Estonia's persistence of memory

The ordinarily sedate city of Tallinn, Estonia was rocked by rioting this weekend as ethnic Russians in Estonia looted stores, smashed windows and lit fires as part of a protest by the Estonian government to relocate a Soviet era statue (and mass grave) commemorating the Red Army soldiers who died liberating Estonia from Nazi Germany in 1944.

Actually, we need to back up a bit here.

Before the Soviet Union "liberated" Estonia, it had conquered Estonia with Adolf Hitler's full consent. You see, before Hitler and Josef Stalin went to war with each other, they agreed on a division of Europe into German and Soviet "spheres of influence", and codified it in a treaty - the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Once absorbed into Stalinist Russia, Estonia suffered the full brunt of the "glorious socialist brotherhood" that nearly wiped out dozens of non-Russian Soviet republics, including mass deportations to Siberia, mass executions, torture as well as religious and political repression by the NKVD.

In 1941, Hitler doublecrossed Stalin. Hitler's plan for assaulting the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Barbarossa, smashed through Soviet defenses in Poland, and quickly reached the Baltic countries, including Estonia. Estonians were initially overjoyed to see the wehrmacht chasing the Soviets out. After all, how could it get any worse than being ruled by Stalin? Their hopes were dashed by the heavy hand of the Nazi occupation, yet thousands of Estonians willingly joined the wehrmacht when it became clear that the Soviets would retake Estonia. Estonians knew they were deep trouble when the Nazis looked like the lesser of two evils. To make a long story short, the Soviets recaptured Estonia in 1944, and quickly picked up where they left off, liquidating all "traitors to the motherland", as well as their families including minor children, the elderly and infirm. Estonians had to be wondering - who's liberating us from whom?

When Estonia finally broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991, Estonians had made it clear that Estonia was a decidedly unwilling participant in the Soviet experiment. Estonia even joined NATO as soon as possible to safeguard its hard won independence from Russia. However, Soviet "Russification" policies meant that ethnic Russians made up nearly one third of Estonia's population, and what's more, a third of the population that neither spoke Estonian, nor wanted to give up the privileges they had enjoyed under Soviet rule. Estonia wanted Russians who decided to stay in Estonia to learn how to speak Estonian, and integrate into Estonian society. Many of these Russians (who were not made citizens of Estonia after independence, incidentally) wanted to keep speaking Russian, and they've demanded that their Estonian "little brothers" show the proper love and gratitude to Russia, especially an appreciation of Stalin's "liberation" of Estonia from the Nazis.

You can see where this was heading, can't you?

For years, a statue erected by the Soviets to commemorate the war in Estonia (known as the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn) had a double meaning. For Russians, it symbolized the shedding of Russian blood to liberate Russia from the Nazis. For Estonians, it represents a symbol of bloodthirsty Stalinist colonialist imperialism. Estonians wanted the statue gone. Russians wanted it to stay. Finally, the Estonian government decided to relocate the statue and the Soviet soldiers buried underneath it - and that's when all hell broke loose.

Estonia's ethnic Russians began rioting, incensed that Estonia would dare disrespect the Soviet war effort. Russia itself began to chime in, sending a "fact finding mission" to Estonia, and demanding that the Estonian government resign en masse. In Moscow, hostile crowds began assaulting the Estonian embassy and threatening Estonia's diplomatic corp, an astonishing abrogation of Russia's duties to defend foreign embassies from violence. Russia claims it is "powerless" to protect the Estonian embassy. Estonians claim that the Russian police look pretty good at crowd control when it involves Russians protesting against Vladimir Putin. Russia is making oblique threats to break diplomatic ties with Estonia. Rumors of an armed ethnic Russian insurgency being organized inside Estonia are even circulating.

All of this over a statue? World War II ended over 60 years ago, but the current battle over history and memory is still being fought in Estonia. I can't help but think that somewhere, Josef Stalin is having a hearty laugh about all of this.