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Lecture of the President of Estonia Mr. Lennart Meri Mexico City, October 27, 1995
27.10.1995

Recent history of the Baltic Republics. Their Recovery of Independence and their Relations with the Former Soviet Union and the Actual Russian Federation.


Ladies and gentlemen,

I wrote a book years ago where I tried to have an insight into the early history of Estonians. It was then called search for one's identity, search for the roots. I do not object to such specifications. While thinking about the history of Estonians, I, as a matter of course, had to think about our kinsmen - the Fenno-Ugric peoples.

As the waves are drawing larger and larger circles around a stone thrown into the water, so my thoughts rambled into more distant connections, and the world of Estonians expanded and, at the same time, turned paradoxically more homely, because it was interwoven with sudden, often unexpected relationships. Competition and rivalry was filled with the spell of self-realisation and an enchanting harmony reigned over everything.

My ladies and gentlemen, today I also rather would like to talk about the fertilizing connections and divine harmony. I would look for symbols bridging your pyramids, temples and ancient manuscripts with Estonian folklore, which has been diligently collected and systematized and is reflecting a very old layer of our national consciousness.

I know that in this way I could bring you a message of harmony.

But - my subject is different.

We are living in the rough XX century full of merciless clashes, cataclysms, tensions, menaces. Ingenious inventions have already long ago turned into a peril. The air, the ether is filled with announcements of ever new ambitions, unsatisfied political desires, of brutal power that someone has too much to spare.

These announcements, this information finds the way to all of us and is making us to feel uneasy about the fate of the world. That is why I have to speak today about the anxious and dangerous world. Under this sign I have to speak about Estonia, in fact about all the Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, about their history in this century.

2.

This century was introduced by World War I. Empires crumbled, anticolonial liberation wars brought along the emergence of new states. Estonian statehood comes from that period too, from the Declaration of Independence on February 24, 1918. This was not a peaceful constituting of a state but was carried out in sharp confrontation with Bolshevist Russia and German troops. Still, Estonia managed to come out of it as a state.

In 1920, Estonia came to its first international recognition. After that history gave Estonia 22 years of time. I think Estonia used this time quite well. Economy was laid on a solid ground, achievements in culture and sciences were remarkable. In Latvia and Lithuania the situation was the same.

I do not want to idealize the political life of this period too much. Not always did Estonian politicians find the optimum solutions. But the development of the state is a complicated process and can not, in general, be pursued in constant harmony.

At any rate, in the late 1930's we were proud of ourselves as a nation, we had recognized our identity.

As a member of the League of Nations we also played an international role. I would like to make reference to the Friendship Treaty between the United Mexican States and the Republic of Estonia which was signed on January 28, 1937, by the Ambassador of Mexico to the United States of America Dr Francisco Castillo Najera, and the Estonian Consul in New York, Karl Kuusik by which diplomatic relations between our countries were established, a commercial treaty was planned, and the intention to "establish and secure mutual sincere friendship ties" was declared (animees du desir d'etablir entre elles et de consolider les liens de sinciere amitie).

3.

For the Baltic States the grimmest drama of this century began in 1939 and 1940. We turned out to be the objects of the Hitler-Stalin shady dealing,offered for b in the grandiose and vile plans for world partition. From this bargain a map with Stalin's bold pencil-line has been preserved, the pencil-line with which he corrected the border to his desired direction. On the map it is just a line. In life it meant the fate of people and nations. It was a come-together of totalitarian regimes and their frenzied hugging.

The American continent and Australia were first left out of the game, the partition-plan for the rest of the world was ready. We do not know how the war could have ended if Germany and Russia had fought on one side against the rest of the world.

Germany spared Russia from that - by attacking her and forcing thus her - then Soviet Union - to the democratic camp. This was Russia's chance for renascence and change, something the Russian intelligentsia had been hoping for. But this chance soon drained down to new shady dealings and new partitions of the world.

You understand that neither Estonia nor the whole Eastern Europe has any reason to call the Yalta and Potsdam agreements anything else but shady dealings.

The West turned its back on a large part of Europe, on the colourful and dynamic central-eastern part of it, and the era of communist totalitarianism and tyrannism for them began.

As I am saying these words today, as an Estonian deported to Siberia with my father, diplomat by profession, as a historian and the president of the again independent Estonia, I ask myself: how did we survive? We, our people, our nation .... because the communist regime was not only a suggestion, albeit a demand, to think otherwise.

It was elimination of the people via deportation; deleton of the people's memory by forging its history - at schools, in kindergartens already, in kindergartens already, in science, in literature -, it was ethnic cleansing by colossal, deliberately directed and channelled migration. And it was accompanied by the pseudotheoretical sophistry of creating a "united Soviet nation". It was merciless destruction of our natural and independent economic structure, our farmers had every reason to say that for Russia Estonia was a big happy biggery.

4.

But still - we survived.

Instead, the last colonial empire fell apart, proving with some kind of natural logic that unreasonable life canno't be eternal.

The term "perestroika" spread over the whole world in the mid-Eighties. Estonia was among the first to apprehend that it can't be limited to only minor plastic surgery or small rectification of the communist system alone.

For Russians themselves it was just a question of a political system. For nations living under the Soviet occupation it was also a question of national existence. I will never forget those years of national insubordination. We call that time the singing revolution, because it was the Song-Festival Ground, the scene place of more than a hundred years of song festivals, where Estonians gathered again and again, to demand independence and to sing in the name of their independence, to free themselves by singing.

On the evening of August 23, 1989, at the tragic date of the signing of Stalin-Hitler pact, the people of the three Baltic countries stood from Tallinn to the southern border of Lithuania, holding hands, creating a human chain throughout the three Baltic states, announcing to the whole world: the violence started by the Stalin-Hitler pact and blessed by the Yalta accords must come to an end.

All this took place at the time of the crisis within the Soviet Union, fostering and promoting it. When Moscow twisted in the cramps of the August 1991 coup, the political Rubico had been crossed. Estonia redeclared its independence on August 20. Already on September 5, Estonian independence was recognized by Mexico, who had never accepted Soviet annexation of Estonia.

5.

Four years have passed since. It is time for us to begin summing up. There has been a lot of discussion about the integration of Estonia and other Central European countries into Europe. We have belonged in Europe for more than 700 years already, we can, of course, go even further back, how could we possibly integrate into an entity where we have essentially established ourselves over the centuries?

When one walks about the Old Town of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, one can feel Europeanness radiating from the architecture, from every medieval house and every church steeple. Not only was Tallinn one of the most notable Hanseatic cities: in the present state of affairs it is one of the best preserved cities of the whole merchant league. The poetry of stone perpetuates history.

As for society, it is perpetuated and maintained through the legal system. Ladies and gentlemen, Estonia has been part of the Roman-Germanic legal system for over 700 years. This legal basis is even more important than well-preserved Gothic or Classicism. This legal basis, my friends, is a nursery where everything else springs up; it is the prerequisite, the basis and the very guarantor of the survival, the development and the success of our modern state, and from time to time when I hear speaking about the NATO umbrella, I tell to the audience that we have had our own umbrella - the legal system. When we think why perestroika took such a direction, and was not a tragic collapse or a civil war - the legal system has shaped also the Estonian way of thinking: the paragraph of law, even in international relations, has some meaning. A little naive, perhaps.

So we cannot speak about integration into Europe. What we can speak about is integration into all-European security and economic structures. And that does not mean creating a new situation, but rather restoring a normal Europe. It is not so much an economic or security issue as it is a matter of political judgement. Europe needs strong democratic leaders of the calibre of de Gaulle and Adenauer, who, decades ago, were able to make far-reaching decisions, who were not afraid to decide.

When we speak of integration with all-European structures, we have the European Union and NATO in mind. These two organizations are like two sides of the same coin: the one side tells us the currency, and the other the name of the state holding and protecting that currency. We see the EU and NATO as complementary and mutually perfecting each other. The hallmark of the EU is prosperity, and that of NATO is security. What they have in common is stability. Shifting into a world of mathematical terms, stability is the intersection of the EU and NATO. In view of this mathematical image, Estonia's aim is obvious: entrance into both NATO and the EU, which should happen as early as possible and as late as necessary.

7.

Here I am coming to the question of our relations with Russia. The world's relations with Russia. I regret very much that Russia's movement on the road she had before her in the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of new forces proclaiming themselves to be democratic, has slowed down. Demolishing the Soviet Union, many Russian politicians issued powerful declarations condemning imperial politics, the Stalinist-Brezhnevist past, the Soviet self-declared role of a world policeman. It is a pity that in 1995 we again have to read statements about Russia's right to move her armies in to neighbouring states. One has to listen to warnings and imperial reprimands.

It is sometimes said that, as far as Estonia is concerned, the reason for such warnings and reprimands is the existence and condition of several hundred thousands of Russians in Estonia. Naturally, it is a problem, both at the state and the human grassroots levels. I want to turn your attention to the fact that the Republic of Estonia is second only to Russia as a country where the highest percentage of Russian citizens are living. It is clear what kind of difficult problems it is creating for the Estonian state. But all these situations can be solved by reasonable agreements and constructive ideas. Normalization for us means establishing the same kind of relations with Russia as we enjoy with Mexico, the United States, or Germany or Sweden.

We have made considerable progress toward normalization during the past year. In 1940, the Soviet Union occupied Estonia, and Tallinn came under foreign rule in the very days in which the same fate befell Paris. Last year in August, in a historic deal that was brokered in part by the United States, the Russian Federation withdrew the last occupying troops from my country. Some problems associated with the withdrawal remain, but we are working them out through regular dialogue with our counterparts in Russia. Now we feel the same sense of enhanced security and elation - some would say bittersweet elation - that France, too, felt after its liberation.

Some problems, including the border, remain. I am confident, however, that despite internal developments in Russia, and with the help of the West, Estonian-Russian relations will take a turn for the better.

7a.

I have spoken of enhancing security by way of integration with Europe and normalization of relations with Russia. There is another way that we are working to feel more secure, and that is by strengthening our economic potential. As far as we see it, every dollar invested in Estonia is a dollar spent on defence.

You have all heard about our economic reform program hailed by the IMF and the World Bank as being among the most successful in Central Europe. It is no wonder that some observers refer to Estonia as a modern Wirtschaftswunder.

On a foreign economic front, we have earned the justified reputation for free-wheeling liberalism. We Estonians are a modest people, so we prefer to refer to ourselves using a term coined by Newsweek magazine not long ago as The Little Country That Could. Perhaps we are not so modest after all. Others say that our economic policies would make even Milton Friedman blush.

These policies have borne fruit. Foreign investments are up, as are exports. This year, in fact, Estonia ranks fourth among Central European states in direct foreign investments per capita. Trade has also reoriented. If in 1991, when we reinstated our independence, some 90% of our trade was with the East, then today, 65% of our trade is with the European Union and other Western states. Our currency is among the most stable in Scandinavia, and our foreign currency reserves have more than tripled since the kroon was introduced in 1992.

Our internal reorientation to a free market economy is going well. Over 70% of all state enterprises have been privatized. We have a balanced state budget and actual growth in the GDP, 6% this year to be exact. Estonia has a flat 26% income tax, and personal incomes are rising steadily, a statistic that you can see most clearly in the smiles on peoples' faces. We also have full repatriation of profits for foreigners doing business in Estonia. Tourism is also growing phenomenally in the second quarter of this year, tourism-related companies served twice the number of tourists than in the same period last year. I invite you to join them, I invite each and every one of you to come see our little miracle for yourselves.

8.

In this respect the 20th century is a weird century. Life in the world is so interwoven as it has never been before, we know about everything around the world at the same time and we can reach everywhere in a day. It really creates a feeling of a united world.

But still one has to remember the building of the Tower of Babel: there came a moment one had to speak one's mother tongue. This moment, the possibilities and pains of it are with us today. This inner urge and necessity to retain one's national identity, to distance oneself from confluent and amalgamating large families, and to retain one's language, unique in the world; to retain one's culture, one's genes - the richness of the world's genetic diversity - this drive is also one of the defining characteristics of the 20th century. There is the century's paradox in it, the basis for many dramatic collisions - and at the same time a new chance, worthy of the XXI century. There are already signs that these processes can happen in humanistic and democratic ways.

I hope we have enough wisdom and patience for that.

Thank you for your attention.

 

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