The Nationality Question in the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1918-1939 by Mikko s> Ketola (review)

Abstract

356 SEER, 8o, 2, 2002 Russian revolution. At the same time the author would have benefited here from studying earlier works analysing constitutional issues raised by BrestLitovsk ,notably by H-E. Volkmann (Diedeutsche Baltikumpolitik zwischen BrestLitovsk undCompiegne, Cologne-Vienna, I970) or BernhardMann (DieBaltischen Ldnder in derdeutschen Kriegszielpublizistik I9I4-I9I8, Ttibingen, I965). These and other key texts in German do not appearin the bibliography. In general,however, thisentertainingbook isveryfarfroma drydescription of events and aspiresto convey the moods, impressionsand atmospherewhich assailedthe occupying forces. It does this well, if there is too much repetition. As far as the author is concerned, the overridingexperience for troops in the East was one of alienation induced by sensations of being in a remote, strange and hostile environment. 'There, with widened eyes, the German soldier faced vistas of strange lands, unknown peoples and new horizons' (p. 2). Fairenough, but it is sometimes difficultto realize that the author is in fact also consideringa partof Europewhich generationsof travellershad long recognized as 'European' in every sense of the word. How profound and widespreadcould the 'alienation'of the soldiersenmasse have been? The book raisessome interestingideas about what the Ober Ostexperience meant for subsequent generations of Germans, but it is difficultto resist the feeling that Liuleviciuspushes a ratherinterestingcase fractionallytoo farfor comfort, as when he concludes that the 'lessons' of the Eastern Front 'were eventuallytaken up by the Nazi movement and fusedwith the vile energies of their anti-Semitism,to produce a terriblenew plan for the East' (p. 279). Like many historians of such 'continuity' in German foreign policy, he gives insufficient attention to the not insignificant opposition within the Reich to what was going on in LandOber Ost,particularlyafter I9I7. BalticResearch Unit JOHN HIDEN University ofBradford Ketola, Mikko. TheNationality Question intheEstonian Evangelical Lutheran Church, I9 18-I939. Publications of theFinnishSocietyof ChurchHistory,I83. Finnish Society of Church History, Helsinki, 2000. 36I pp. Illustrations. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography.Index. Price unknown. MIKKo KETOLA'S impressive study of Church history usefully illuminates many aspects of the wider nationality question in inter-war Estonia. Whilst the Estonian Republic of I9I8-40 has acquired a reputation for tolerance towards its non-titular national groups, the former Baltic German elite nevertheless remained the object of widespread distrust and bitterness. As Ketola describes in his introduction, the Lutheran Church had been commonly portrayedas a 'Master'sChurch' duringthe period of the Estonian 'national awakening'. Indeed, although the German minority made up only I.5 per cent of the population of newly independent Estonia, 52 per cent of the Lutheranclergywere ethnicallyGerman in I9I8. In the second partof the book, Ketola details how nationally-minded Estonians (notablyJakob Kukk, Bishop from I919) gained control of the Church leadership and sought to realize their vision of a 'Free People's (read nationally Estonian) Church' REVIEWS 357 during I9I8-24. As part of his largely balanced account of the EstonianGerman disputes engendered by this policy, Ketola devotes the third part of the work to the struggleover Tallinn's LutheranCathedral, which was taken away from its existing German parishby the state and handed over for use by Bishop Kukk in I925. The other major strand of the study relates to the progressiveEstonianizationof the Theology facultyat the University of Tartu and the subsequent founding of the private German-language Luther Academy (part four),which evoked fierce hostilityfrom Estonian nationalists duringthe early I930s. The Baltic Germansremained for the most partreluctantto breakwith the Church leadership and form their own ecclesiastical organization, citing the argumentthat this would weaken the position of Lutheranismwithin Estonia. Whilst they were able to establish their own national deanery (headed by Konrad von zur Mtihlen) from I921, they failed to realize demands for the kind of far-reachingculturalautonomy granted to minorities by the state. In Ketola's view, the Germanleaders'opposition to the new churchorderlargely stemmed from their innate conservatismand consequent inabilityto come to termswith the lossof theirformerhegemony. Notwithstandingthisdissatisfaction , however, the church leadership was apparently less than successful in advancingits 'Estonianizing'agenda duringthe 1920S. Germansstillmade up 4I per cent of the clergy in i929, whilst Estonian parishescontinued to elect German pastors during the I930s. The older generation of Estonian churchmen, moreover, remained suspicious of the doctrinal liberalism promoted by the church leadership, and proved willing to align...