Your Majesties,
King Carl XVI Gustaf and
Queen Silvia;

Your Royal Highnesses;

Ladies and Gentlemen!


The relation of Estonia and Estonians with Sweden is a special one.

The ties between the two countries as well as the two peoples have been of long standing and absolutely essential for Estonia. Through centuries Estonians have lived with a feeling of Sweden's nearness, of Sweden's leverage and empathy.

In the foreground of Estonians' conception of history there is an understanding that the SWEDISH AGE several centuries ago was a period of cultural vigour which gave such a potent impetus to the education policy that, as the soil also was fecund, the momentum has been felt even through the most difficult times. The Gustaf Adolf Gymnasium in Tallinn and Tartu University are certainly not mere symbols -- they have been a real, concrete path to education for thousands and thousands of Estonians.

Today, revitalizing our legal standards after half a century of oppression, we in Estonia are again turning to the solutions proceeding from the legal principles of the one-time Swedish Age.

In this connection I should like to quote Professor Jüri Uluots, the last Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia before its occupation, who wrote these lines in 1929 as he welcomed His Majesty Gustaf the Fifth, the first Swedish king to visit the independent Republic of Estonia. This is what he said:

"... Justice, the eternal will to give each his own, is what the legislation of the Swedish Age has tried to administer in Estonia as much as possible. Hence it is understandable that the legal standards and the institutions of law established during the Swedish Age in Estonia have been able to persist in Estonia into much later times, and even when they had been removed in the meanwhile, they were revitalized again as soon as it was possible to begin putting into effect the eternal will toward justice."

Repetitions are part of history. These words, uttered 66 years ago, sound as if they were spoken today.

Professor Uluots is one of those to whom, already in his capacity of acting President, Sweden held out a friendly hand in 1944.

That was also a time which has sunk into the mind of our people for ever. We fully understand the complexity of the political situation in the world of those days, and appreciate the resoluteness with which Sweden opened its doors to tens of thousands of Estonians who found a second home in Sweden.

Sweden was to become a country where democratic Estonian thinking survived. Lund was to become a city where for many years more literature was published in the Estonian language than in occupied Estonia.

Uppsala was a home for prolific Estonian linguists, and in spite of all barriers part of their achievements successfully crossed the sea and reached Estonia.

The knowledge of all that helped Estonia to endure.


Your Majesties, Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Unfortunately the end of the century gives no evidence that the world has learned enough from the lessons of the century.

The euphoria that had overwhelmed Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the communist empire gave way to the prose of weekdays, and unfortunately these weekdays contain not only diligent work and the return of a democratic way of life, but also new tensions and new threats.

A small country has no other means to defend its case than memory and logic. Our memory and our logic command us to remind again and again that a policy of appeasement has never provided acceptable solutions, never granted justice and independence, never served the cause of democracy.

We wish to enter into the twenty-first century in the spirit of dialogue, co-operation and friendship.

The recent years have seen fruitful partnership between Estonia and Sweden in the fields of both trade and investment policy.

We all are connected by the sea.

I know what we all are thinking about at these words.

It will soon be a year since that terrible night when the whole world held its breath, the night that brought anguish and grief to each of us by this sea. During those days we looked very deep down each other's souls, and perhaps we reached a better mutual understanding than ever before.

Even today there is no single answer to the question WHY, and there hardly will be any.

But there is an answer to the question WHAT NEXT.

The sea will remain with us anyway, we have to come to terms with it.

Nordic co-operation is the co-operation of maritime peoples. This is the way it has been and will be.

While taking particular steps on the road of this co-operation, Estonia recollects the recent visit by Your Majesties, your inspiring intellectuality and your democratic attitude.

In Haapsalu, which you also visited, schoolchildren were sitting at computers a couple of weeks ago, on August 23. The school had obtained the computers with Swedish aid. The children sent you a cordial computer message of greetings; they were happy and grateful for you reply, they were glad that you still remembered Haapsalu.

Estonian children at their computers in a school of a small Estonian town, communicating with Sweden!... I am happy that it is no fantasy but perfect reality.

I would like to finish with these words by Axel Munthe:

"I was delighted to show my friend over the place and to explain to him all the future wonders..."


Your Majesties, Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Thank you for your friendly welcome, for the benevolent glance of modern Sweden.

I make so bold as to raise my glass in a toast to your health, happiness and good fortunes, as well as to Sweden!

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