgotten. Slightly exaggerating, the situation is reminiscent of the story of how the Second World War was won by Colonel Brezhnev at the Little Land bridgehead. Such almost absurd descriptions are part of a culture’s self-portrayal. The ways of self-description make up the foundation for the social mnemo-technique, and such self-portrayal acquires particular significance for any society at the moments perceived as revolutionary. The restoration of the Republic of Estonia was a revolutionary moment, a cultural explosion, using Yuri Lotman’s terminology. An explosion creates the so-called explosion space, in which particles move on trajectories close to one another, so we can speak about their similarity, or, translocating this imagery into reality, about mutual understanding and harmony. These particles, however, keep moving further and further apart from each other, thus aggravating the differences, or, metaphorically speaking, disagreements. This, however, is merely the pictorial aspect of the explosion concept.
Lotman stresses that after the instant of explosion, i.e. the moment when all options still exist together and it is impossible to prognosticate any further developments, arrives the moment when the explosion exhausts itself. In case the explosion resulted in innovation, new society, the description of the explosion at the moment of exhaustion becomes particularly important from the perspective of this society’s identity. If the moment of exhaustion is not accompanied by the act of self-description by the respective culture or society, by an interpretation and synthesis of what happened, innovation may disperse and become an object of tendentious manipulations. Or it may fall into oblivion altogether. Thus the difficulties in shaping the identity of the new society, i.e. the restored Republic of Estonia, stem from the recent past – the lack of a homogeneous treatment of the period of perestroika and the singing revolution. The confusion in understanding the Nineties was immediately reflected on the controversial interpretation of the events of 1944. Both these periods suffer from the uncertainty of memory. We have to count on massive ethical, political and professional efforts for the new society to adopt a new identity, which would be supported by Estonia’s continuity and national self-esteem, and would simultaneously exhibit tolerance and openness to the world. The story of Estonia’s identity can evolve through the inclusion of the past into the idea of the future, as this is the only way that the historical narrative, as Richard Kearney has put it, can fulfil its task – to be the memory and hope.