Estonia

ESTONIA. - Since November 3, 1940 it has constituted one of the federated republics of the Soviet Union; formerly a Danish, Polish, Swedish (1629) and Russian (1721) domain, it had made itself independent in 1918.

I. GEOGRAPHY

The territory (46,200 sq. km.; twice the size of Lombardy) is a strip of the Sarmatic lowland (the small peninsula enclosed between the gulfs of Riga and Finland, which inland reaches Lake Peipus), flat or hilly. In the population (1.2 million inhabitants, 26 per sq. km.) the Estonians predominate (80%), of Finno-Ugric stock, professing Lutheranism. The economy is based on agriculture and livestock raising (butter and meat), with modest industrial development (textiles, cellulose). The capital Tallinn (Reval, 150,000 inhabitants) is a port on the Gulf of Finland; inland is Tartu (Dorpat, 60,000 inhabitants), an intellectual center (University).

Giuseppe Caraci

II. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

It is held that the Estonians, who previously lived together with the other Finno-Ugric peoples between the Volga and the Urals, by the beginning of the Christian era already occupied the territory of present-day Estonia. The first attempts to Christianize Estonia on the part of the Slavs and the Danes date back to the 11th century, but they were not successful. The Estonians, attached to their animistic tradition, warriors and daring pirates, made commerce unsafe throughout the entire Baltic Sea, extending their raids as far as the cities of Sweden and Denmark. At the end of the 12th century there were still no cities in Estonia, nor had a centralized state order been formed. The chiefs (canemad) of the small regions united their forces only in case of war.

Pope Alexander III entrusted around 1180 to the archbishopric of Lund, and then to Denmark, the evangelization of Estonia. No decision, however, had been taken for Livonia and Courland, which later became the center for the Christianization of the Baltic countries. German merchants bound for the Russian cities along the Latvian river Dvina brought with them the Augustinian monk Meinhard of Segeberg. A native of Germany, he was consecrated first bishop of Livonia by the bishop of Hamburg-Bremen in 1186 with a territory whose boundaries were not exactly established, subject to the metropolitan of Hamburg-Bremen. After the struggle of Pope Alexander III against Frederick Barbarossa, it was natural for his successors to desire that the mission in the Baltic be considered purely pontifical. As children of their age, however, they believed that whoever abandoned the Christian faith was gravely guilty not only before God but also before men, and they were persuaded that such a person must be compelled by force to remain faithful and likewise protected against the pagans. The successor of the peaceable Meinhard (1186-96), the Cistercian abbot Berthold of Lekkum (1196-98), arrived with a band of crusaders, but fell in battle. The third bishop, Albert of Riga (v.), founded the order of the Sword-Brothers and the fortified center of Riga (1201). Shortly afterward (1207) Albert abandoned the Pope's directive line and took an oath of vassalage to the German king Philip of Sweden; the German Empire, taking the form of a purely ecclesiastical state in mission territory, began there its policy of expansion.

As soon as the Livonians and Latvians were converted, the Sword-Brothers began (1207) the subjugation of Estonia, but because of the most tenacious resistance they won the decisive battle only in 1217. Subsequently they found themselves compelled to ask for the help of the Danes, who arrived in 1219 under the leadership of Waldemar II in northern Estonia, where they founded the fortress of Reval, present-day Tallinn. In 1224 the country was practically subjugated; to conquer the largest island, Saaremaa (German Ösel), a special crusade was needed in 1227.

Three dioceses were created: Reval (1219), Dorpat (Estonian Tartu, 1224) and Ösel (1227). In time the monasteries of the Franciscans, Dominicans, Cistercians and Brigittines arose, already 22 in the 16th century. Even after baptism very many Estonians remained practically pagans, since the parish clergy, demanding the performance of external rites, did not use in religious instruction the difficult language of the newly converted. Moreover the Estonians, once free, wealthy and masters of the Baltic Sea, had soon been reduced by the new rulers to serfdom, in which they remained for more than 600 years. The crusaders became great feudal landowners, and thus the weapon created to propagate the faith did not serve its purpose. Already in 1213 Innocent III admonished the crusaders to remain within the limits of their task; in 1225 Rome was compelled to send William of Modena (v.) as special legate to settle the territorial quarrels between the Danes and the Germans. In 1343 a bloody revolt broke out in northern Estonia, suppressed with great cruelty by the Danes, who, after this event, sold their dominion to the Teutonic Order (v.; into which the weakened Sword-Brothers had already been incorporated in 1237), which did not change the situation of the natives. In the face of this the clergy did not remain inert: Archbishop H. Scharfenberg (1424-48) of Riga complained that the Teutonic Order prevented synodal visitations; the synodal statute of Riga of 1428 excommunicated those who forced the peasants to work on Sunday and stressed the necessity of synodal visitations. The energetic bishops of Ösel, John III Orgas (1491-1515) and John IV Kievel (1515-1527), prepared and had printed the first "approved" catechism in Estonian. Finally the Synod of Ronneburg (1521) decided to found in Dorpat or Pernau (Estonian Pärnu) a seminary for Estonian priests to confront the "conspiracy of the vassals." The Lutheran Reformation prevented the execution of the project; already in 1523 Luther wrote "to the Christians at Riga, Reval and Dorpat." The German commercial guilds of Reval accepted the "Gospel" in 1524; there followed destructions of sacred images and the expulsion of the religious orders (1525).

In the Livonian War that began in 1558 the Russian tsar Ivan IV the Terrible defeated the Teutonic Order; the Germans now accepted the political dominions of the Swedes (who under Gustavus Adolphus introduced the Swedish Protestant ecclesiastical order), of the Poles (1562-1629) who began the re-Catholicization, and of the Danes who remained on the islands. There is record of the visitations of various Swedish Protestant "bishops" (1585-1700) who resisted the barons' claim to participate in the Synod. From 1692 to 1694 the Swedish ecclesiastical order of 1686 was in force, revised only in 1832.

In 1710 Estonia was conquered by Peter the Great (definitively with the Treaty of Nystad of 1721). The situation of the surviving Estonian peasants worsened because of the concessions made by the Russians to the local barons. Only after an imperial decree for Estonia (1816) was serfdom abolished. The nobility obtained from the Russian Senate the direction of the Estonian Protestant consistory and retained this privilege throughout the entire Russian domination. From 1730 onward the Protestant sect of the Vennastebogaftured (in German Herrnhuter) made many proselytes among the peasants. From 1830 to 1848 more than 75,000 Estonians and Latvians of Livonia, hoping thereby to free themselves from the great landowners, passed over to the Russian Orthodox State Church. This movement was encouraged and sometimes driven especially by the bishop of Riga Filaret Gumilevskii (1831-48).

Favored by political circumstances, Estonia declared itself independent in 1918 and won a hard struggle against Bolshevik Russia and the German armies organized by the barons. In 1925 the separation between Church and State was legally defined. In Estonia there were (1934) 78.6% Protestants; 19% Orthodox (autocephalous), of whom 8.2% were Estonians; 1.5% of other Christian sects; 0.4% Jews; 0.3% without confession. Catholics, about 2500, that is 0.2%, were divided into 6 parishes (Tallinn, Tartu, Narva, Valga, Pärnu, Kuressaare), belonging first to the archdiocese of Mohilev, and from 1918 to the diocese of Riga. In 1924 the bishopric of Tallinn was restored, already suppressed by the so-called reformation, governed by an apostolic administrator.

In 1940 Estonia was occupied and incorporated into the Soviet Union; from 1941-44 it suffered the German occupation; afterward it was reconquered by the U.S.S.R., which extended to it its anti-Christian legislation.

Vello Salo

III. LITERATURE

The first books in the Estonian language (a branch of the Finno-Ugric family) are some

Catholic religious manuals by Bishop John IV Kievel and by the Jesuits Th. Busilus, J. A. Weltherus, W. Buccius (only the Agenda Parca of 16aa has come down to us) and Protestant ones of the 16th-17th centuries; there follow religious and practical manuals by Protestants (New Testament 1715, Bible 1739). Estonian folklore, which has assimilated many Germanic elements, is extremely rich and was collected after the impulse given by J. Hurt at the end of the 19th century. The language of the educated class long remained German; only after 1850 do true Estonian literary works appear.

After books of pietistic inspiration (especially those of the Herrnhuter), at the beginning of the 18th century, under the influence of the Enlightenment, a popular secular literature was born. A Romantic current with a historical coloring (which in time became increasingly national) gave a characteristic imprint to the nascent culture. Against the background of the Estonian Learned Society (founded in 1838), F. R. Kreutzwald created the Kalevipoeg (1861), an epic imitating folk poetry. This work greatly influenced the national awakening and the whole literature of the national revival, culminating in the patriotic lyric poetry of Lydia Koidula. At the end of the century the "pure lyric poets" Julian Liiv and Anna Hauva distinguished themselves, while in prose the realism of E. Wilde, E. Peterson-Sargava, A. Kitzberg asserted itself. Around 1905 the lyric poets G. Suits and V. Ridala and the short-story writer and critic F. Tuglas, the leaders of the literary-cultural movement Noor Eesti (Young Estonia), as well as the poet E. Enno, placed Estonian culture on the level of European culture, with a decisive detachment from content-oriented tendencies. After 1917 new directions were asserted by the lyric poets M. Under and H. Visnapuu, by the writer A. Gailit and by others belonging to the dynamic Siuru movement.

The independence achieved in 1918 created favorable conditions for the development of a national culture. After a period in which a lyric poetry influenced by the West predominated, there prevailed the realism and naturalism of A. Kivikas, H. Raudsepp, O. Luts, A. Jakobson, M. Metsanurk and of the notable A. H. Tammsaare; the last two often treat religious subjects. Other prose writers worthy of note are K. A. Hindrey, K. Ristikivi, A. Mälk and the Finnish-Estonian writer Aino Kallas. Mentioned moreover, among the poets, are B. Alver, A. Talvik, B. Kangro.

Estonian figurative art and music in the proper sense began with the national awakening of the 19th century and are represented by the painters J. Köler, A. Laipman-Laikmaa, P. Burman, K. Raud, N. Triik, K. Mägi, A. Wabbe, E. Ole, E. Wiralt, by the sculptors A. L. Weizenberg, A. Adamson, J. Koort, V. Melnik-Mellik, F. Sannamees, A. Starkopf-Rea and by the composers A. Kapp, R. Tobias, M. Saar, J. Aavik, C. Kreek, H. Eller, E. Aav, E. Tubin.

With the annexation to the U.S.S.R., the cultural life of E. was subjected to Marxist ideology, while numerous intellectuals continue in emigration the cultural traditions of free E. In E. numerous intellectuals have been deported.

Otto A. Webermann