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Envíos 10057 |
 Enviado - 12 enero 2008 : 00:14:44
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Estonian Swedes Embrace Autonomy Rights
By Justin Petrone
CITY PAPER, Riga, December 2007
The illustrations of Ilon Wikland’s 1995 book for children, Den lnga, lnga resan or “The long, long journey,” show a young blonde girl growing up in a dreamy village and spending her days picking wild berries until an awful war turns her childhood upside down and sends her family on a perilous voyage to the safety of the Swedish Archipelago. For many Estonian Swedes, like Wikland, who was born in Tartu and lived in Haapsalu until her family fled the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1944, this is their story. A story of a cherished life in a corner of northern Europe that they were forced to abandon, along with their cultural institutions and ancient dialects, to become ‘regular’ Swedes again after perhaps a millennium apart from their home country.
Yet an interesting thing happened this year. Estonian Swedes became the second minority since the restoration of independence to establish cultural autonomy in Estonia according to the Law on Cultural Autonomy of National Minorities. That law, first adopted in 1925 and re-adopted in 1993, gave the right to form and oversee cultural institutions to the Russian, German, Swedish, and Jewish national minorities, as well as minorities numbering more than 3,000 with longstanding ties to Estonia. The Ingrian Finnish minority achieved autonomy in 2005.
Still, with a more than sixty year interlude between the mass exit of Estonian Swedes to Sweden and the establishment of cultural autonomy in Estonia, the question arises of how such a small group could preserve its culture. The answer seems to be that today’s Estonian Swedes are a different lot than the ones who left the beaches of western Estonia in the 1940s. Some were born in Estonia to Swedish families and have rediscovered their roots over the past 15 years. Others though were born to exile families in Stockholm and returned out of curiosity in the 1990s. A third group in this new mix of Estonian Swedes is ethnic Estonian exiles that grew up in Sweden, speak Swedish, and have close connections to other Swedes in Estonia. Uile Kirk-Remes, the head of the new Estonian Swedish Cultural Council, is representative of this newer Estonian Swedish identity. Born in Sweden to Estonian Swedish exiles, she returned at the beginning of the 1990s, and now finds her self at the center of a wheel of activities meant to breathe new life into Estonian Swedish culture. “After Estonia got independence again, when it was again possible for minorities to carry out these kinds of activities, then Estonian Swedes started again to do it,” Kirk-Remes told City Paper.
According to Kirk-Remes, the cultural council already has a loaded agenda, essentially because it has to rebuild institutions that have not functioned for decades. “There are very many practical things that need to be taken care of, because there was such a long gap — 50 to 60 years — during the Soviet era when we couldn’t work together at all,” she said. “And lots of cultural institutions which earlier included schools, activities, all the population, churches, houses — all of this disappeared.” Now the Estonian Swedish Cultural Council is looking to ensure that young people have the possibility to, among other things, study Swedish. Swedish immersion has already been offered since the mid-1990s at Noarootsi Gimnaasium near Haapsalu, where Estonian Swedes historically made up a significant part of the population. There is also a Swedish Folk High School in Haapsalu. The cultural council has also supported language lessons at the Swedish St. Michael’s Church in Tallinn, which has become a hub of Estonian Swedish activities in Estonia. Recently Kirk-Remes participated in a conference in Tallinn where both the Estonian state and the Swedish Embassy in Estonia discussed the challenges of rebuilding Estonian Swedish minority institutions. Between the autonomy laws sponsored by the state and the help from the exile community and Swedish embassy, Kirk-Remes said that the cultural council has received positive support for the council’s agenda.
Another Estonian Swede drawn into the rebirth of cultural activity has been Sofia Joons, who, like Kirk-Remes, was born in Sweden to an Estonian Swedish family, but one that also had ethnic Estonian roots. Joons, who lives in Viljandi in southern Estonia, is now married to an ethnic Estonian and uses the cultural events that are being organized through the cultural council to maintain Swedish-language use and cultural orientation in her family. Long before the establishment of cultural autonomy, Joons began using her Swedish, Estonian Swedish, and Estonian backgrounds to revitalize the Estonian Swedish folk music that was lost after the war. “I had just finished my music studies in Sweden, so I decided to move to Estonia in 1994 on a temporary basis. I ended up here in Viljandi studying Estonian traditional music. It was quite hard in the beginning. I just had learned Estonian and it wasn’t even the standard Estonian, we were singing in dialects,” she said. “I started to play a bow harp and I thought that maybe I could find my way to Estonian music through Estonian Swedish music.” Joons and fellow musicians formed a folk group called “Strand ... Rand” — the words for “coast” in Swedish and Estonian, respectively — and recorded an album of traditional music.
According to Joons, she has recently compiled a book of Estonian Swedish Traditional Chorales that will appear early next year. “It will be in both Swedish and Estonian. So it is an integration project,” she said. “I will use it in the Swedish church in Tallinn and I think this is a book that will last for a long time. It is a book that could last for maybe 20 years,” she said. Joons is also on the cultural council and said that she often participates in the events in Tallinn. “I have a son that is two years old and we are attending open-meetings for Swedish-speaking children and their parents. We try to go there as often as we can,” she said. Historical Differences Next to the Estonian Swedes that have returned to restart cultural life in Estonia have been those who remained in Estonia during the Soviet occupation. According to Elna Siimberg, also on the cultural council, the Estonian Swedish community that existed in Estonia before the war went two separate ways during the Soviet era. “Estonian Swedes who live in Estonia are... different from the Estonian Swedes who fled and who have now lived in Sweden for 60 years,” she told City Paper in an e-mail. “Their children are Swedes, though some of them have an interest to visit Estonia,” she wrote. “Those that fled as children 60 years ago are still speaking the dialect that they spoke at that time. Their childhood books were not the same as ours in Estonia.”
According to Siimberg, it is normal that some Estonian Swedes who live in Sweden come to visit a few times a year. Others own summer houses and frequently vacation in western Estonia while still others have chosen to stay. Jan Persson is part of the Estonian Swedish community in Stockholm that has chosen the second option. Persson’s mother fled Estonia in 1944, and like so many others, he was lured back in the early 1990s to do some academic work related to the Estonian Swedish community. He was also able to reclaim property in Noarootsi that was nationalized during the occupation. “I am the owner now of the land that used to belong to my grandparents, 25 hectares of forest,” he told City Paper. “I would estimate that there are about 30-40 summer houses for Estonian Swedes in Noarootsi Parish [in Lanemaa county],” he said. Persson himself has dual citizenship and his job at Swedbank often takes him to Estonia. “I often spend time there, about four or five times a year connected to my job. I am quite often in Estonia. My family spends at least one or two weeks every summer there on vacation,” he said. According to Persson, regular Swedes today are unaware of their relatives across the Baltic, even among the descendants of those who fled in 1944. “Very few people are aware of this. This is a forgotten part of Swedish history,” he said. “When Estonia regained independence there were a number of articles and TV programs. But if you ask the major part of the population I would say that they would not be aware that there were Swedes in Estonia,” said Persson.
Still, for native Swedes who venture into Estonian Swedish areas, the trip is often seen as coming into contact with an older Swedish culture that the homeland has itself lost. Göran Broden, a Swedish businessman who lives in Tallinn, visited Noarootsi several years ago and met with some of the Swedish-speaking residents. “It was an old couple and I was totally stunned when they started to speak Swedish to me,” he told City Paper. “Equally surprising was the way they spoke Swedish — kind of the same way I can hear people speak on old, black-and-white Swedish movies from the 1930s,” he said. “Entering their house, the living room walls were totally covered with pictures of the Swedish king and queen and their kids. If they knew we were coming they would probably have put up the Swedish flag outside as well,” said Broden. Karolina Ullman, a partner at MAQS Law Firm in Tallinn, grew up attending an Estonian school in Stockholm. Like many others, Ullman moved to Estonia because of her family background. But because she grew up in Sweden and speaks Swedish, she now finds herself in the category of “Estonian Swede.” It is due to this confusion over what exactly makes an Estonian Swede an Estonian Swede that the community is fuzzy on how large its numbers are. Kirk-Remes estimates that there may be around 1,500 Estonian Swedes in Estonia.
Ullman said that it is difficult to determine where exactly the community begins and ends. “It depends on how you count them, because a lot of people living here can be both Estonian and Swedish,” said Ullman. She said that the reason Estonia has managed to attract so many of the descendents of its former citizens back from across the Baltic is that “it is very easy for a Swede to settle down here.” “The culture that we have is very common, we have some common history, religion is not that apparent, but it is something we share. Estonia would like to become a Nordic country and I think that over the past 15 years they perhaps have,” she said.
(http://www.citypaper.ee/estonian_swedes_embrace_autonomy_rights/) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 17 abril 2008 : 00:33:23
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Estonia aprueba programa para integración de minorías étnicas
RIA Nóvosti, Moscú
10/ 04/ 2008
Tallin, 10 de abril, RIA Novosti. -- El Gobierno de Estonia aprobó el jueves un programa quinquenal evaluado en más de 60 millones de euros que apunta a elevar el grado de integración de las minorías étnicas en la vida económica, política y social del país.
"El objetivo del nuevo programa es fomentar en cada residente permanente, a través del aprendizaje del idioma estonio, la sensación de que compartimos valores comunes", declaró la ministra de Asuntos Poblacionales, Urve Palo, al presentar el documento a sus colegas del Gabinete.
Entre otras cosas, el programa contempla las clases gratuitas del idioma estonio para 1.500 personas, pretendientes a la naturalización.
(http://sp.rian.ru/onlinenews/20080410/104748604.html) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 21 junio 2008 : 23:56:17
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Estonie: les non-citoyens pourront se rendre en Russie sans visas d'ici un mois
RIA Novosti, Moscou
18/ 06/ 2008
TALLINN, 18 juin - RIA Novosti. -- Les non-citoyens estoniens pourront se rendre en Russie sans visas dans un mois environ, a annoncé mercredi à RIA Novosti l'attaché de presse de l'ambassade russe en Estonie Maxime Kozlov.
Le président Dmitri Medvedev a signé, mardi 17 juin, le décret régissant les modalités d'entrée en Russie et de sortie de Russie pour les apatrides ayant possédé la citoyenneté soviétique, vivant actuellement en Lettonie et Estonie. Ces personnes pourront désormais entrer en Russie sans visas, munis de leurs papiers d'identité. Il s'agit d'une carte de non-citoyen pour ceux qui résident en Lettonie et d'un passeport d'étranger pour les habitants de l'Estonie.
"Probablement, cette procédure prendra environ un mois. Dès que les documents conformes aux dispositions du décret du président parviendront à l'ambassade russe à Tallinn. En attendant, les non-citoyens sont obligés de demander des visas", a-t-il dit, avant d'ajouter que le gouvernement devrait encore approuver ce décret. Peu après, le ministère russe des Affaires étrangères, les douanes et le Service fédéral des migrations (FMS) recevront ces documents afférents. Actuellement, le nombre des non-citoyens estoniens est de 115.000 personnes.
(http://fr.rian.ru/world/20080618/111148426.html) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 29 septiembre 2008 : 21:57:31
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Estonia to teach more Estonian
THE BALTIC TIMES (In cooperation with BNS)
Sep 01, 2008
TALLINN - Estonian schools have expanded the number of courses that must be taught in the country’s national language in an effort to revitalize the language and give minority students more opportunities.
The move means that all schools nationwide – including those that cater specifically to native Russian speakers – will have to include Estonian-language courses in both Estonian literature and either music or civic studies.
Currently only 17 Russian-language schools – about 27 percent of the total number of such schools operating in the country – meet the requirements.
Under the program, all Russian-language schools will have to teach at least 60 percent of their courses in Estonian from the 10th grade onwards starting from the academic year 2011/2012.
In the previous academic year, there were 30,626 students attending Russian-language schools nationwide, nearly 20 percent of the total number of students in the country.
(http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/21237/) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 08 diciembre 2008 : 22:44:26
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In Estonia, more new Russians than new Estonians
Monsters and Critics.com
Oct 31, 2008
Tallinn - Estonian residents are obtaining Russian citizenship at nearly twice the rate they are claiming Estonian citizenship, according to figures released Friday.
Newspaper Eesti Paevaleht reported that the Russian embassy in Tallinn had granted Russian citizenship to 3,700 people during the last twelve months, while Estonian government figures showed that 1,600 people had acquired Estonian citizenship since January this year.
The newspaper quoted Russian embassy spokesman Maxim Kozlov who said 'Estonia is one of the leading places in the world in terms of adoption of Russian citizenship.'
In the build-up to the August war between Georgia and Russia, there was a widely-reported surge in the number of Russian passports being given to residents of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as Russia claimed the right to protect its passport-holders abroad.
Subsequently, international attention has been directed at other countries with significant Russian populations and Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili has even suggested 'the Baltics will be next.'
While there is no evidence Russia is planning any intervention in Estonia, which is an EU and NATO member, the disparity between the application rates is significant because the news comes just one day after the Estonian government decided to launch a campaign entitled 'It is good to be an Estonian citizen.'
Part of the initiative will see officials of the Citizenship and Migration Board visiting schools in ethnically Russian areas to tell children about the benefits of Estonian citizenship.
Around one quarter of Estonia's 1.3 million population is ethnically Russian, including more than 100,000 'non-citizens', who have resident status but no passport.
Citizenship issues remain a thorny subject in Estonia and its southern neighbour, Latvia, both of which have significant Russian minorities.
Last year, reports from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the United Nations which were critical of Estonia's stance regarding its stateless residents sparked a furious response in the tiny Baltic nation.
Estonian popular opinion is that the country is still battling to reclaim its identity fully after decades of forced 'Russification' during the Soviet period, while Moscow claims its compatriots are subject to unfair discrimination.
(http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1440300.php/In_Estonia_more_new_Russians_than_new_Estonians_) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 18 marzo 2009 : 14:40:58
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Minorities a priority for Estonia
THE BALTIC TIMES
March 03, 2009
TALLINN – The Estonian government has stated that protection of ethnic minorities is a priority. Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, at a meeting with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) High Commissioner on National Minorities Knut Vollebaek said they have adopted two new integration programs for 2009.
Also the number of stateless residents has been constantly declining in Estonia, Ansip told OSCE.
"Even though the pace of naturalization has slowed down, the state has kept searching for possibilities to speed it up,"said Ansip.
Informing residents about possibilities to apply for citizenship has become a primary focus, especially for children and young people.
Special attention is being paid to reducing the nuber of stateless children, said Ansip.
Starting from February 2007 the state informs parents of children with undefined citizenship upon the registration of birth, that they have the possibility to seek Estonian citizenship for their child under simplified procedures.
The prime minister said that applying for citizenship was a very important decision for the sake of which the person himself had display certain activity.
(http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/22436/) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 29 octubre 2009 : 14:54:03
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A Narva, îlot russe, les habitants ont un "patriotisme local"
Piotr Smolar
LE MONDE, Paris
18.10.2009
Narva se trouve en Estonie. Du moins, d'un point de vue géographique. Tout le reste, ou presque, paraît russe. La population, à 95%. Les voitures, les journaux, les cigarettes, les chaînes regardées à la télévision. On est dans l'Union européenne, mais on n'y est plus vraiment. Drôle de zone grise, au nord-est du pays.
De l'autre côté du fleuve se trouve la ville russe d'Ivangorod et sa forteresse. Saint-Pétersbourg est à 220 km. Les habitants de Narva - environ 66 000 personnes - ont l'habitude de traverser le pont pour s'y rendre. Ils sont mus par l'intérêt économique: là-bas, les produits élémentaires sont bien moins chers.
Ici, chaque sou compte. Détruite à 90% pendant la seconde guerre mondiale, Narva est une zone industrielle sinistrée. Autrefois, la grande usine locale employait 13.000 salariés; seuls 1200 continuent de pointer. En un an, avec la crise mondiale, le chômage a grimpé de 3%, à environ 12%. Et il ne s'agit là que des chiffres officiels.
Guère étonnant, dès lors, qu'une petite affichette collée sur la porte du poste douanier ait suscité la colère générale, cet été. Depuis le 1er juillet, les particuliers ne sont autorisés à rapporter de Russie que deux paquets de cigarettes par jour, indique-t-elle. Et un seul litre d'alcool. Cette mesure, destinée à lutter contre les trafics florissants, ne fait que respecter les normes européennes de contrôle. Un millier de personnes se sont rassemblées le jour même de son entrée en vigueur pour protester. A leur tête, un vieux briscard de Narva, Youri Michine.
Ancien cadre du Parti communiste, il dirige l'Union des citoyens russes. C'est lui qui, au début des années 1990, avait poussé ses compatriotes à réclamer la nationalité russe et à signer une pétition pour instaurer des quotas ethniques dans les institutions de l'Estonie. Trois fois candidat à la Douma (Parlement russe), il affirme pourtant que l'Estonie est sa patrie. "Avec la crise, on se rend compte que la Russie ne nous aidera pas, maintenant qu'on est dans l'UE", soupire-t-il.
Sentiment de flottement
Ni tout à fait estonien ni tout à fait russe: ce sentiment curieux de flottement, ou d'abandon, est largement partagé. Le maire de Narva, Tarmo Tammisti, 47 ans, n'est guère étonné. "Nous avons fait une enquête pour connaître le sentiment d'appartenance des habitants. En majorité, ils se disent 'de Narva'. C'est un patriotisme local." Selon le maire, une différence existe entre les générations. "Les jeunes et les gens d'âge moyen sentent bien qu'ils vivent dans l'UE. Seuls les retraités sont irrécupérables, inconsolables. Cela dit, s'ils ont besoin de quelque chose, ils s'appuieront sur les lois européennes..."
Un des obstacles à une meilleure intégration des habitants de Narva est leur difficulté à obtenir la nationalité estonienne. Pour l'ethnosociologue Raïvo Vetik, à Tallinn, les conditions strictes imposées aux Russes de souche - en particulier la connaissance de la langue - ont été contre-productives. "La citoyenneté devrait être un outil, pas une récompense. De fait, on punit les habitants de Narva qui ne peuvent pratiquer la langue estonienne."
(http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2009/10/17/a-narva-ilot-russe-les-habitants-ont-un-patriotisme-local_1255250_3214.html) |
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Minories a ESTÒNIA / Minorías en ESTONIA
