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President of the Republic to the Final Conference of the Students' Historical Research Competition ''Estonian Home and Family on the 20th Century'' organised by the Körber Foundation and Estonian History Teachers Society on June 29, 2000
29.06.2000

Dear Students, dear teachers!

History changes fast in time, as every moment that passes is already history. But also the historical science changes, as it is affected by our constantly advancing experience and changing attitudes. Our changing experience also means changes in the methods of historical research, the development of other sciences - genetics, for instance - enables us to utilise their accomplishments in historical research, and so on. You, researchers of history, would not be here today, if you did not know this already.

Estonia needs her own, Estonian history. Estonia needs her own, modern history. Because the Estonian state is the meaning of Estonian history. I am glad to see that Estonians came along with the idea I suggested last year, to write the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth volume for the History of Estonian People composed by Hans Kruus. In these volumes, the most recent accomplishments of historical research will be considered, and also the so far unexplored areas in the Estonian history - which it is not quite correct to call white areas, as they are covered by documents and memoirs - shall be covered by scientific information.

Yet by no means must we treat Estonia or Estonian history as a solitary palm island in the Pacific. This concept may have been one of the greatest mistakes of the Estonian historical research so far, especially in the Soviet times. Estonia is not isolated from the rest of the world so that the events elsewhere would not affect Estonia, or vice versa. It would be impossible to teach separately the history of Estonia, then the history of Latvia and then the history of Europe. This way, it could only be done by neglecting the connections, but this would be senseless, as it is connections that make history.

This would be like teaching addition without subtraction and multiplication without division. On world-wide scale, the interest towards the history of Estonia is certainly smaller than the interest towards the State of Charlemagne or the Roman Empire. It has even led some people to believe that Estonian historians should only investigate the Estonian history, because otherwise nobody would do this. This is not quite the case. Moreover, this statement could also conceal an attempt to justify the different

approach of the Estonian historical research, in the fear inherited from the Soviet times that perhaps we are not good enough for others.

And yet it is appropriate to start the hard work of a historian by looking into the history of your own home, so that you can tackle broader subjects with the experience and skill thus acquired. Therefore, I wish you strength for discussing the results of home and family histories, and hope that in the future we will thus have more researchers of world history. I am glad that 89 research papers participated in this competition. This gives a hopeful picture of the future generation of Estonian historians. At schools, the teaching of history concentrates more on facts. Knowing facts can bring you good grades, but the knowledge of facts without research, without analysis and synthesis, makes no one a scholar.

Thank you, my good friends, for participating in the competition.

I would also like to thank the teachers who have, besides their daily work, supervised the research papers, and the jury, who has worked with grading the papers. I also thank the Estonian History Teachers Society and the Körber Foundation for organising the competition.

Lennart Meri
Patron of the competition

 

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