ESTONIA: Almost extinguished, successfully reborn
The following text is the shortest possible review to help inform friends and guests from abroad about Estonia’s experience with foreign occupation and totalitarianism as well as its road to peacefully re-establishing national inde-pendence on the basis of democracy. Tunne Kelam Member of the European Parlament
The following text is the shortest possible review to help inform
friends and guests from abroad about Estonia’s experience with
foreign occupation and totalitarianism as well as its road to
peacefully re-establishing national inde-pendence on the basis
of democracy.
Tunne Kelam
Member of the European Parlament
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A Brief Political Chronology<br />
<strong>ESTONIA</strong>:<br />
REPUBLIC<br />
OF <strong>ESTONIA</strong><br />
100<br />
• 26 March 1917 – Peaceful procession in Petrograd,<br />
40,000 Estonian patriots under national flags<br />
demand autonomy.<br />
• 30 March 1917 – Russian provisional government<br />
decides to unite territories inhabited by Estonians<br />
into Estonian national province with right to elect a<br />
provisional territorial council.<br />
• 1 July 1917 – First session in Tallinn of newly<br />
elected Estonian National Council; Estonian<br />
becomes its working language.<br />
• 15 November 1917 – Estonian National Council<br />
proclaims itself the highest power in the country<br />
pending election of Constituent Assembly;<br />
simultaneously, following Lenin’s coup in Petrograd,<br />
communists establish their dictatorship in Estonia.<br />
• 18 February 1918 – German Army begins general<br />
offensive on eastern front; communist power crumbles.<br />
• 24 February 1918 – Estonian Salvation Committee,<br />
authorised by Estonian National Council, proclaims<br />
the independence of the Republic of Estonia;<br />
Estonian Provisional Government led by Konstantin<br />
Päts is formed.<br />
71
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