From an ‘Army of Historians’ to an ‘Army of Professionals’: History and the Strategic Culture in Estonia

Kaarel Piirimäe

doi:10.31374/sjms.37

Abstract

Experience is a key element in the development of strategic cultures. Estonian strategic culture is affected by the traumas of the Second World War and the Cold War, which resulted in the end of independence and the loss of a quarter of the population. Open discussion of the history was impossible under the Soviet regime. The ‘rebirth of history’ at the end of the 1980s affected the restoration of the Estonian defence forces and the development of the strategic culture of the restored Republic of Estonia. In particular, narratives about the ‘Summer War’ of 1941 and about the Forest Brothers, who fought against the Soviet regime from the 1940s to the early 1950s, instilled confidence in Estonia’s ability to re-create the total defence system of the pre-war era. When Estonia shed ideas of neutrality and began integrating into Western security organizations, the controversial history of the Summer War became a burden rather than an advantage, however. With the new pragmatism and future-oriented military culture of the 2000s, dwelling on history was discouraged by the Defence Forces even as history remained an important component of the training and the thinking of the military profession.

Highlights

From an ‘Army of Historians’ to an ‘Army of Professionals’: History and the Strategic Culture in Estonia
Estonian strategic culture is affected by the traumas of the Second World War and the Cold War, which resulted in the end of independence and the loss of a quarter of the population
Following Edward Lock and other scholars of the second-generation strategic-culture theory, strategic culture is a dynamic structure that is repeatedly reconstituted through the very practices that it enables and constrains; the existence of long-term patters – a more or less static strategic culture – must not be assumed

Summary

The Revenge of the Past

The Estonian strategic culture began to develop in the late 1980s and the early 1990s in the context of the rediscovery of the nation’s past and the construction, and re-construction, of a ‘national view of history’ that comprised of certain key narratives about the nation’s past In this period of national re-awakening, historians became important political agents. The Russian Federation, which follows the Soviet historiography, continues to promote the point of view that the MRP had virtually no effect on the fate of the Baltic countries and that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined the USSR by their free will in August 1940 Resulting from this interpretation, Russia has refused to recognise the legal continuity of the Baltic countries, and has consistently criticised laws and practices, such as citizenship policies, that rest on the doctrine of state continuity. The time was ripe for an ‘Army of Historians’ to emerge

The ‘Army of Historians’

Coming to Terms with Soviet Legacies

Discourses on history: the ‘Summer War’ of 1941

The Erna Sporting Event and the Relaunching of Sõdur

Conclusion