Latvia and Estonia

Spending a couple of weeks in Estonia in February and March, I inevitably found myself making comparisons with my experiences in Latvia six months earlier. In many ways, Estonia has tremendous advantages. Efficient, well-run, self-confident, benefiting from the close relationship with nearby Finland. Not afflicted by the corruption that burdens Latvia, economically successful, a trail-blazer in internet technology, one of the earliest ex-communist adopters of the Euro, Estonia is a thoroughly modern country, with a bright future.

When the prime minister asserted recently that Estonia would be among the five richest countries in Europe (a claim that would be laughed out of court in any other ex-communist country), even many foreigners in Estonia were convinced they would do it. Proud of their achievements, for example in having successfully fought off an organised cyber attack a few years ago, many Estonians are convinced they are one of the most developed, most advanced countries in Europe. They are years ahead of almost every other country in terms of IT penetration, they assert, waving aside the doubts of foreigners that their on-line systems, including internet voting, as well as on-line banking and sophisticated ID cards, might be open to fraud as elsewhere in the world. They are simply better and more advanced than the rest of us, they maintain. Is this smugness, or just an honest appraisal of their strengths?

That self-confidence is in marked contrast to Latvia, buffeted as it has been by the recent global economic crisis, racked by multiple corruption scandals. Yet in important respects Latvia seems healthier, more at ease with itself than Estonia.

The two countries share in common a heritage of deep trauma from the Soviet period, with its mass murder, deportations, colonisation by Soviets, the drip drip effacement of the native Baltic cultures and languages. Both of them have struggled to come to terms with the large Russian populations that remain. Latvia contains more Russians than Estonia, yet seems to have had greater success in integrating them, and in earning their adherence to the independent Latvian state.

It is striking that in Estonia, despite the large proportion of the population that is Russian, there are very few Russians in prominent positions. That the mayor of Riga is a Russian, that the head of Latvia's anti-corruption office was a Russian, and that prominent positions in other state bodies have been held by Russians, seems to have been widely accepted by Latvians. In Latvia, Russians have become an important factor on the political landscape that cannot be ignored. Not so in Estonia, where many Russians complain of feeling unwanted, treated like aliens. Why is that?

One suggestion put to me was that there was quite a large number of Russians in Latvia, especially in Riga, even before the colonisation policy that followed the Second World War, going back to the annexation of the territory to imperial Russia in the 18th Century. Russians have been a part of Latvian life for a long time. Many of the longstanding Russian residents are educated people, well-integrated, able to take on prominent roles. In Estonia, by contrast, there were relatively few Russians before 1945. Most of the Russians who came since then were industrial workers, not educated people, who have since lost out and been marginalised by the decimation of old Soviet industries in the 1990s. Perhaps that is a partial explanation.

It seemed to me that the two countries have different approaches to citizenship. That in Latvia, they have gone further towards embracing a more civic understanding, according to which all citizens, whatever their national origins, can be accepted as belonging, and can participate equally in the country's life. Watching a film about Soviet rule in Estonia, and the independence movement at the beginning of the 1990s, with its stress on Estonian folk traditions and songs, I felt there was a more 19th century type of ethnic belonging at work here, according to which only ethnic Estonians could ever be truly felt to be part of the national life and culture of the country. That Russians would always be outsiders, no matter that they may have been born there and have no other country.

The result is that, whereas Russians have taken big strides in Latvia, many of them being well integrated in the country's public and business life, that has not been the case in Estonia. There, by contrast, a large Russian population feels unwanted, resentful, marginalised. But they are not going to go away. Most Russians who wanted to move to Russia did so long ago. Fearing the threat from their big neighbour, many Estonians seem anxious that their Russian population might be a potential fifth column. That the majority of them are not Estonian citizens, even 20 years after independence, seems not to trouble them unduly, however. Most Estonians are unwilling to take steps that would ease the naturalisation of more of the Russian residents in their country. But that is surely a mistake. As fully integrated, Estonian citizens, would not the Russians of Estonia be more likely to be loyal to Estonia? I believe that is the lesson from Latvia that Estonians would do well to learn. Not to say that everything is perfect with the Russians in Latvia. But in bilingual Riga, Latvians and Russians appear more at ease with themselves and with each other than is the case in Estonia. Being rich will not solve all Estonia's problems.