It is understandable that many Russians view World War II era war memorials as being about resistance to the Nazis. Yet it is equally understandable the monuments to the Red Army have altogether different connotations in the countries conquered by the Soviet Union.
The fact that Estonia has removed a statue of a Red Army soldier from downtown Tallinn, leading to violence and intimidation by ethnic Russians in Estonia and the Estonian embassy in Moscow being placed under a state of virtual siege, it does suggest a lot of Russians have not reconciled themselves to the fact the Soviet Imperium is a thing of the past.
How can any of Russia’s neighbours ever trust Russia and allow mutually beneficial trade relations to develop if the Russian state feels it has any legitimate role in telling the former victims of Moscow’s rule what sort of symbols are appropriate for displace in a city centre?
It is not hard to see why trade between the Baltic Nations and Russia has so quickly diminished in importance and been replaced by rapidly expanding commercial ties with the European Union.
It is also not so hard to understand why the Baltic states (and other old Warsaw Pact nations) prize NATO membership so much.
You’ve got Scots to the north, about to get more independence, or so our papers tell us, you’ve got the Irish to the West, and the French, and Europe, to the south. Maybe it’s time for England to sign a peace and armaments treaty with your new bestest friend, Russia! You may have to put up with a few Russian bases in your country, but you don’t want to be completely surrounded by enemies, do you? Embrace the new Eastern Empire before your oil runs out, and you could both carve up Europe between you! The Poles and Estonians can emigrate to America (That’s what it’s there for!) Russia need not be a problem, but a solution!
My brother, an Estonian living in Canada, has written a lengthy four-part essay on Estonia and the history leading up to the current brouhaha. Recommended reading for anyone who wants to know more than the superficial info you get from western media: http://www.kojinshugi.com/?p=518
The Russians huff and puff most scary but who will be the loser if they impose sanctions on Estonia? Russia. 90% of trade between Estonia and the test of the world is with the EU and this will help concentrate Estonian minds to find alternative energy supplies as well as show all rest of Europe folly of making long term trading deals with Russia.
The Russians are economically weak because of interference of state and weakness of Russian institutions like courts and security of property. Let Kremlin rave and posture and have delusions of power and importance, in reality they are irrelevant to the rest of the world and even little Estonia can stand up to them. The Russian Bear is made of wet paper.
The Russian Bear is made of wet paper.
So is the EU what? weasel ?
I know Estonians have a long account to settle with the Russians, but I would advise them to abstain from sentimental outbursts and try to be level headed and polite.
Didn’t a lot of Estonians fight with the Nazis in WW2?
If I had lived under the tender administrations of Stalin and the oh-so charming terror-famine I would have fought for the nazis also.
tranio: read this: http://www.kojinshugi.com/?p=518
Sure, my grandfather was one of them. Just like the Finns also supported the German in order to try and get parts of their country back from the Russians (and our problems were not just with Soviets, but with Russians). But the way we see it, the Germans were just enemy of my enemy. Most hoped for independence, not Ostland.
Why? You think Estonian politeness will change the way Russians act? Kissing the jackboot gets you kicked, not loved. Russia is weakest now as it has been for generations and Estonia must not grovel or it will only encourage them. Tolerating interference in our country is not level headed, is instead empty headed. If Russians in Estonia not like it here, let them go to wonderful Russia instead if that makes them happier. If they like it here, then act like members of Estonian culture. Simple choice, no?
To Triinu Saar. Excellent. Clear, bright and well spoken.
Too much so for the English, even the best of whom prefer the soft and evasive phrase, and it’s gotten worse recently.
Speak like Churchill and you will think and act like him too.
Didn’t the Estonians move the statue to a war cemetary for Soviet WW II soldiers?
This sounds more like Putin trying to stir up Nationalistic fervor in advance of their oil fueled resurgence into international influence.
Why? You think Estonian politeness will change the way Russians act?
If you are a tiny country near a big aggressive bear 100 times stronger than you, it would be prudent to be polite. The Finns also learned that lesson. It would be realistic.
If you imagine that membership in NATO and the EU will protect you – think again, don’t trust the EU too much. They’re helpless themselves, and as dependent on Russian energy as you are.
Speak like Churchill and you will think and act like him too.
To act you need some people, some army, some backers (Like the Americans that backed Churchill). Posturing alone doesn’t do the trick.
I think the lesson the Winter War was very different one. Finland “lost” war yet strangely Soviets not take them over except Karelia. Now why is that? Russia is not so strong as you think. Being polite does not make you safe and maybe just makes you seem weak.
If Russians want to not sell us energy, someone else will. I hope they will not sell us energy! If so in one single second all Estonian politics becomes very very easy and lure of cheap Russian gas is reveal for very expensive gas. And I do trust NATO because it is in interests of NATO to not see Russia success in aggressive actions against Estonia. EU is also to be trusted, not politically, but as economic alternative to Russia. THIS IS ALREADY THE CASE. Our economy is now EU based. Why? Because of Russian actions. Sensible would be for Russia to be our main trade partner. Yet that is not so. Reason is obvious.
Estonia is not dependent on Russian energy, nor is it dependent on the Russian transit trade. Shut the trains down all you want, no one but a handful of transit business bigwigs will give a rat’s ass. Business with Russia is about 9% of our foreign trade, and our double-digit economic growth rate can take that loss.
As to the EU being powerless to help us, well, not in light of Russia’s absurd behavior during this teapot tempest. Even the most Russophilia-affected weasels, led by Angela Merkel, were forced to side with us after Putin’s flagrant disregard of the Vienna convention regarding the Naz^H^H^H Nashi siege of our embassy. This weeks after they had no problem at all cracking down on Kasparov and opposition demonstrators.
Militarily the EU is useless, of course, but we’re members of NATO as well as the EU, and the price of invading an EU and NATO member nation is insurmountable to Russia, unless we give them a casus belli slightly better than “Hey, they moved a statue from a trolleybus stop to a cemetery! Fascist swine!”.
In purely Realpolitik terms the Estonian move was not so smart, had it gone unevently it would have brought no tangible gains and it risked pissing off a sizeable domestic minority and a big, important neighbor (which it did).
Alos, I get the feeling the estonian government was caught out surprised (also inexcusable) a country in estonia’s position needs to be self-aware (not the same as obsequious)
That doesn’t excuse the Russian reaction, which was clearly orchestrated and exploited for cynical gain. But who expects anything better from Russia? I don’t expect clever political maneuvering (as opposed to thuggish overreaction) from Moscow, I do expect it from Estonia and this wasn’t it.
Michael,
Why are you convinced that the move was “not smart” and the Russian reaction was unanticipated? Couldn’t Estonia have intentionally poked the bear as a test of their freedom? Perhaps they were even requested to by NATO as a test of Ptuin’s thuggery (entrance fee)?
Our economy is now EU based. Why?
Because there is more money in the EU than in Russia (EU is by several orders of magnitude richer).
Nevertheless, smart economics is to get your income and profits from all possible sources, and not pass up opportunities (like cheap energy) that are present in your big, close neighbor, only because you don’t like him. (It doesn’t matter that your repulsion is justified).
Estonia is not dependent on Russian energy
Estonia, being a small country, can manage without Russian energy (maybe), but the EU and the world economy cannot, and if they have to chose between defending the gallant Estonians and pissing of the Russians – the result is a no-brainer.
Michael Farris, it’s interesting how close your reaction is to the russian patriotic liberal circles. Up (or is it “down”?) to same expressions: Estonian authorities should not risk pissing off their big and powerful neighbor, the demilition (as it turned out, a relocation) of the memorial is not a smart move, et&.
Other go further – devise “declarations” aimed to EU and NATO with requests of backing up “the winners of WWII and liberators of Europe from the Nazi plague”, etc.
I have asked a blogger, a Russian expat in Warsaw a question I want to ask you: what do you think will happen in Poland if there appeared to be a “state within a state” of Russians comprising 30% of the population,who act hostile to the host country? Especially since there is still generation alive who remembers how Russian happened to arrive?
“Why are you convinced that the move was “not smart”and the Russian reaction was unanticipated?”
“not smart” because even if it had gone without incident, what was the real gain? a statue in a different part of town and no change in russian or estonian attitudes about anything.
And I think a bad reaction from russia was completely predictable (it seems obvious that the estonian government was caught surprised, which does not speak well of them).
In short, the 20th century was not kind to Russia and the only thing remotely like a real russian national achievement in the whole century was the defeat of nazi germany (and that was carried out under the leadership od one of the few politicians in hitler’s class of loathesomeness).
In the best of times, doing something that could easily be interpreted as insulting the one accomplishment that is more or less universally agreed on by russians (especially by a nation that to some degree was on the other side) is of questionable utility. At a time when Russia is hoping to flex it’s international muscle, it really isn’t a good idea (when has russia ever tried to influence anybody except by brute strength and intimidation?).
I’ve come to expect smarter politics from Estonia.
That said, Estonia is absolutely in the right in not backing down. On the other hand, being right is often not compatible with getting what you want. And being the direct cause of a EU / Russia kerfuffle is not going to win Estonia any friends (though in public I expect solidarity from the EU and Nato).
“Couldn’t Estonia have intentionally poked the bear as a test of their freedom? Perhaps they were even requested to by NATO as a test of Ptuin’s thuggery (entrance fee)?”
I don’t think this was a NATO plan for a second (if it was, then I hope the estonians weren’t hoping for anything like support beyond diplomatic statements). As for poking bears just to see how they’ll react, that’s never a good idea. There might be good and legitimate reasons to poke bears at some times, but this doesn’t seem like one of them.
Tatyana, take a grip pill, please.
Do “Russian liberal bloggers” say “I don’t expect clever political maneuvering (as opposed to thuggish overreaction) from Moscow”? ,
“when has russia ever tried to influence anybody except by brute strength and intimidation?”,
“I’ve come to expect smarter politics from Estonia.”
or
“Estonia is absolutely in the right in not backing down.”
To make myself clear, estonia is technically in the right and russia’s behavior is inexcusable (especially orchestrated violations of civilized diplomatic norms). and Russia’s reaction makes any change of plans impossible.
That doesn’t mean I think the original idea was a good one.
As for your question, I have no idea. I don’t expect reasonable ethnic politics from any Polish government either (especially not the current bunglers).
Michael, keep your unsolicited advice to yourself.
Or, rather, “don’t tell me what I should do and I will not tell you where to go”(c).
Maybe if your prejudice wouldn’t cloud your vision, you would look up the time of my comment and realise I responded to your original posting, not the second explanatory one. Where there was nothing about “Estonia is in the right”.
I’ll tell you what would happen in Poland, if you don’t dare to apply simple logic – btw, I wasn’t talking about Polish government. former or current, but general sentiment of the POlish people.
What would happen is exactly what already happened in Western Ukraine, former Polish lands: half-a-century-long hostility towards ‘moskali’ – and very rightly so – which manifested itself pretty spectacularly in the last decade.
I expect apologies for your tone.
Dave, Estonia has paid, and is paying, its entrance fee for NATO.
It has soldiers in Kosovo. It has soldiers in Afghanistan. It has soldiers in Iraq. Which is more than you can say for a lot of NATO members.
Yes, the contingents are small. So they’ve sent mostly specialist groups. But you must remember, the entire population of the country is half the size of Kansas City.
The Estonian bomb dog squads are supposed to be first rate.
“Realistic.” Yeah.
Just submit to bullies and they’ll leave you alone, HA!!! Bullies understand one thing and one thing only: a fist in the teeth, repeated until they learn to play by the rules of civilized people.
Putin needs to shut the hell up. The man is egomaniacal criminal thug scum, and nothing more.
(Like the Americans that backed Churchill).
Um, precisely which Americans were those? His mother? And Ed Murrow I guess. Any others?
I would bet good money that the Estonians’ action was based upon internal political calculation.
It is likely the anti-Russian sentiment is being harnessed for an Estonian faction’s gain.
Just based upon my understanding of much anti-Americanism.
Tatyana, I would love to know more about the Moskali. I actually know quite a few Ukrainian-Americans (and even Americans from eastern Poland) with that as their surname. I worked with one for years and got to know his family. In fact, we both worked for an Orthodox Jew who never tired of kidding the guy that he had a Jewish name but did not know it. Are they considered to be of Russian ethnicity? There was a Ukrainian siloviki named Gennady Moskal in the last regime in Kiev. Would Marshall Moskalenko also be related somehow?
Sorry for all the questions on this, but all I know of the term is that Gogol used Moskal as an epithet in the 18th century, and that the phone book in Detroit, Michigan is full of them. Is it by chance still insulting to call someone a Moskal?
Thank you very much if I could get your response. I have been curious for years.
Regards,
Um, precisely which Americans were those? His mother? And Ed Murrow I guess. Any others?
FDR, lend-lease.
Michiganny,
I don’t want to step on any toes, so I’ll just say – yes, it is very insulting to call somebody moskal in their face – in Western Ukraine.
And Moskal is as much a Jewish name as Smith. Yes, there existed Jewish blacksmiths (my grand-grandfather’s family, for instance), but chances that majority of Smiths you meet are Jewish are quite slim.
The word means “somebody whose origins are/who came from Moscow; in contemporary meaning not literally came from Moscow, but closer to it than somebody from central or western parts of Ukraine.
“I expect apologies for your tone”
You are perfectly free to do so. My intention was to match your tone (according to my perception).
Than you chase your own shadows, MF.
Just shows how close to reality your perception is.
I’m not surprised. I was not really expecting an apology form a small man like you – but I gave you a chance.
Tatyana,
the reason you shouldn’t expect an apology, is because my ‘tone’ as you put it was one (I thought clearly) joking comment that certainly allowed for more charitable interpretation than you chose to give it.
If you think that makes me small, then believe as you wish.
Tatyana: Interesting. Is there a religious component to the insult? My family is Western Ukrainian and Greek Catholic, but someone from nearer Moscow would more likely be Orthodox.
Dyctyranger,
As I don’t belong to either of the religious confessions, I can’t say is there a religious component. I simply don’t know.
Particular meaning of the word, how it was used in Western Ukraine when I lived there, by believers and seculars alike, the word only meant “an unwelcome newcomer from Russia”, “an occupant” and was mostly referring to the history of acquisition of the Western Ukraine by Stalin’s state in 1939 and continuous, for 60 years, life under the Moscow power.
I’m sure Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians have something similar in their vocabulary.
Let me get this straight: Jacob is advocating cowed forebearance towards aggressors, and still expects every body here to be ‘polite’?
Sounds like somebody with friends in the old KGB.
I hear similar wunderstoff from BNP sympathisers asking if you’re talking about the ‘Old’ Germany or the ‘New’ Germany.
Of course he could simply be worrying about being put into a position of discomfort by having connections in a country which might try to crush Estonia.
Pietr,
A big, well armed and ready to fight, country can stand up and confront aggressors, and should do so.
Estonia is in no such position.
That’s a matter of fact, not principle.
My main point is that Estonia by herself is in no position to confront the Russian bear, and she should not deluge herself into believing that the EU will protect her.
Yes. Which is why Estonia is member of NATO. The EU is just who we trade with. NATO has very strong interest in being credible and that means a Russian attack on Estonia means war with NATO. Do you think the leaders of NATO did not realise this when they allow us to join? Of course they did.
And who is NATO ?
It’s not what it once was. Since the EU is impotent, NATO is just the US, and I doubt that the US is, nowadays, in a mood to fight for Estonia…. it might be, but it’s not a sure bet. So – caution….
Quoth Jacob:
Of the NATO members who will still show up for a fight: US, UK, and I’d have a pretty good feeling about Denmark and Norway and the Netherlands and your former slaves who are now our allies.
How many Russians would show up for that? How many of your draftees report to begin with? How many of them are worth a damn? How many of them are busy in Chechnya and elsewhere? Say what you will about us, we don’t need our militaries to keep order internally. And our officers haven’t sold everything that works on the left to buy vodka.
Remember this also: In 1991, Saddam Hussein had us outnumbered by some ungodly margin. He also used Russian doctrine. We rolled him up in what, four days? Then came 2003, and most of our “allies” didn’t show up. How long was it before we were selling hot dogs and beer outside the building where his press flanky kept insisting that we had already been defeated?
Now, transplant that to Europe, where we’re not fighting to rebuild a former kleptocracy with a thin veneer of Arab national socialism, and trying to protect a theocratic absolute monarchy that actually had attacked us in recent memory. If we do that for our enemies, just imagine how far we’ll go for our actual friends.
Sunfish: are you really envisioning the US, let alone the UK, engaging in war with Russia right now?
Sunfish: are you really envisioning the US, let alone the UK, engaging in war with Russia right now?
It’s no less likely than Russia being able to mount a meaningful attack on Estonia.
None of this is as likely as me suddenly dumping Samizdata for Democratic Underground.
Sunfish,
“How many of your draftees report …”
I’m sorry to inform you that I have no draftees whatsoever in my service, and furthermore, I am no Russian, and not even a fan of Russia.
But Russia is a nation of 150 million, with thousands of planes, tens of thousands of tanks, nuclear weapons, etc.
Estonia is a nation of 1.3 million, a third of whom are Russians. The Estonian army has …. I don’t know if anything beyond some rifles.
The Chechens are a gang of feisty (gangsters) people, but I don’t wish the Estonians the fate of the Chechens. I don’t wish them to have those drunk Russian draftees set losse on them. That’s why I called for caution.
I think that Putin can act crazy, and I think Estonia should not count on NATO beyond a certain point. I hope I am wrong.
I think that Putin can act crazy, and I think Estonia should not count on NATO beyond a certain point. I hope I am wrong.
The Russians (actually to say “the Russians” is a mistake – I mean Putin’s thugs) used the position of the statute to provoke trouble in an important area of town – which is why it was moved.
Putin’s Enlish language television station has been busy talking about Russian soldiers being dug up and so on (I only know this as I happened to turn on the station last week).
As for the Estonian government – it is not as good as it could be (for example it recently renationalized the railways, and has made all sorts of concessions to the E.U.), but it doing the best it can with regard to the Russians.
When vast numbers of Estonians were abducted by the Soviets in 1940 and after 1945 (many never to return), a lot of Soviet citizens were put in their place. These people (and their children) were intended to be an enemy within for the Estonians – and too many (although far from all) of them are exactly that.
As for “be polite to the Russians”. Putin is a K.G.B. man – such creatures are always on the lookout for weakness. And remember that Putin himself (like so many of his kind) talks in camp-speak (for example he says that people should be “done in the bog” and so on), polite language would be considered effeminate by such criminal person – direct language is all he can understand.
If one aims about being “like Finland” (i.e. in having the status of contained autonomy in the way that the Finns had after 1945) one ends up enslaved. Only by fighting hard (physically fighting did the Finns win the position they got.
The Finns indeed faught hard, licked the Russians, and then only got their “contained autonomy”, under wich they lived happily ever after. After fighting hard, autonomy (albeit a good one) is all they got.
The Estonians have independence (sort of). And they’re much smaller and weaker than the Finns. To keep their independence and avoid a hard fight (a war), they should try, as far as possible, to refrain from provoking Putin and their own Russian population.
It would not be wise of them to choose the route of nationalist confrontation.
Then what should they do? If Finland busted their collective asses to fight for independence and obtained an imperfect resolution, then how in the hell is abject submission to criminal slime like Putin going to do Estonia a bloody bit of good?
Just curious, is all. I suppose I could also speculate as to how you have a dog in this fight, and what that dog actually is. However, that would be cynicism and god knows I’m never cynical about anything.
Sort of? Seems to me that if they were only ‘sort of’ independent then Putin would not be so touchy about what the Estonian government does in Estonia. Clearly they are really very independent indeed (what with joining NATO and the EU and taking down statues of Red Army soldiers) and that is what the Kremlin just cannot stand and yet demonstrably cannot do a whole hell of a lot about.
Incoherent paragraph and punctuation-free rant deleted