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120-737: The Bronze Night ( Estonian : pronksiöö ), also known as the April Unrest ( aprillirahutused ) and April Events ( aprillisündmused ), was a number of riots in Estonia surrounding the controversial 2007 relocation of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn , a Soviet World War II memorial in Tallinn . Many ethnic Estonians considered the Bronze Soldier in the city centre a symbol of Soviet occupation and repression. At

240-411: A wreath (a common symbol of remembrance of the dead in both Estonian and Northern Russian cultures) in front of the bronze soldier. The delegation members also closely examined the figure and claimed that it had been cut in pieces and reassembled. The Ministry of Defence denied those claims. "The lines on the statue are because of bronze casting technology and from the time the statue was created," said

360-521: A "dual pricing" system leading to the steady phasing out of state-dictated prices. Greater latitude was given to managers of state-owned factories, while capital was made available to them through a reformed banking system and through fiscal policies (in contrast to the fiscal anarchy and fall in revenue experienced by the Soviet government during perestroika ). Perestroika was expected to lead to results such as market pricing and privately sold produce, but

480-455: A broad classical education and knew Ancient Greek , Latin and French . Consider roim 'crime' versus English crime or taunima 'to condemn, disapprove' versus Finnish tuomita 'to condemn, to judge' (these Aavikisms appear in Aavik's 1921 dictionary). These words might be better regarded as a peculiar manifestation of morpho-phonemic adaptation of a foreign lexical item. Article 1 of

600-550: A copy. One effect was the abrupt demand for Russian dictionaries in order to understand the content of Gorbachev's report. In an interview with Mieczyslaw Rakowski he states the success of perestroika was impossible without glasnost . During the 1980s and 1990s the United States President George H. W. Bush pledged solidarity with Gorbachev, but never brought his administration into supporting Gorbachev's reform. In fact, "no bailout for Gorbachev"

720-512: A declaration that day, condemning vandalism and maraudery. A Russian State Duma delegation led by the former FSB Director Nikolay Kovalyov also arrived in Estonia, in what was described as a "fact-finding mission". While still in Russia, the chairman of the delegation had already made a declaration, asking Estonia's government (led by Andrus Ansip ) to step down . Sven Mikser , leader of

840-399: A diplomatic dispute over the Bronze Soldier statue, but it only appeared to have escalated the feud. After the initial developments during the delegation's visit, Foreign Minister Urmas Paet cancelled a meeting with the delegation, issuing a statement saying: "I will not meet with a delegation that spreads only lies regarding events in Estonia and whose objective is not the accurate portrayal of

960-460: A few towns of North East Estonia (mainly Jõhvi ) with a Russian majority, were also reported. Estonian sources attributed the disruptions to youths consuming stolen alcohol. In all, some 1000 people were detained in two nights of rioting. 156 were injured, including some two dozen police officers, and numerous stores, offices and homes were damaged. As there had been too many arrests for the normal pre-trial detention centers, many suspects were taken to

1080-783: A formation of the Finnish volunteers under Estonian command, almost all war graves in Estonia not covered by mutual treaties or earlier domestic laws are those of the Red Army . Another effect of the law was that it placed all war graves under the jurisdiction of the Estonian Ministry of Defence . Tõnismägi being city land, municipal cooperation would have been necessary for exhumation and/or monument removal without such legislation. As non-citizen residents can vote in Estonian municipal elections and were largely in support of retaining

1200-564: A fourth, Master Sergeant Stepan Hapikalo, are pending arrival of his relatives, currently living in Ukraine, to Estonia for DNA analysis. The eight bodies so far unclaimed were reburied next to the new location of the monument on that day. On July 4, 2007, remains of Yelena Varshavskaya were reburied at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem in the world's oldest Jewish cemetery. The reburial

1320-873: A hastily set up holding area in the Terminal D of the Tallinn Seaport. Calm was restored throughout the day and night of April 28 without further major incidents, but police launched a campaign to take on "police assistance" volunteers, and by Sunday evening more than 700 persons had signed up and started training. On April 28 a declaration by a self-named Army of Russian Resistance Kolyvan started circulating in Russian language Internet forums. The declaration called for "all Russian men living in Estonia" to take up arms. It demanded that Estonian citizenship be granted to all Estonian residents by May 3, threatening to start an armed resistance on May 9. At this time, it

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1440-444: A little; over 100 people had been arrested. At about 2:30 a.m., reports came in that mass riots had ended and now the police were only looking for fugitives. The last of the violent protesters were apparently taken away by a large passenger bus. By morning 300 people had been arrested. 57 people were injured, including 14 police officers. Dmitry Ganin (a permanent resident of Estonia who had Russian citizenship) died in hospital from

1560-424: A nearby location on the cemetery. An ecumenical religious ceremony (prayer for the dead) was held on April 28 before commencing the exhumation, by two chaplains, a Lutheran and an Orthodox. The Russian ambassador, having been invited to monitor the exhumation, or appoint an observer, officially declined the invitation. Estonia's authorities report that the violence started around 9:20 p.m. ( EEST , UTC +3), as

1680-531: A part in the difficulty of controlling the pace of restructuring, especially once the new Russian Communist Party was formed and posed a challenge to the primacy of the CPSU . Gorbachev described this process as a " parade of sovereignties " and identified it as the factor that most undermined the gradualism of restructuring and the preservation of the Soviet Union. One of the final important measures taken on

1800-445: A potentially large domestic market. The foreign partner supplied capital, technology, entrepreneurial expertise, and in many cases, products and services of world competitive quality. Gorbachev's economic changes did not do much to restart the country's sluggish economy in the late 1980s. The reforms decentralized things to some extent, although price controls remained, as did the ruble's inconvertibility and most government controls over

1920-464: A presidential veto under Estonian constitution). A veto override was never attempted and this bill did not become law. The idea of relocation was opposed by a plurality among inhabitants of Estonia. According to an opinion poll ordered by Eesti Päevaleht and performed by Turu-uuringute AS from April 5 through April 22, 2007, 37% of respondents supported relocation of the monument, while 49% were against relocation and 14% had not formed any opinion on

2040-494: A sensible thing to do—easing Russia's difficult transition from totalitarianism to democracy. What I had in mind in the first place, was the participation [of the West] in conversion of defense industries, the modernization of light and food industries, and Russia's inclusion on an equal-member footing in the frameworks of the international economic relations... [U]nlike some democrats, I did not expect "manna from Heaven," but counted on

2160-650: A significant shift from the previous principles of the Soviet foreign politics . This marked the end of the Cold War . Gorbachev had concluded that implementing his reforms outlined at the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in February 1986 required more than discrediting the " Old Guard ", those with a Marxist-Leninist political orientation. He changed his strategy from trying to work through

2280-416: A stab wound. Estonian press alleged that wounds were likely inflicted by a vandal. As per September 2007, 13 mostly Estonian-speaking persons had been arrested by Estonian police on suspicion of beating but not stabbing of Dmitri Ganin; all had been subsequently released pending the end of the investigation. As of September 4, 2007, no charges had been laid. According to police report, goods stolen from some of

2400-771: A total military blockade on Estonia was given to the Soviet Baltic Fleet . On June 16, 1940, the Soviet Union invaded Estonia. The Soviet Union occupied and subsequently annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as Soviet republics in 1940. After the German occupation of 1941–1944, Soviet forces reconquered Estonia in the autumn of 1944 and Estonia remained a part of the USSR until 1991. During this era , Soviet authorities removed and obliterated numerous historical Estonian monuments. Cemeteries that were destroyed by

2520-459: Is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the political economy of the Soviet Union, in an attempt to end the Era of Stagnation . Perestroika allowed more independent actions from various ministries and introduced many market -like reforms. The purported goal of perestroika , however, was not to end the planned economy but rather to make socialism work more efficiently to better meet

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2640-628: Is a bilingual German-Estonian translation of the Lutheran catechism by S.   Wanradt and J.   Koell dating to 1535, during the Protestant Reformation period. An Estonian grammar book to be used by priests was printed in German in 1637. The New Testament was translated into the variety of South Estonian called Võro in 1686 (northern Estonian, 1715). The two languages were united based on Northern Estonian by Anton thor Helle . Writings in Estonian became more significant in

2760-734: Is based on central dialects, it has no vowel harmony either. In the standard language, the front vowels occur exclusively on the first or stressed syllable, although vowel harmony is still apparent in older texts. Typologically, Estonian represents a transitional form from an agglutinating language to a fusional language . The canonical word order is SVO (subject–verb–object), although often debated among linguists. In Estonian, nouns and pronouns do not have grammatical gender , but nouns and adjectives decline in fourteen cases: nominative , genitive , partitive , illative , inessive , elative , allative , adessive , ablative , translative , terminative , essive , abessive , and comitative , with

2880-457: Is extensive, and this has made its inflectional morphology markedly more fusional , especially with respect to noun and adjective inflection. The transitional form from an agglutinating to a fusional language is a common feature of Estonian typologically over the course of history with the development of a rich morphological system. Word order is considerably more flexible than in English, but

3000-623: Is not clear whether this group is the one described by the KavkazCenter report (see above) or is a copycat inspired by it. No major incidents were reported, but some drivers tried to block the traffic in the center of Tallinn by intentionally driving at a slow speed and excessively using their car horns. The Union of the Peoples of Estonia ( Eestimaa Rahvuste Ühendus , an association of minority ethnicities living in Estonia) published

3120-569: Is often argued to be a significant cause of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the dissolution of the Soviet Union . With respect to the foreign policy Gorbachev promoted " new political thinking ": de-ideologization of international politics, abandoning the concept of class struggle , priority of universal human interests over the interests of any class, increasing interdependence of the world, and mutual security based on political rather than military instruments. The doctrine constituted

3240-703: Is pronounced [æ], as in English mat . The vowels Ä, Ö and Ü are clearly separate phonemes and inherent in Estonian, although the letter shapes come from German. The letter õ denotes /ɤ/ , unrounded /o/ , or a close-mid back unrounded vowel . It is almost identical to the Bulgarian ъ /ɤ̞/ and the Vietnamese ơ , and is also used to transcribe the Russian ы . Additionally C , Q , W , X , and Y are used in writing foreign proper names . They do not occur in Estonian words , and are not officially part of

3360-492: Is pronounced) and in the use of 'i' and 'j'. Where it is very impractical or impossible to type š and ž , they are replaced by sh and zh in some written texts, although this is considered incorrect. Otherwise, the h in sh represents a voiceless glottal fricative , as in Pasha ( pas-ha ); this also applies to some foreign names. Modern Estonian orthography is based on the "Newer orthography" created by Eduard Ahrens in

3480-485: Is that Soviet Union faced strong secession threats from its ethnic regions and a primacy challenge by the RSFSR . Gorbachev's extension of regional autonomy removed the suppression from existing ethnic-regional tension, while Deng's reforms did not alter the tight grip of the central government on any of their autonomous regions. The Soviet Union's dual nature, part supranational union of republics and part unitary state, played

3600-757: The idamurre or eastern dialect on the northwestern shore of Lake Peipus . One of the pronunciation features of the Saaremaa dialect is the lack of the 'õ' vowel. A five-metre monument erected in 2020, marking the "border" between the vowels 'õ' and 'ö', humorously makes reference to this fact. South Estonian consists of the Tartu, Mulgi, Võro and Seto varieties. These are sometimes considered either variants of South Estonian or separate languages altogether. Also, Seto and Võro distinguish themselves from each other less by language and more by their culture and their respective Christian confession. Estonian employs

3720-497: The Livonian Chronicle of Henry contains Estonian place names, words and fragments of sentences. The earliest extant samples of connected (north) Estonian are the so-called Kullamaa prayers dating from 1524 and 1528. In 1525 the first book published in Estonian was printed. The book was a Lutheran manuscript, which never reached the reader and was destroyed immediately after publication. The first extant Estonian book

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3840-671: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Estonian and English: Perestroika Perestroika ( / ˌ p ɛr ə ˈ s t r ɔɪ k ə / PERR -ə- STROY -kə ; Russian: перестройка , IPA: [pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə] ) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s, widely associated with CPSU general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost (meaning "transparency") policy reform. The literal meaning of perestroika

3960-643: The Baltic Sea and in northwestern Russia. Estonian is typically subclassified as a Southern Finnic language, and it is the second-most-spoken language among all the Finnic languages. Alongside Finnish, Hungarian , and Maltese , Estonian is one of the four official languages of the European Union that are not Indo-European languages . In terms of linguistic morphology , Estonian is a predominantly agglutinative language . The loss of word-final sounds

4080-712: The Germanic languages have very different origins and the vocabulary is considered quite different from that of the Indo-European family, one can identify many similar words in Estonian and English, for example. This is primarily because Estonian has borrowed nearly one-third of its vocabulary from Germanic languages, mainly from Low Saxon ( Middle Low German ) during the period of German rule , and High German (including standard German ). The percentage of Low Saxon and High German loanwords can be estimated at 22–25 percent, with Low Saxon making up about 15 percent. Prior to

4200-686: The Government of Estonia , the European Court of Human Rights , the EU , and the US , Estonia remained occupied by the Soviet Union until restoration of its independence in 1991; the 48 years of Soviet occupation and annexation were never recognized as legal by the Western democracies. According to the European Court of Human Rights , the lawful government of Estonia in 1940 was overthrown and Soviet rule

4320-581: The Latin script as the basis for its alphabet . The script adds the letters ä , ö , ü , and õ , plus the later additions š and ž . The letters c , q , w , x and y are limited to proper names of foreign origin, and f , z , š , and ž appear in loanwords and foreign names only. Ö and Ü are pronounced similarly to their equivalents in Swedish and German. Unlike in standard German but like Swedish (when followed by 'r') and Finnish, Ä

4440-536: The Proto-Finnic language , elision has occurred; thus, the actual case marker may be absent, but the stem is changed, cf. maja – majja and the Ostrobothnia dialect of Finnish maja – majahan . The verbal system has no distinct future tense (the present tense serves here) and features special forms to express an action performed by an undetermined subject (the "impersonal"). Although Estonian and

4560-723: The Riigikogu (the Estonian parliament) passed the War Graves Protection Act, with 66 votes in favour and 6 against, initiated by the Estonian Reform Party , Social Democratic Party, Res Publica Party and Isamaaliit Party. The preamble of the Act states: The Act came into force on January 20, 2007. Estonia has mutual war grave protection treaties with Finland and Germany but not with Russia, giving special status to many war graves in Estonia but not

4680-488: The Soviet Union led to the restoration of the Republic of Estonia 's sovereignty (See History of Estonia: Regaining independence .) The mass deportations of ethnic Estonians during the Soviet era together with migration into Estonia from other parts of the Soviet Union had resulted in the share of ethnic Estonians in the country decreasing from 88% in 1934 to 62% in 1989. (See Demographics of Estonia .) According to

4800-468: The United States needed help with Germany's reunification , Gorbachev proved to be instrumental in bringing solutions to the "German problem" and Bush acknowledged that "Gorbachev was moving the USSR in the right direction". Bush, in his own words, even gave praise to Gorbachev "to salute the man" in acknowledgment of the Soviet leader's role as "the architect of perestroika ... [who had] conducted

4920-455: The political mandate received from the previous elections (held in March 2007). Disagreement over the appropriateness of the action led to mass protests and riots (accompanied by looting ), lasting for two nights, the worst in Estonia since the Soviet reoccupation in 1944. During the riots, one ethnic Russian protestor was fatally stabbed. In the early morning hours of April 27, 2007, after

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5040-462: The " near abroad ". Integration efforts in everyday life of Estonia have mainly revolved around two issues: citizenship and language . Some Russian associations, media, religious leaders and officials, as well as Amnesty International , accuse Estonia of human rights violations . After the restoration of Estonian independence in 1991, a public controversy surrounded the memorial and grew into direct confrontation about 2006–2007. The eternal flame

5160-486: The "ideas" of late Lenin . A group of true, not imaginary reformers developed (of course, orally) the following plan: to strike with the authority of Lenin at Stalin , at Stalinism . And then, if successful, – to strike with Plekhanov and Social Democracy – at Lenin, and then – with liberalism and "moral socialism" – at revolutionarism in general... The Soviet totalitarian regime could be destroyed only through glasnost and totalitarian party discipline, while hiding behind

5280-485: The 1870s to the 1890s) tried to use formation ex nihilo ( Urschöpfung ); i.e. they created new words out of nothing. The most well-known reformer of Estonian, Johannes Aavik (1880–1973), used creations ex nihilo (cf. 'free constructions', Tauli 1977), along with other sources of lexical enrichment such as derivations, compositions and loanwords (often from Finnish; cf. Saareste and Raun 1965: 76). In Aavik's dictionary (1921) lists approximately 4000 words. About 40 of

5400-553: The 18th and 19th centuries based on the dialects of northern Estonia. During the Medieval and Early Modern periods, Estonian accepted many loanwords from Germanic languages , mainly from Middle Low German (Middle Saxon) and, after the 16th-century Protestant Reformation , from the Standard German language. Estonia's oldest written records of the Finnic languages date from the 13th century. The "Originates Livoniae" in

5520-926: The 1930s. There are 9 vowels and 36 diphthongs , 28 of which are native to Estonian. All nine vowels can appear as the first component of a diphthong, but only /ɑ e i o u/ occur as the second component. A vowel characteristic of Estonian is the unrounded back vowel /ɤ/, which may be close-mid back , close back , or close-mid central . Word-initial b, d, g occur only in loanwords and some old loanwords are spelled with p, t, k instead of etymological b, d, g : pank 'bank'. Word-medially and word-finally, b, d, g represent short plosives /p, t, k/ (may be pronounced as partially voiced consonants), p, t, k represent half-long plosives /pː, tː, kː/, and pp, tt, kk represent overlong plosives /pːː, tːː, kːː/; for example: kabi /kɑpi/ 'hoof' — kapi /kɑpːi/ 'wardrobe [ gen sg ] — kappi /kɑpːːi/ 'wardrobe [ ptv sg ]'. Before and after b, p, d, t, g, k, s, h, f, š, z, ž ,

5640-600: The 1990s. Gorbachev's reforms were gradualist and maintained many of the macroeconomic aspects of the planned economy (including price controls, inconvertibility of the ruble, exclusion of private property ownership, and the government monopoly over most means of production). Reform was largely focused on industry and on cooperatives, and a limited role was given to the development of foreign investment and international trade. Factory managers were expected to meet state demands for goods, but to find their own funding. Perestroika reforms went far enough to create new bottlenecks in

5760-524: The 19th century during the Estophile Enlightenment Period (1750–1840). The birth of native Estonian literature was during the period 1810–1820, when the patriotic and philosophical poems by Kristjan Jaak Peterson were published. Peterson, who was the first student to acknowledge his Estonian origin at the then German-language University of Dorpat , is commonly regarded as a herald of Estonian national literature and considered

5880-490: The 200 words created by Johannes Aavik allegedly ex nihilo are in common use today. Examples are * ese 'object', * kolp 'skull', * liibuma 'to cling', * naasma 'to return, come back', * nõme 'stupid, dull'. Many of the coinages that have been considered (often by Aavik himself) as words concocted ex nihilo could well have been influenced by foreign lexical items; for example, words from Russian , German , French , Finnish , English and Swedish . Aavik had

6000-437: The Bronze Soldier. Estonian Police cordoned off the square and nearby streets in the early morning of April 26, 2007, in preparation for archaeological excavations in search of the remains and, if found, their relocation. A tent structure was erected to shield the excavations from weather and from public view. Three members of the protest organization " Night Watch " (also sometimes translated as Night Vigil) who were monitoring

6120-518: The CPSU as it existed and instead embraced a degree of political liberalization. In January 1987, he appealed over the heads of the party to the people and called for democratization. Earlier members of local soviets were appointed by local Communist Party branches, now they were to be elected by the people from among various candidates. The March 1989 election of the Congress of People's Deputies of

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6240-561: The Estonian Security Council, to relocate the monument immediately (as "the ground for violent acts"). Three hours later, by 6:40 a.m., the monument had been moved to an undisclosed provisional location. The government stated that the statue would be re-erected as soon as possible in a military cemetery maintained by the Estonian Defence Forces. As of the afternoon of April 30 the statue—without

6360-469: The Estonian authorities to the ceremony at the military cemetery. There were some voices that called for cabinet resignation among the Estonian public as well. The most aggressive criticism was made by members of the Center Party , who had been left out of the coalition talks during the then-recent elections. The Russian State Duma delegation visited the new location of the statue, placed flowers and

6480-548: The Estophile educated class admired the ancient culture of the Estonians and their era of freedom before the conquests by Danes and Germans in the 13th century. When the Republic of Estonia was established in 1918, Estonian became the official language of the newly independent country. Immediately after World War II , in 1945, over 97% of the then population of Estonia self-identified as native ethnic Estonians and spoke

6600-841: The June 1987 plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , Gorbachev presented his "basic theses", which laid the political foundation of economic reform for the remainder of the existence of the Soviet Union. In July 1987, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union passed the Law on State Enterprise. The law stipulated that state enterprises were free to determine output levels based on demand from consumers and other enterprises. Enterprises had to fulfil state orders, but they could dispose of

6720-505: The Law on Forbidden Structures by 46 votes to 44. This would have banned the public display of monuments that glorify the Soviet Union or Estonia's fifty years of Bolshevism . The monument itself was specifically mentioned, to be relocated within 30 days of the President signing this into law. However, President Toomas Hendrik Ilves vetoed the law, arguing that it did not comply with the constitution of Estonia (the only legal basis for

6840-586: The Soviet Joint Venture Law, which went into effect in June 1987, limited foreign shares of a Soviet venture to 49 percent and required that Soviet citizens occupy the positions of chairman and general manager. After potential Western partners complained, the government revised the regulations to allow majority foreign ownership and control. Under the terms of the Joint Venture Law, the Soviet partner supplied labor, infrastructure, and

6960-406: The Soviet Union marked the first time that voters of the Soviet Union ever chose the membership of a national legislative body. The results of the election stunned the ruling elite. Throughout the country, voters crossed unopposed Communist candidates off the ballot, many of them prominent party officials, taking advantage of the nominal privilege of withholding approval of the listed candidates. By

7080-410: The Soviet Union on its irreversible, but immensely complicated road to democracy....[T]he sooner, the more quickly, and the more peacefully the Soviet Union begins to move along the road toward genuine political pluralism, respect for the rights of nations to their own integrity and to a working—that is a market—economy, the better it will be, not just for Czechs and Slovaks, but for the whole world. When

7200-480: The Soviet Union's foreign economic sector with measures that Soviet economists considered bold at that time. His program virtually eliminated the monopoly that the Ministry of Foreign Trade had once held on most trade operations. It permitted the ministries of the various industrial and agricultural branches to conduct foreign trade in sectors under their responsibility, rather than having to operate indirectly through

7320-490: The Soviet economy but arguably did not go far enough to effectively streamline it. Chinese economic reform was, by contrast, a bottom-up attempt at reform, focusing on light industry and agriculture (namely allowing peasants to sell produce grown on private holdings at market prices). Economic reforms were fostered through the development of " Special Economic Zones ", designed for export and to attract foreign investment, municipally managed Township and Village Enterprises and

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7440-463: The USSR and The Republic of Estonia. Forms of aggression were defined: "A naval blockade of coasts or ports of another State; Invasion by armed forces of the territory of another State even without a declaration of war." On September 24, 1939, warships of the Red Navy appeared off Estonian ports and Soviet bombers began to patrol over Tallinn and the nearby countryside. On June 12, 1940, the order for

7560-532: The USSR was legitimate is advanced by the official statements of the Russian Federation , which claim that the USSR's presence in the Baltics was legal according to international law and that the Baltics could not be occupied because there was no declaration of war . Some commentators fear that Russia's insistence on pro-Soviet historical interpretations may signal an attempt to reclaim control over

7680-479: The Union dissolved before advanced stages were reached. Another fundamental difference is that where perestroika was accompanied by greater political freedoms under Gorbachev's glasnost policies, Chinese economic reform has been accompanied by continued authoritarian rule and a suppression of political dissidents , most notably at Tiananmen Square . Gorbachev acknowledged this difference but maintained that it

7800-534: The West's lack of aid, for example; the "in-house Gorbi-skeptics" advocacy, the expert community's consensus about the undesirability of rushing U.S. aid to Gorbachev, strong opposition to any bailout at many levels including foreign-policy conservatives, the U.S. Congress, and the American public at large. The West seemed to miss an opportunity to gain significant influence over the Soviet government. The Soviets aided in

7920-697: The Western statesmen to use their common sense. President George H.W. Bush continued to dodge helping the Russians and the President of Czechoslovakia , Václav Havel , laid bare the linkage for the Americans in his address to a joint session of Congress on 21 February 1990: ... I often hear the question: How can the United States of America help us today? My reply is as paradoxical as the whole of my life has been: You can help us most of all if you help

8040-410: The alphabet. Including all the foreign letters, the alphabet consists of the following 32 letters: Although the Estonian orthography is generally guided by phonemic principles, with each grapheme corresponding to one phoneme , there are some historical and morphological deviations from this: for example preservation of the morpheme in declension of the word (writing b, g, d in places where p, k, t

8160-692: The authorities during the Soviet era in Estonia include Baltic German cemeteries established in 1774 Kopli cemetery , Mõigu cemetery and the oldest cemetery in Tallinn, from 16th century, Kalamaja cemetery . At the Tallinn Military Cemetery (where the Bronze Soldier was relocated in 2007) the graves of 240 Estonian soldiers from the Estonian War of Independence were reused by the Red Army. The monument for Estonia's independence

8280-598: The authorities removed it promptly. In the same month, the tensions rose again and the police kept a 24-hour patrol in place, cordoning off the area until early September 2006. Estonian journalist Paavo Kangur in an opinion piece suggested that the confrontations were intentionally provoked to increase the support of Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica and "Estonian Nazi sympathizers" having been manipulated by Russian FSB service. A small group of Estonian Russophones set up an organization in mid-2006 called Nochnoy Dozor (Night Watch), calling for nightly vigils to guard

8400-441: The basic order is subject–verb–object . The speakers of the two major historical languages spoken in Estonia, North and South Estonian , are thought by some linguists to have arrived in Estonia in at least two different migration waves over two millennia ago, both groups having spoken considerably different vernacular; South Estonian might be a Finnic language rather than a variety of Estonian. Modern standard Estonian evolved in

8520-490: The bureaucracy of trade ministry organizations. In addition, regional and local organizations and individual state enterprises were permitted to conduct foreign trade. This change was an attempt to redress a major imperfection in the Soviet foreign trade regime: the lack of contact between Soviet end users and suppliers and their foreign partners. Alexander Yakovlev was considered to be the intellectual force behind Gorbachev's reform program of glasnost and perestroika . In

8640-413: The case and number of the adjective always agreeing with that of the noun (except in the terminative, essive, abessive and comitative, where there is agreement only for the number, the adjective being in the genitive form). Thus the illative for kollane maja ("a yellow house") is kollasesse majja ("into a yellow house"), but the terminative is kollase majani ("as far as a yellow house"). With respect to

8760-543: The continuation of the movement was a report from the central committee meeting of the CPSU titled "On Reorganization and the Party's Personnel Policy". Gorbachev emphasized the need of a faster political personnel turnover and of a policy of democratization that opened the political elections to multiple candidates and to non-party members. This report was in such high demand in Prague and Berlin that many people could not get

8880-460: The embassy, and physically attacked the embassy and the ambassador. Paet had spoken to his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier who "promised speedy assistance from the European Union to normalise the situation around the Estonian embassy in Moscow." Germany then held the rotating presidency of the EU . The two-day visit by the Russian fact finding delegation was ostensibly set up to defuse

9000-422: The end of the 20th century has brought the proportion of native Estonian-speakers in Estonia now back above 70%. Large parts of the first- and second-generation immigrants in Estonia have now adopted Estonian (over 50% as of the 2022 census). The Estonian dialects are divided into two groups – the northern and southern dialects, historically associated with the cities of Tallinn in the north and Tartu in

9120-526: The event from the crowd. The Russian ambassador to Estonia, Nikolay Uspensky, declined invitation to attend, as an expression of Russia's highest-level disapproval of "demounting the monument, the exhumation, and the accompanying attempts to revise history to suit political conjuncture ". However, he attended a religious memorial service for the fallen, held by the head of the Estonian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate , three hours after

9240-464: The expansion of Western capitalism to allow for an inflow of Western investments, but the perestroika managers failed. President Bush had the opportunity to aid the Soviet Union in a way to bring closer ties between the governments, like Harry S. Truman did for many nations in Western Europe. Early on, as perestroika was getting under way, I felt like the West might come along and find it

9360-545: The first night's rioting, the Government of Estonia decided, at an emergency meeting, to relocate the monument immediately, referring to security concerns. By the following afternoon, the stone structure had been dismantled as well. As of the afternoon of April 30, the statue without the stone structure had been placed at the Defence Forces Cemetery of Tallinn . An opening ceremony for the relocated statue

9480-576: The foreign affairs' commission of the Riigikogu , who was one of the Estonian politicians to meet the Russian delegation, expressed his regret that the Russians had come with prejudices and had intervened in Estonia's internal affairs (e.g. by calling for Estonia's government to resign). Later in the day, the reappearance of the bronze soldier threw the Duma's fact finding mission off-course, with delegation leader Kovalyov saying that he had not been invited by

9600-535: The founder of modern Estonian poetry. His birthday, March 14, is celebrated in Estonia as Mother Tongue Day. A fragment from Peterson's poem "Kuu" expresses the claim reestablishing the birthright of the Estonian language: In English: In the period from 1525 to 1917, 14,503 titles were published in Estonian; by comparison, between 1918 and 1940, 23,868 titles were published. In modern times A. H. Tammsaare , Jaan Kross , and Andrus Kivirähk are Estonia 's best-known and most translated writers. Estonians lead

9720-460: The group attempted to break through it. Several meetings in protest of the removal were held. Around dusk, the mob turned more and more violent, starting to throw stones and empty bottles at the police. By around 9:15 p.m., the mob activity turned to what the police considered the first night's riot. In the early morning of April 27, 2007, the Estonian government held an emergency meeting and at 3:40 a.m. local time, decided, upon advice from

9840-444: The interests of improving socialism. [...] Looking back, I can proudly say that a clever, but very simple tactic – the mechanisms of totalitarianism against the system of totalitarianism – has worked. The most significant of Gorbachev's reforms in the foreign economic sector allowed foreigners to invest in the Soviet Union in the form of joint ventures with Soviet ministries, state enterprises, and cooperatives. The original version of

9960-403: The language. When Estonia was invaded and reoccupied by the Soviet army in 1944, the status of Estonian effectively changed to one of the two official languages (Russian being the other one). Many immigrants from Russia entered Estonia under Soviet encouragement. In the 1970s, the pressure of bilingualism for Estonians was intensified. Although teaching Estonian to non-Estonians in local schools

10080-525: The law shifted control over the enterprise operations from ministries to elected workers' collectives. Gosplan 's responsibilities were to supply general guidelines and national investment priorities. The Law on Cooperatives , enacted in May 1988, was perhaps the most radical of the economic reforms during the early part of the Gorbachev era. For the first time since Vladimir Lenin 's New Economic Policy

10200-455: The means of production. Perestroika and Deng Xiaoping 's economic reforms have similar origins but very different effects on their respective countries' economies. Both efforts occurred in large socialist countries attempting to liberalize their economies, but while China's GDP has grown consistently since the late 1980s (albeit from a much lower level), national GDP in the USSR and in many of its successor states fell precipitously throughout

10320-438: The monument from possible removal attempts. On April 24, 2007, in explaining the necessity for thorough investigation of the burials, Estonian PM Andrus Ansip related a number of urban legends (grave holds remains of executed looters or drunk Red Army soldiers run over by Red Army tank). The Russian press sensationalized Ansip's comments in their headlines, presenting Ansip as disparaging Red Army veterans. On January 10, 2007,

10440-408: The monument site took place on May 9, 2006, when a group of Estonians approached the celebrating Red Army veterans. To preserve public order and out of security concerns, the police helped the group to leave the area, along with their Estonian flag , and let the veterans' meeting with the Soviet symbols continue. On the next day, Estonian nationalist Jüri Liim said he would blow up the monument unless

10560-491: The needs of Soviet citizens by adopting elements of liberal economics. The process of implementing perestroika added to existing shortages, and created political, social, and economic tensions within the Soviet Union. Furthermore, it is often blamed for the political ascent of nationalism and nationalist political parties in the constituent republics. Gorbachev first used the term in a speech during his visit to Tolyatti in 1986. Perestroika lasted from 1985 until 1991, and

10680-439: The one on Tõnismägi. The War Graves Protection Act's major result was to codify the international customs and practices regarding the handling of war graves (see above) into country-unspecific terms, and to extend unilateral protection to war graves not covered by mutual international protection treaties. Most 20th-century battles on Estonian soil having been fought by Soviet (largely ethnically-Russian), German, Estonian armies and

10800-521: The press representative of Estonian Ministry of Defence. Statues of that kind are made in several pieces and later assembled in one. Estonia's Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said that the European Union has promised to help end a siege at the Estonian embassy in Moscow . For nine days, protestors in Moscow had disturbed the peace of the embassy, prevented staff and visitors from entering or leaving

10920-563: The protesters started to assault the policemen. Riot police responded by using water cannon and, according to BBC, firing tear gas to disperse the crowd. However, the crowd did not disperse and started committing acts of vandalism and rampant looting of nearby shops and buildings. By midnight the riots had spread around the centre of Tallinn, with massive damage to property—a total number of 99 cases of vandalism, including cars that had been turned upside down, broken and looted shop windows, pillaged bars and kiosks. By 2 a.m., things had calmed down

11040-483: The reburial. Ezmiralda Menshikova and Svetlana Gnevasheva, daughters of Ivan Syssoyev, a Red Army partorg who died in Tallinn in 1944, filed suit against the government demanding that the Bronze Soldier be returned to its original location near the National Library as a grave marker. However, both the trial court and the appellate court found that since there is no evidence of Syssoyev having been buried at

11160-482: The relocation, 12.98% opposed it and the remaining were uncertain. According to the article in Eesti Päevaleht , in Russia special services encouraged media to discuss the Bronze Soldier often and in a particularly emotional way, as a way of influencing political opinion. Among other activities, this translated into opposing and denouncing of high-level Russian politicians who supported civilised relocation of

11280-434: The remaining output as they saw fit. However, at the same time the state still held control over the means of production for these enterprises, thus limiting their ability to enact full-cost accountability. Enterprises bought input from suppliers at negotiated contract prices. Under the law, enterprises became self-financing; that is, they had to cover expenses (wages, taxes, supplies, and debt service) through revenues. Finally,

11400-526: The same time, the monument has significant symbolic value to Estonia's large ethnic Russian community , symbolising not only Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II , but also their claim to equal rights in Estonia. Amid political controversy, in April 2007 the Government of Estonia started final preparations for the relocation of the statue and reburial of the associated remains, according to

11520-492: The second half of the 19th   century based on Finnish orthography. The "Older orthography" it replaced was created in the 17th   century by Bengt Gottfried Forselius and Johann Hornung based on standard German orthography. Earlier writing in Estonian had, by and large, used an ad hoc orthography based on Latin and Middle Low German orthography. Some influences of the standard German orthography – for example, writing 'W'/'w' instead of 'V'/'v' – persisted well into

11640-715: The site, as a part of the post-exhumation restoration work mandated by the War Graves Act. On June 8, 2007, the Ministry of Defence announced a plan to replace the flowerbed with a permanent park complete with small trees. On June 14, 2007, successfully identified remains of captain Bryantsev were handed over to his relatives for reburial in Rostov oblast , Russia . This was the first of the twelve exhumed bodies to be returned to relatives. As of July 3, 2007, three remains had been released to their relatives. Claims regarding

11760-628: The site, his daughters lack legal standing to sue in this matter, and therefore rejected the demands. On January 20, 2009, the Supreme Court of Estonia denied certiorari in the case, leaving standing the lower courts' rulings and finalising dismissal of the lawsuit. Estonian language Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family . Other Finnic languages include Finnish and some minority languages spoken around

11880-399: The situation declined to leave the area and locked themselves in their car. The police had to break a side window of the car to extract them forcibly, causing slight shard wounds to one. Having been removed, Night Watch spread rumours that the monument removal procedure had started. After a few hours, around 1000 people, mostly Russian-speaking, had surrounded the police cordon and some from

12000-483: The situation, but rather election campaigning". Tõnismägi hill (the former site of the monument and of the now-empty burial site) being city property, the government's position is that it is the responsibility of Tallinn municipal government to decide what to do next with it. On May 9, it was reported that, as agreed with the City Park Office, the Ministry of Defence was planting an enormous flower garden on

12120-704: The slowing of economic development, and inadequate living standards. The program was furthered at the 27th Congress of the Communist Party in Gorbachev's report to the congress, in which he spoke about " perestroika ", " uskoreniye " (acceleration), "human factor", " glasnost " (transparency), and "expansion of the khozraschyot " (accounting). During the initial period (1985–87) of Mikhail Gorbachev's time in power, he talked about modifying central planning but did not make any truly fundamental changes ( uskoreniye ; "acceleration"). Gorbachev and his team of economic advisors then introduced more fundamental reforms, which became known as perestroika (restructuring). At

12240-419: The sounds [p], [t], [k] are written as p, t, k , with some exceptions due to morphology or etymology. Representation of palatalised consonants is inconsistent, and they are not always indicated. ŋ is an allophone of /n/ before /k/. While peripheral Estonian dialects are characterized by various degrees of vowel harmony , central dialects have almost completely lost the feature. Since the standard language

12360-405: The south, in addition to a distinct kirderanniku dialect, Northeastern coastal Estonian . The northern group consists of the keskmurre or central dialect that is also the basis for the standard language, the läänemurre or western dialect, roughly corresponding to Lääne County and Pärnu County , the saarte murre (islands' dialect) of Saaremaa , Hiiumaa , Muhu and Kihnu , and

12480-502: The statue, the Tallinn City Council has a large Russian representation and any approval was unlikely in the foreseeable future. The law eliminated the need to negotiate with the municipal government for war grave related business—specifically, exhumation of the buried bodies and, if the corpses would be found, relocation of the monument which would then be considered a grave marker. On February 15, 2007, Riigikogu approved

12600-403: The stone structure—had been re-erected. Reassembling the stone structure was delayed out of concerns over the æsthetic qualities of the site on reopening, as the stone structure's weight required a new foundation to be constructed out of concrete. This work began on May 23 and was estimated to be completed by the end of June. For the time of the construction work, the statue was temporarily moved to

12720-403: The subject. Relocation of the monument had slightly stronger support from native Estonian speakers—49% in favour of relocation—while only 9% of native Russian speakers supported relocation. According to a non-scientific poll by the daily newspaper Postimees on April 25, when preparations for relocation had already begun, 85.12% of online readers taking part in the poll voiced their support for

12840-562: The summer of 1985, Yakovlev became head of the propaganda department of the CPSU Central Committee. He argued in favor of the reform programs and played a key role in executing those policies. After the XX Congress , in an ultra-narrow circle of our closest friends and associates, we often discussed the problems of democratization of the country and society. We chose a simple – like a sledgehammer – method of propagating

12960-588: The time of the Twenty-Eighth Party Congress in July 1990, it was clear that Gorbachev's reforms came with sweeping, unintended consequences , as nationalities of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union pulled harder than ever to break away from the Union and ultimately dismantle the Communist Party. In May 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev gave a speech in Leningrad in which he admitted

13080-442: The vandalised stores were found in pockets of Mr. Ganin. Tallinn City Council suspended all strong alcohol retail licenses inside the city borders for a week. There were concerns, mostly in foreign media, that the protest could have escalated into an ethnic conflict between Estonians and members of the ethnic Russian minority. The night of April 27 saw a recurrence of violence, with a second night of rioting. Rioting and looting in

13200-514: The wave of new loanwords from English in the 20th and 21st centuries, historically, Swedish and Russian were also sources of borrowings but to a much lesser extent. In borrowings, often 'b' and 'p' are interchangeable, for example 'baggage' becomes 'pagas', 'lob' (to throw) becomes 'loopima'. The initial letter 's' before another consonant is often dropped, for example 'skool' becomes 'kool', 'stool' becomes 'tool'. Estonian language planners such as Ado Grenzstein (a journalist active in Estonia from

13320-464: The world in book ownership, owning on average 218 books per house, and 35% of Estonians owning 350 books or more (as of 2018). Writings in Estonian became significant only in the 19th century with the spread of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment , during the Estophile Enlightenment Period (1750–1840). Although Baltic Germans at large regarded the future of Estonians as being a fusion with themselves,

13440-451: Was a consistent policy line of the Bush administration, further demonstrating the lack of true support from the West. President Bush had a financial policy to aid perestroika that was shaped by a minimalist approach, foreign-policy convictions that set Bush up against other U.S. internal affairs, and a frugal attitude, all influencing his unwillingness to aid Gorbachev. Other factors influenced

13560-415: Was abolished in 1928, the law permitted private ownership of businesses in the services, manufacturing, and foreign-trade sectors. The law initially imposed high taxes and employment restrictions, but it later revised these to avoid discouraging private-sector activity. Under this provision, cooperative restaurants, shops, and manufacturers became part of the Soviet scene. Gorbachev brought perestroika to

13680-419: Was conducted by Russia's Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar . Eight of the exhumed remains—those unclaimed so far—were reburied at the military cemetery, next to the relocated monument, on July 3, 2007, in presence of the Estonian minister of defence, other officials, and dozens of diplomats, as well as various press representatives. A military attaché of the Russian embassy, Aleksandr Trojan, was reported as observing

13800-431: Was destroyed by the Soviet authorities. Only the graves of two Estonian generals and 15 British servicemen from the era were saved by making the ground a maintenance area. In 1989, during perestroika , the era of reassessment of Soviet history in the USSR, the USSR condemned the 1939 secret protocol between Nazi Germany and itself that had led to the invasion and occupation of the three Baltic countries. The collapse of

13920-706: Was extinguished shortly after the Estonian redeclaration of independence. In 1994 the memorial underwent a reconstruction. Following the reopening, the bronze headstones on the stone background and the protective barrier surrounding the memorial were removed. World War II Red Army veterans and representatives of the Russian-speaking population in Estonia have continued to gather at the monument on certain dates, celebrating May 9 ( Victory Day ) and September 22 ("Liberation of Tallinn" in 1944). The display of Soviet flags and other Soviet symbols at these gatherings had offended many Estonians. A non-violent confrontation at

14040-525: Was formally compulsory, in practice, the teaching and learning of Estonian by Russian-speakers was often considered unnecessary by the Soviet authorities. In 1991, with the restoration of Estonia's independence , Estonian went back to being the only official language in Estonia. Since 2004, when Estonia joined the European Union, Estonian is also one of the (now 24) official languages of the EU . The return of former Soviet immigrants to their countries of origin at

14160-544: Was held on May 8, VE Day . ( Soviet Army veterans celebrate Victory Day a day later, on May 9.) During June 2007, the stone structure was rebuilt. Relatives have made claims to bodies of four of the war dead. Unclaimed remains were reburied at the military cemetery, next to the relocated monument, on July 3, 2007. On July 3, 1933, aggression was defined in a binding treaty signed at the Soviet Embassy in London by

14280-463: Was imposed by force. The government of the Soviet Union conducted large-scale and systematic actions against the Estonian population. Elections were organized in which only Soviet-supported candidates were permitted to run. As reported by Time magazine in 1940: "Those who had failed to have their passports stamped for voting Estonia into the USSR were allowed to be shot in the back of the head by Soviet tribunals." The view that Estonia's annexation by

14400-453: Was unavoidable and that perestroika would have been doomed to defeat and revanchism by the nomenklatura without glasnost , because conditions in the Soviet Union were not identical to those in China. Gorbachev cited a line from a 1986 newspaper article that he felt encapsulated this reality: "The apparatus broke Khrushchev's neck and the same thing will happen now." Another difference

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