Abstract
The article includes an overview about the publishing and book production in minority languages in Estonia during the periods of the independent Republic of Estonia – in 1918–1940 since 1991 with Estonian reestablished as the official language. The treatment is based on the statistical data calculated on the basis of the Estonian National Bibliography database and on the thematic analysis of numerous research works.Russians and Germans were the largest minority groups in Estonia in 1918–1940. They were able to establish and operate publishing houses specializing correspondingly in Russian or German-language production. The German-language book title output was higher than in Russian, which was partly due to the role of German in science at that time. The smaller ethnic groups of Jews and Swedes mainly published periodicals.Only one historical minority – the Russian – survived through World War II and post-war period, making the Russian-language publishing the only enduring minority-language publishing venture in the present-day Estonia.
Highlights
Throughout history, migrations have influenced the population in the Estonian territories and, have left their mark on the composition of book production published in Estonia
It was possible to characterise the main features of publishing and book production in the minority languages both quantitatively and qualitatively
Compared to the German-language book production published in Estonia, a rather large number of textbooks were published in Russian (67 titles, 6.5%)
Summary
Throughout history, migrations have influenced the population in the Estonian territories and, have left their mark on the composition of book production published in Estonia. The article characterises the situation in the minority-language book production during the abovementioned periods concentrating on the following aspects: statistical data on the book title output in the leading minority languages, the main features of its thematic and typological composition as well as the leading publishers These issues have been studied in the legal, economic and social context of the period. The bibliographic data on the publications issued in Estonia after the restoration of the independent Republic of Estonia in 1991 is fully included in the Estonian National Bibliography database and makes it possible to establish the statistics of book production in different languages as well as to study its composition. It was possible to characterise the main features of publishing and book production in the minority languages both quantitatively and qualitatively
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