Dear Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen!

Speaking of Europe, we all presume to know what Europe is. And yet every European nation looks at Europe with different eyes. Allow me to comment on it in four different ways.

First comment.

I, as well as several Estonians who are younger than me, have had to ask themselves whether they are to be the last Estonian-speaking generation in Estonia. Attempt now to imagine such state of mind in a Frenchman, or why not in a Spaniard, an Englishman, a German, or even in a representative of a small nation like the Estonians - a Czech, a Dutchman, or a Dane. You will not succeed. Even if some of you remember Guy de Maupassant's short story about the last French lesson after the French-Prussian war, you will be unable to imagine the death of a language. Because first and foremost Maupassant's short story is a magnificent affirmation of the language itself, the expression of deepest reverence to language as the implicit bearer of the nation's identity. As implicit as air. Could you imagine being fond of air, holding on to air?

Fortunately, dear ladies and gentlemen, you do not have this experience, and yet this too is a European experience - that of the Baltic States. Do you have the right to call yourselves Europeans, if you can only share part of Europe's experience? It is Estonia and the Estonians who have the other half of the European experience. It is very hard to describe. Death is the integral precondition of any kind of life. Trees die, but forests stay, and the forests are infinitely older than the oldest of their trees. People die with the knowledge that their experience, their habits and often their goals live on in a different form in their children and grandchildren, and in their last moments they seldom, if ever, think of the fate of the nation. And yet by your side, just a little to the north and to the east of you, there are Estonians, who were once prepared to face death - not on deathbed but in their own home country and as a whole nation. The reason, as you well may guess, was the secret decree of the political bureau of the Kremlin communists to start the immediate russification of the Estonians. This affected deeply the social behaviour of the Estonians. I shall limit myself to a single example: in the time of Brezhnev, in 1982, preparations were started for the new publication of the Estonian-language encyclopaedia. Let us not discuss its contents, for our people had got used to looking past the censorship during the years of occupation. The encyclopaedia had to be subscribed to and paid in advance. And there were 225,000 subscriptions per one million Estonians - one set for each family. Larousse or Brockhaus or Encyclopaedia Britannica do not have such experience - because this was a desperate attempt to prolong the agony of the nation. One more example. Two weeks ago, there were parliament elections in Estonia. France did not consider it necessary to send her observers to us and we appreciate your trust. The Russian parliament sent Yuri Kuznetsov, member of the Duma, as an observer. I quote his evaluation: "The Estonian language, as a member of the Finno-Ugric family causes mental retardation." The observer of the Russian parliament based his statement on the fact that in the Finno-Ugric languages there is no male or female gender. His conclusion was: "Raising children in the Estonian language is a criminal offence". The allegation of this observer statement only deserves to be quoted in this room for its absurdity. And yet it is the degeneration of common sense into total absurdity that creates new historical perspective and takes us to a threatening conclusion: Europe is capable of giving birth to new Hitlers and Stalins, and therefore, Europe is actually much smaller than the geographical Europe.

The second comment.

It would be easy to determine the centre of geographical Europe. When we draw diagonals from the north-west, the north-east, the south-east and the south-west of Europe, they shall cross in the area of Kaliningrad. This would be the centre of the two-dimensional Europe and create more problems than it could provide answers. Therefore, I am tempted to step from the two-dimensional world into the three-dimensional one and thereby to quote a distinguished Estonian anthropologist and genetician Richard Villems, who said yesterday: "The politicians think in terms that would never extend to the Palaeolithic period." The third dimension would therefore be Europe's depth, our history. In 1981, I wrote the following words: "Our language came from the east, our features from the west. Man lives within his mother tongue, his mother tongue lives in him. A man can not choose his mother tongue, but the tongue can choose the man". For a modern man, who counts seconds instead of millennia, it is probably hard to understand that populations and languages could move in different directions. I have tried to compare this process with a broad cornfield caressed by the wind. If we watch it long enough, we can see a golden wave sliding across the field. And yet every single stalk of corn will remain in its place. Still the regular movement of the cornfield can be followed and measured if we stand far enough. With this image, I have tried to explain the mechanism of cultural influences. Now, almost twenty years later, it has been confirmed that the Estonians and Finns living on the coasts of the Baltic Sea can genetically be traced to the distant prehistory of Europe. And there is another important aspect: at the dawn of the Roman times, Europe was more easily definable than it is today, when immense waves of migration, which have never reached Estonia, have washed over it. Therefore, we could call the Estonians and the Finns the oldest perennial inhabitants of Europe ever since they reached their home country following the huge ice-shield. The last 700 centuries can be traced genetically, the last 120 centuries also archaeologically, but my conclusions aim at something different. We are part of the population that has had a noticeable genetic integrity from Andalusia to Turkmenistan. What is then the secret of the fast development on the small peninsula of Western Europe throughout the last millennia? I assume this development is first and foremost due to the favourable indentation of our continent, which created the preconditions for the diversity of cultures, yet preventing their isolation. Personally, I draw profound moral satisfaction from the fact that in forging the identity of the ancient populations and the present nations the role of genes was less than 50%. Genes do not create identity. Identity is created by the combined influences of language, culture and the environmental pressure. And hence, the main conclusion concerning the third dimension of Europe: the diversity of the numerous small and big cultures of Europe is the key to understanding the European creativity. Europe has been comparatively poor in natural resources, it has never been the Garden of Eden. Europe was created by man, and poetically one might add that in return, grateful Europe created the European. Liberty, fraternity and equality could have been born in many places, but it was first and foremost in Europe that this beauteous plant could really root. Hence, we could also proceed to the frames for forging the European Union and the reasons why the enlargement of the European Union is inevitable.

And the last, third comment.

Europe's third dimension, the depth of Europe, comprises the total of our common experience starting with the Roman law and ending with the international law and human rights. The Yalta Conference left us with deformed Europe, and ten years ago many hoped that the impetus of the Russian perestroika would undo this aberration. Today, the hope is thinner, but also more realistic than in the days of the Berlin wall. The history of Russia is indeed a history of perestroikas, as dramatic as the melting and breaking of ice on the big rivers of Siberia in spring. Peter the Great beheaded fifty-four conservative streletses with his own hand and had their remains left on the Red Square for six months. Yet the modernisation of the state does not begin from the emperor's axe but from the citizen, his attitude, his preparedness for his duties and rights. The difference between Russia and Europe has never been as great as during the Soviet and Post-Soviet period, when - for the first time in history - the Russian citizen has had access to comparatively free media. The disappointments of the Western politicians should not overshadow the hopes, and vice versa. Russia needs two generations to recover from totalitarianism, and its greatest danger, the corruption inherited from the Soviet times, the hidden hindrance on the path of reformation. This has been the malady of Russia for centuries. We have underestimated the immense historic inertia of Russia, this immense country. Just because of its size, Russia has more land border and neighbours than any other country. This could be one of the reasons for Russia's insulation complexes that have lasted through the ages. The notion - long dead in Europe - that neighbours are dangerous by nature, lives on in Russia. So the more neighbours the greater the danger. All attempts the neighbours make to increase their security automatically mean undermining the security of Russia. Only a frightened neighbour is a secure neighbour. In its purest form, this centuries-old attitude obviously leads to a simple conclusion: Russia's troubles come from being too small. So it needs enlarging. The new wave of Russia's enlargement has been announced in full voice by influential political movements and parties - but not by the Russian government. Against this background, the promises to chastise NATO, dare it open its doors to the East European countries, sound comparatively mild. In my opinion, it is time to ask you and myself: what do we think of all this? How can one live in peace and happiness beside Russia?

Estonia has clearly emphasised her foreign policy priorities: to be prepared to accede to the European Union by January 1, 2003; to join NATO, and simultaneously, to develop economic and cultural co-operation based on equal rights with Russia. This has to be said again and again, repeated over and over. And even this is not enough. We must come together and think how to help Russia, so that the burden that has to sink into history would sink as soon as possible. That what seems to be an absurd anachronism to the Western eye would look the same to Russia. Estonia is willing to help here, as helping Russia we help ourselves and our future partners. We do it in a genuine and friendly manner, but we adhere to equal rights and sovereignty. We do not let us be misled by the rebukes that there is no gender in the Estonian language. Estonia's success is Europe's success, so let Estonia's success also be Russia's success.

Dear ladies and gentlemen, the theme of my speech was "How Great is Europe".

It probably surprises you that I have said nothing of the crisis in Europe, of the crisis of NATO, of the crisis of the European renaissance, of Europe's lacking resolve to determine its objectives and move steadily towards them. I have not touched these subjects, because I do not take all this talk about crises too seriously, except in case of NATO, of course. NATO is our muscles, and the muscles must be in good working order. But crisis is a positive state, both in the course of illness and in politics. First of all, it bespeaks of the need for changes. At the same time, the preservation of one's identity in the environment of quick changes may seem to many to be a compromise between two opposites. Still, this is not so. As I mentioned, the key to Europe's creativity lies in her diversity. Europe has always lived on contrasts. Her strength is in her capability to unite these contrasts and drive strength from them.

Russia's growing pains, the enlargement of the European Union, and finally the so-called crisis in Europe offer new challenges for changes and development, behind which the key of our future success is hidden.

Europe is still very small. Tell me, how Europe is going to grow, and I will tell you about the strengthening of her identity.

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