Language, nation and citizenship: contrast, conflict and convergence in Estonia’s debate with the international community

Gabrielle Hogan-Brun Department of German, University of Basel, Switzerland

Sue Wright Centre for European and International Studies Research, University of Portsmouth,

UK

This paper investigates the clash of (language) ideologies in Estonia in the post-Communist period. In an analysis of changing Western recommendations and Estonian responses during the transition of Estonia from Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) to independent state, we trace the development of the discourses on language and citizenship rights. Different conceptions of the nation-state and of how citizenship is acquired, together with different approaches to human rights, led to disagreement between Estonian political elites and the political actors attached to international institutions. In particular, the Soviet demographic legacy posed problems.

We use a contextually sensitive approach that takes account of human agency, political intervention, power and authority (Blommaert 1999) in the formation of (national) language ideologies and policies. We find that the complexities of cultural and contextual differences were often ignored and misunderstood by both parties and that in their exchanges the two sides appeared to subscribe to ideal philosophical positions. In the following two decades both sides repositioned themselves and appeared to accommodate to the opposing view. In deconstructing the role of political intervention pressing for social and political inclusion, in documenting the profound feeling of victimhood that remained as a legacy from the Soviet period, and in the bargain that was struck, we hope to contribute to a deeper understanding of the language ideological debates surrounding the post-communist nation-(re-)building process.

Keywords: citizenship; collective memory; language rights; nationalism; nation (re-) building.

IntroductionThis paper investigates the clash of ideologies between political elites in Estonia and the political actors attached to various international institutions in the immediate post-Communist period. The transition of Estonia from Soviet Socialist Republic to independent state was overshadowed by the legacy of the drastic demographic changes that had taken place there during 50 years of occupation i. As the Estonians conceived the Soviet era as a period of colonisation and their independent statehood to be a restitution of sovereignty after an illegal appropriation, the position of the ‘newcomers’ was problematic. Should they be required to leave, as colonial masters

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had been in many countries of Africa and Asia? Would their continued presence in these republics be a threat to national cohesion and an ongoing irredentist threat? The international agencies and organisations that became involved during the period of socio-political transition seemed to take a very clear human rights position on this problem and its resolution. They argued that the right of nearly half a million people in Estonia to have citizenship in the state in which they had lived and worked (and in many cases were born) was clear and non-negotiable.

We look in this paper at how this debate played out in a variety of interchanges between the international institutions and the country’s government and in speeches and articles aimed at the international community and at the Estonians themselves. Framing this debate were a number of ideological positions. To give context and background to the analyses of the texts we start with an overview of the philosophical paradigms that underpinned the various positions taken. The different understandings of what a nation is, how citizenship can be acquired and which human rights are inalienable seemed to fuel the disagreements.

The nation-state as a monolingual public spaceIn the historical context of Europe, ‘those engaged in nation-building recognised that altering the language landscape was one of the key elements for the successful accomplishment of their ambitions’ (Wright 2004: 19). From the 16th century, application of the concept of cujus regio, ejus lingua began the linguistic unification of statesii. In the move from feudalism to centralising absolutism, the language of the court and the capital was imposed as the language of bureaucracy and the law without great opposition. Then, as states became democratic and citizens began to participate in the political process, the French revolutionaries’ idea of ‘one state, one people, one language’ gripped the imagination of all those proto-elites hoping to lead their proto-nations to independent statehood. With the rise of nationalism it largely became axiomatic that a nation needs one language only and that modernization and industrialization and all their benefits require that nation-states support that one language, whether it is termed official or national. In a number of European nation-states a fair degree of linguistic homogeneity was achieved (and maintained) by embedding the ‘national language’ into state institutions such as the army, the education system and the civil service. In this process, indigenous or long-standing ethno-linguistic minorities were to a large extent absorbed into a homogeneous national political culture. Following decolonisation in the post World War II era and the disappearance of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the last decades of the 20th

century, this political ideology became the norm for almost all (re-)emergent nation-states. A range of commentaries on language, culture and nationalism documents these historical developments (e.g Fishman 1971; Barbour and Carmichael 2000; Wright 2000 & 2004; May 2003; Joseph 2004; etc.).

This desire for the congruence of state, people and language has proved immensely powerful, and even as the monolingual nature of states weakens in the face of massive migratory flows and the constant exchanges of globalisation, the majorities within European peoples still tend to conceive of their nation-state as essentially monolingual. We see evidence for this, for example, in the general support that has been given to the introduction of formal language testing as a prerequisite for citizenship (Extra et al 2009, Hogan-Brun et al. 2009b; UNESCO 2008; ) or, for

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example, in attitudes towards the spread of English-medium higher education and research dissemination (Leppänen et al forthcoming; van Parijs 2011). Europe is thus a multilingual continent but with majorities that protect their monolingual public space.

Theories of nationalism and citizenshipEuropeans seem to believe in the benefits of a monolingual national community, no matter which of the two main philosophies of nationalism they have been formed by: either communities of ‘putative consent’ or of ‘putative descent’ (Kohn 1960: 351). It is generally agreed (see Ozkirimli 2000) that there are two main traditions within nationalism, most commonly described as ‘civic’ (‘unions of citizens’) or ‘ethnic’ (‘folk communities’). In determining who may belong to the nation, the distinction is made between jus soli (‘right of soil’) and jus sanguinis (‘right of blood’). According to jus soli, people born within the territory of a given state are citizens by virtue of place of birth; those born outside are not. In jus sanguinis the criterion for belonging is descent. Through blood ties, individuals ‘inherit’ their place in the nation and their citizenship. Thus in some states, certain categories of people may be classed as foreigners, even when they have been born on state territory and lived all their life there (as is the case, for example, in Switzerland). However, it is also generally agreed (again see Ozkirimli 2000) that there are few examples of states that adhere absolutely to jus soli or to jus sanguinis; in most cases nationality law makes provision for citizenship using criteria drawn from both philosophies.

An important aspect of this for the present argument is the way in which the Western democratic political establishment, the institutional agencies concerned with human rights and most of academia tend to ignore this complexity of practice, and construct jus soli and civic nationalism as the respectable and acceptable version of nationalism as opposed to jus sanguinis and ethnic nationalism, the pathological nationalism which can all too easily lead to ethnic cleansing and genocide. This is an important distinction in the following analysis; there was great pressure on Estonians to recognise civic nationalism as the only acceptable form of nationalism. This is interesting given the less than clear cut nature of nationality law on the continent and the waning adherence to the stronger forms of civic nationalism that can be noted in many parts of western Europe. For example, the French state, the archetype for jus soli, has wavered in the last two decades over the automatic right of those born on French soil of foreign parents to become Frenchiii. As has been observed (Extra et al. 2009), the political class in many western European states has responded to populist pressure and the process of naturalisation has become increasingly difficultiv. There has in fact been some convergencev among states in Europe and an absolute right to nationality from jus soli is increasingly rare. We can summarise here by saying that, even though western European elites remain intellectually committed to civic nationalism, its peoples are increasingly supporting political parties that contest the concept of multiculturalism and the idea of ‘unions of citizens’, with diverse cultural and linguistic practices.

A further point to make about civic and ethnic nationalism in this context is to note that the ethnic tradition informed Estonian nationalism and nation-building more clearly than the civic. In this Estonians were in the mainstream of Central and Eastern European practice. Herder’s (1784-1791/1991) idea that a people could only prosper if it inhabited its own homeland was very attractive to those under the rule of the

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Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. National activists promoted the ideas that rule by outsiders was unendurable, that the group could only flourish if it managed its own affairs, that its discrete nature was clearly established and had been so since time immemorial, and that it had ancestral rights to the territory on which it found itself. The ‘national awakenings’ of the 19th century were fuelled by historians, archaeologists, linguists, folklorists, musicians, writers and painters, all of whom reinforced the message that their group was an independent nation, bound by blood ties and a unique history. When sovereignty and statehood were granted to a number of groups in the treaties that followed World War I, the victorious powers were happy to apply the principles of self-determination for nations and ethno-nationalism, since this dovetailed agreeably with their desire to punish the vanquished powers and dismantle their empires (Seton-Watson 1977)vi.

During the Soviet period the nationalisms of Central and Eastern Europe were eclipsedvii. Then, when groups sought to reaffirm their independence and identities, after the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Warsaw Pact, ethnic nationalism came to the fore againviii. The existence of blood ties can be difficult to establish; language, on the other hand, was an easier way of delineating group membership. Those who had migrated from the Russian heartland to other SSRs had rarely acquired the language of the territory in which they found themselves. Language could thus contribute to distinguishing in and out groups in the new states. In Central and Eastern Europe the discourse portrayed ethno-linguistic understanding of belonging within a political community and was to produce a clash of values during the period of integration with the West.

Inalienable human rights‘The liberal strand of the Western political and philosophical tradition suggests that the basic rule for society should be that each member of it be permitted to exercise the greatest liberty consistent with doing no harm to others or depriving them of their liberty’ (Wright 2004: 183). This precept is, of course, in direct contradiction to nation-building in which cultural and linguistic convergence is encouraged or enforced. Perhaps the two seem able to coexist, because nation-building is so often the unexamined and unchallenged default in society. However, where language rights are salient this liberal precept predisposes the Western liberal to be against them. Language rights are, of necessity, group rights, and require some enforcement. Individuals do not ask for the right to speak to themselves; they ask for the right to be understood by others. For minority language maintenance (or revitalisation) to be successful minorities need to reinforce internal cohesion and encourage convergence among those on the periphery. It is in part because of this group right dimension that the acceptance for the need for language rights progressed very slowly. In early legislation, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), language rights were negative rights (freedom from persecution if one uses a language) rather than positive rights (the possibility of using the language in state institutions or the public space).

In Europe the move to positive rights came from the Council of Europe. In the 1990s the Council built on ideas promoted by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) [which later became the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)] and introduced the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 1992 and the Framework Convention for the Protection of

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National Minorities in 1995 (see Index). These instruments represent an increasing trend to internationalise minority rights. They embody standards of international law and frameworks that are based on Western models of diversity management. However, as Kymlicka observes, it must be borne in mind that Western ideals of multicultural citizenship are quite recent and we could suggest that they were permitted to surface at the very point when ethno-cultural diversity was no longer seen as an existential threat to states in the West. Rights to protect the linguistic and cultural diversity of autochthonous groups ‘have gradually moved out of the security/loyalty framework into that of normal politics’ (2001: 22). So in contradiction to the assimilationist stance increasingly taken towards recent migrants, it has now become habitual for western European governments to recognise the rights of indigenous ‘minority’ groups to maintain some cultural and linguistic distinction, and, in many cases, to accommodate quite considerable degrees of political autonomy for such groupsix.

The historical contextHow then has this complex mix played out in the Baltic region in general, and in Estonia in particular? How do the governments and peoples of these states feel about the traditional aspiration for the nation-state to be monolingual following their reinstated independence? Do they still largely subscribe to the ethno-nationalist principle and see the nation as a group with a long shared past? Are they in a position where they will accept ‘minority’ language rights, and will these be negative or positive rights?

The language question is coloured by the legacy of language policy under the Soviet system. Territorial rights existed for languages in various jurisdictions (republics, autonomous republics, regions, districts, autonomous areas), with Russian having universal rights, i.e. portability. With the decline of the Soviet Union, the peoples of the Baltic SSRs began to reassert their cultural and linguistic independence, even before political sovereignty seemed possible. Culture and language took on the key roles that they had played in the Baltic region in the ‘national awakening’ of the 19th century. After independence, in a deliberate ‘act of will’, the politics of state re-making were largely determined by the politics of language, so as to counteract the effects of former Soviet policies. The language group that had been the majority in the former USSR, where Russian was primus inter pares with portable rights, now found itself a minority in the independent successor states of the Baltic region and was expected to learn the titular language of their host country. The language reversal in the changing power constellation confirms once more that language always follows power (Lüdi 2008: 1f).

The official status of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian, re-established in the Baltic states after independence was anchored in their national constitutions. Language legislation (see Index) figured prominently in the early legislation of each republic. It regulated state language use in the main spheres of public life and stated the legal implications for violations in a centralist and control-oriented approach (Spolsky 2002). These socio-political developments in the early post-independence period in the Baltic are covered by Hiden & Salmon (1991), Lieven (1993), Gerner and Hedlund (1993) and Smith (1994). A comparative analysis of the formation, principles and implementation process of Baltic language policies is in Hogan-Brun et

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al. (2007). Collected cross-Baltic sociolinguistic reviews are available in Hogan-Brun (2005).

Who was actually to use the national language in national space depended, of course, on the answer to the key question ‘Who are the citizens?’ Could they be all the people who found themselves on Estonian, Latvian or Lithuanian territory at the moment of independence, in the conception of ‘people’ that drew from civic nationalism and the concept of jus soli? Or should the Baltic republics only include those who (or whose families) were citizens on their territories at the time of the first Soviet invasion? This would constitute a quasi-ethnic concept of citizenship in the sense of the jus sanguinis principle (bearing in mind that these states were not 100% ethnically homogenous at that point). Whilst Lithuania chose the more inclusive civic option, Estonia and Latvia became the only two post-Soviet countries initiating restrictive citizenship for Soviet time settlers.

Interest groups in the battle for citizenship In the following sections, we follow the citizenship and language debate as it played out in three constituencies in Estonia. The first, the international community, was very much fixed on the idea that principles of civic nationalism should prevail and that those Soviet citizens resident in Estonia at the moment of independence should have the right to remain and be full members of society. In this group there is little acceptance of the weight of the past. The philosophy draws on universalism and the classic French tradition, and follows the French 19th century thinker, Renan, in seeing political community as dependent on judicious ‘forgetting’ (Renan 1882: section 2). The ideal here is to replicate the process of the French revolution which was a fresh start where no-one could appeal to the past for legitimation of special claims. The break with the past was enshrined in all revolutionary proclamations. The Preamble to the 1791 Constitution specifically stated that citizens were freed from the social classes that had placed them in social roles among which there was no mobility:

There will no longer be an aristocracy, no peers, no inherited titles. There will be no conferred titles, no feudal relations, no class based justice system and none of the titles, benefits and class system that derive from them. There will be no orders of chivalry, nor any other group or title which depends on a belief in difference of status at birth and for which proof of nobility is required. Status will only come from the exercise of one’s duties in the service of the people. There will be no more buying or inheriting of public office. No part of the nation, no individual will be privileged nor exempt from the common law which will apply to all French peoplex.

However, the second group, the titular nationals and the elite that speaks for them, is naturally reluctant to forget the past. Many nationalist movements construct their group as ‘victim’ of past injustice, drawing on evidence of oppression, suffering and inequality (Schöpflin 2003). In the Baltic republics there was much past injustice on which to draw (cf. Nagler et al 1993; Vihalemm 2005). The Estonians had already started to discuss the issue of citizenship before the end of communism. The citizens’ movements asserted that the pre-war republic had been forcibly and illegally incorporated into the Soviet Union. The demographic influx itself during the Soviet period was thus considered illegitimate and the case was made that Estonia’s political community should be a continuation of the previous inter-war society. According to one strong line of argument among the indigenous populations, the Russians and

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others who had profited from a colonial adventure should withdraw wholesale now that decolonisation had taken place. They were to be classed as illegal immigrants in a state which was not a new construction but the restitution of a nation-state which they (or their forebears) had helped dismantle in 1940 (cf. Lauristin and Heidmets 2002). The ideal of the Herderian linguistically and culturally cohesive nation seemed appealing given the experience of living with others that the Estonians had enduredxi. The civic nationalism promoted by the international agencies was unattractive. In the end the Estonian elites’ decision was that automatic citizenship was to be solely based on the pre-1940 residence criterion: only those who had been citizens there in 1940 or their descendants would now automatically have the right to become citizens. They could be of any ethnic group or background or language group, since the issue was only whether they or their forebears had been citizens thenxii.

This position constituted a direct challenge to the third group, the 400,000 + post-1940 permanently resident settlers in Estonia who did not automatically qualify for citizenship under the new governmental rulingsxiii. This ‘disenfranchised’ group then developed a discourse of victimhood, different from the indigenous population’s self construction as victims, but parallel to it. The discourse was fuelled by the Russian media. This group was very mixed, consisting of ethnic Russians and largely russified Slavs from other former SSRs, who saw themselves as victims of history in different ways. The voluble opposition to the new arrangements came principally from the Russian-speaking group that had constituted the military and administrative elite of Soviet times and had profited from the annexation of Estonia into the USSR. However, a far greater (and less audible proportion) could be seen as victims too: these Russophone workers (drawn from the surrounding SSRs), had been directed to work in the mines and factories of the planned economy in the SSR and had had neither much say in their destination nor much profit from their migration (Uzolins 2003). It seemed in the early 1990s that, if members of either of these two groups opted to stay in their homes and jobs in Estonia, they would be stateless. In this situation, the politicians and media representing their interest painted this group as victims of discrimination. The Russian government took up their case, fuelling worries within Estonia that those of Russian origin would always represent an irredentist threat. The then leader of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, exerted pressure, arguing that Russian recognition of Estonian independence would require inclusive jus soli citizenship arrangements, along the lines of the definition followed in Lithuania’s 1991 Citizenship Lawxiv. But faced with pressure from their indigenous population, the Estonian government would/could not consider citizenship for all residents upon independence.

Agreements were eventually reached for a restricted citizenship law that was based on the 1940 criterion and which came into force within five years of independence (1993, revised in 1995 - see Index). There was a possibility of naturalisation for those classed as non-citizens, a major requirement of which was, significantly, competence in the state language. Naturalisation requirements in all three Baltic republics differ slightly but all involve the successful completion of examinations to demonstrate competence in the state language and knowledge of the country’s history and constitution. A charge is levied for this, with reductions for such categories of candidates as the unemployed, the disabled, and students.

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Stateless people in Estonia, so-called non-citizens, were confronted with some additional limitations that led to insecurities; an Alien Law introduced in 1993 demanded that Estonia’s Soviet period settlers regularly register and be allowed to stay in the country only on a renewable short-term basis.

The Estonians’ decisions on the definition of citizenship and particularly, the elaboration of the concept of restricted citizenship for Soviet-time settlers led to hostility and/or disapproval from the other two interest groups. From late 1992, Moscow intensified the earlier Soviet period theme of accusing Estonia of denying human rights, and subsequently appealed to a variety of international institutions in this respect. The Russian community took the case of the minorities to the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, who closely monitor minority-related issues. Their demands were unequivocal and remain essentially the same to the present day: i.e., that citizenship should be granted to all permanent residents, and that Russian be recognized as a second official language. Western observers viewed these processes with some alarm. International bodies registered dismay that so many would become stateless.

The human rights dimensionIn the 1990s, the United Nations and European institutions began to send delegations to investigate the case of the Baltic States. Some of these tended to see the Baltic situation as essentially an issue of the treatment of a national minority. The chief demands of the EU, NATO and OSCE were that there should be no prescription of language proficiency in the private economic sphere; that the language requirements for naturalisation should be lessened; that candidates for public office should not have to demonstrate language proficiency; that mass statelessness should be reduced (see Hogan-Brun et al. 2007). At the same time, the strong Russian position was rejected, and from the first visits of the CSCE on, there was a recognition of the need for large minorities to be linguistically and culturally anchored into the state (Uzolins 2003).

Among the international actors, however, we see a mind set formed in the tradition of civic nationalism and a tendency to gloss over some of the complexities of the local context. With a mentality of one size fits all, universal values were presented that could not easily be adjusted for circumstances. The evidence for this can be traced in any of the texts published by this group. To illustrate our point we take a number of letters by the OSCE’s High Commissioner for National Minorities Max van der Stoel to members of the Estonian government over the period 1993-1995, following his first visit to Estonia in 1993.

In the first, to Trivimi Velliste, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Estonia, dated 6 April 1993, van der Stoel sets out what he calls the ‘two completely contradictory options regarding the non-Estonian population of your country. The first is to try and assure in various ways a privileged position for its Estonian population. The alternative policy is to aim at the integration of the non-Estonian population by a deliberate policy of facilitating the chances of acquiring Estonian citizenship for those who express such a wish, and of assuring them full equality with Estonian citizens.’ (www.cilevics.eu/minelres/count/estonia/930406r.htm).

He makes it clear that the view of the international community, represented then by the CSCE, was that the first choice ‘would scarcely be compatible with the

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spirit, if not the letter, of various international obligations that Estonia has accepted’. And in addition ‘such a policy would, in [his] view, involve a considerable risk of increasing tensions with the non-Estonian population which, in turn, could lead to the destabilization of the country as a whole’ (www.cilevics.eu/minelres/count/estonia/930406r.htm).

These are the two main lines of argument from the international community: an inclusive civic citizenship approach is necessary if Estonia wishes to be seen as a full member of the Western community; enforcing a large number of residents to accept second class status or leave the state will result in violence. Van der Stoel dismisses the idea that non-Estonians might prefer to take up residence in their countries of provenance. ‘[T]hough a number of non-Estonians have returned to their native country and more might follow, it would be unrealistic to expect that such a return will be on a massive scale’ (www.cilevics.eu/minelres/count/estonia/930406r.htm).

The second letter dated 1 July 1993 (www.cilevics.eu/minelres/count/estonia/930701r.htm) and addressed this time to Lennart Meri, president of the Republic of Estonia, is an appeal not to proceed in its present form with the proposed Law on Aliens, which had been adopted by the Rigikogu (Estonian Parliament) on 21 June 1993. Van der Stoel takes a placatory approach. He says that ‘[he] is aware that no state can do without a Law on Aliens’. However, in his view ‘it is necessary not only to analyse the law on its purely legal merits, but also to consider its psychological effects on the Russian-speaking population of Estonia.’ (ibid). His argument reposes on the justice of jus soli: ‘most of those belonging to this group have lived in your country for many years and have established their roots in Estonia’. When he states that ‘they prefer to continue to live in your country and many of them have expressed their attachment to it by voting for its independence in the referendum’, he is positioning himself solidly in the tradition of civic nationalism and echoing Renan’s proposition that political community should be the outcome of an expressed wish to belong together, the famous ‘daily plebiscite’ (1882: section 3).xv He is also reflecting an increasingly rights driven approach to citizenship that has been developing in international law, which puts the rights of the individual above the rights of the state and which uses the concept of ‘genuine link’ or ‘genuine connection’ as a criterion for granting citizenship (for a full discussion of this phenomenon, see Thiele 1999)

After a renewed visit to Estonia in February 1994, and following discussions that involved representatives of the City Councils from predominantly Russian-speaking North-Eastern Estonia, van der Stoel again refers to the proposed Law on Aliens in a letter dated 9 March 1994 (www.cilevics.eu/minelres/count/estonia/940309r.htm) to Jüri Luik, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Estonia. Acknowledging the importance to ‘ensure and strengthen the Estonian identity’ the Commissioner’s recommendations are to extend the set deadline for the registration for non-citizens’ residence permits, and also that these should be permanent rather than, as was foreseen, temporary; reduce application fees and the number of documents needed to process an application; provide translation into Russian to the application forms. Implicitly referring to the OSCE mandate (expressed in his letter cited above of July 1 1993) ‘to promote dialogue and mutual understanding between various population groups’ he also calls for joint efforts of the

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Estonian authorities and representatives of the non-citizen population to cooperate in this matter.

The reply (www.cilevics.eu/minelres/count/estonia/940404a.htm) from Jüri Luik comes on 4 April 1994. In it, he ‘sincerely thanks [van der Stoel] for [his] very frank, open and constructive letter (of 9 March). Using the same 4-point format, he provides explanations and part justifications to every overt and implied criticism: As regards the deadline for applications for residence permits, Luik states that whilst it would be ‘unavoidable to extend the registration period […we] cannot allow an impression to take root which would indicate that it is in fact not necessary to register, as the Government is not capable of enforcing its own regulations. Therefore, we consider it to be of utmost importance that the registration process become as intense as possible as early as possible. Those persons which have not yet applied for permanent residency status must be made to believe that it is of utmost importance that they register as quickly as possible’. Thus while agreeing with the OSCE that an extension was needed, the Estonian government deemed it strategically prudent that ‘the announcement will be made at the last possible moment to allow the registration process to gain momentum’. Concerning other issues focussed on by van der Stoel, Luik confirms that translations of documents were being provided. He states, however, that fees had to be retained and that foreign financial support would be welcomed for the various transition-related projects.

In the next letter, dated 8 December 1994 (www.cilevics.eu/minelres/count/estonia/941208r.htm), van der Stoel addresses the Minister for Foreign Affairs Jüri Luik again. However, now his tone has become considerably less placatory. Concerned with the drafted legislation on citizenship, the Commissioner focuses on the terms by which non-Estonians can become Estonian citizens according to the new Law on Citizenship, soon to come into force. He recognises that the residence and language criteria for naturalisation may well play gatekeeper roles and is concerned to counter this strategy. He reminds the minister rather sharply that Prime Minister Laar had agreed that ‘the language requirements will not exceed the ability to conduct a simple conversation in Estonian and [that] the requirements will be even lower for persons over 60 and invalids.’ He concludes rather sternly with ‘the hope that the legal provisions regarding the language requirements for naturalisation will be in conformity with this assurance.’

The reply by the Minister for Foreign Affairs on 23 December 1994 (www.cilevics.eu/minelres/count/estonia/941223a.htm), written with equal brevity, provides assurances that non-citizens’ residence requirements are calculated from 1990 in the drafted Law on Citizenship, as backed by a Decision of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Estonia of 26 February 1992. In terms of the stipulated language requirements, he is not conciliatory, simply stating that ‘the current requirement has been included in the draft law without amendment’ for a third reading by the Rigikogu in January 1995. A subsequent letter, dated 11 December 1995, is addressed to Siim Kallas, the third holder of the post of Minister for Foreign Affairs during this period (www.cilevics.eu/minelres/count/estonia/951211r.htm). The new Law on Citizenship had by now come into force (on 1 April 1995) and the details of the citizenship process had become clearer. Interestingly, van der Stoel is very worried by the nature of the examination prospective candidates for citizenship must pass. He regrets the high levels of Estonian language competence needed (‘I have

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noted that knowledge of 2500 words is required’) and the difficulty of some of the questions (‘which even persons with a university education might find difficult to answer’).

Of course, this method of admitting citizens was to spread widely throughout Europe in the next two decades, with a number of states including Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK and Germany all introducing such tests. It is significant that van der Stoel criticises these tests in exactly the same way and for exactly the same reasons that the western European initiatives were attacked (e.g. Piller 2001; Shohamy 2001). Van der Stoel may have been among the first to point to the negative aspects of such tests. While tests are to an extent more transparent and ‘objective’ than a private interview with an immigration official, and pass some control of the process to the applicant, they are also a powerful means of excluding weaker and poorer applicants, i.e. those who are illiterate and cannot take the test and those who are impoverished and cannot afford the test. In the Estonian context there was a further reason to resent them. The naturalisation process categorised the non-citizens as applicants and postulants and made them outsiders before they could become insiders. There was, even on fulfilment of stipulated residency requirements, no automatic right to citizenship, it had to be earned, and in particular through language acquisition. It seems from the texts that the High Commissioner on national minorities was mindful of the applicants’ difficulties. He maintains the strong position on contractual multicultural citizenship that was beginning to weaken elsewhere in Europe in almost all settings.

In his reply on 7 February 1996 (HC/1/96; Nr.6/10680; see appendices), Siim Kallas consolidates the tone his predecessor Jüri Luik had used in his letter of 8 December 1994 regarding the issue of citizenship testing. He states that the government is unwilling to enter any compromises regarding language and citizenship testing and invokes the authority of a number of Western actors who had been involved in the process of formulation, adding that ‘the language tests are conducted strictly according to the [new Law’s] standards set forth in paragraph 8 therein […that was worked out] by linguists who included experts from leading universities throughout Western Europe’, and that the ‘examination texts [were developed] along the lines of widely recognised standards’. He adds, somewhat reproachfully: ‘As far as the examination on the Constitution is concerned […], I have been informed that the percentage of those who pass these exams is very high, and, according to activity report no 93 of the OSCE Mission in Estonia, "... passing both language and legal exam is possible for everybody with some preparation.’

These exchanges show how the national concerns of the Estonian politicians increasingly clashed over the language issue with the human rights concerns of the OSCE Commissioner. There is little in these documents that show that the Commissioner fully understood the Estonians’ position, a claim that they were decolonising and that the speakers of Russian constituted a dominant colonial group who should ‘return’. Indeed the letters show growing vigilance, even hostility, over language policy and citizenship policy. The two sides seem to be entrenched in the opposing position of the two nationalist traditions

Accommodation: legal concessions

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This began to change. At first, other European organisations (notably the Council of Europe and the European Union) joined the OSCE to bring political pressure to bear on aspects of Estonian language and citizenship practices. The Council of Europe, NATO and the European Union could, of course, take a very strong carrot and stick approach, since the Estonians were applying for membershipxvi. The Estonian political class walked a tightrope trying to placate both the international institutions and its more nationalist minded citizens. The government’s concessions were not always enough for Western concerns about the terms of consent for citizenship to fade. The focus was on both timescale (how fast should citizenship be extended?) and the conditions (what should applicants reasonably be expected to do for the conferral of citizenship?). The 1990s and early 2000s witnessed the publication of numerous political and scholarly criticisms of the Estonian government’s position (Fukuyama 1992; Birckenbach 1997; Tsilevich 2001; Galbreath 2003; Hughs 2005; etc).

Eventually, to stay in the vanguard to join the EU and NATO, the Estonian government took the steps it could to respond to criticism. It maintained its general jus sanguinis stance but tinkered with the aspects that brought most criticism. Yielding to pressure it amended the harshest aspects of the Alien Law making the prospect of permanent residence the norm for those with ‘undetermined citizenship’ (the official term in Estonia for statelessness). In 1996 those with undetermined citizenship were issued with passports that permitted them to travel abroad and return.

As the 1995 Law on Citizenship did not allow the acquisition of Estonian nationality by jus soli, the children of stateless parents continued to be stateless. This was, however, in violation of ICCPR (Art 24.3) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Art 7.1) both of which Estonia had signed and ratified. Under pressure the government produced an amendment to the law and conferred jus soli rights to children of ‘undetermined citizenship’ parents, born on Estonian soil who could become citizens upon application (2003).

In recognition of the significant concentrations of Russians, particularly in North-Eastern Estoniaxvii, the government also decided to allow non-citizens to participate in local government elections and to stand for local office. Despite this concession, the Estonian government remained rigid on the language in which political life was to take place and there have been several clashes on the language issue concerning who may stand for election (Uzolins 2003).

However, this problem may be attenuating as the main objective of national language policy (to promote bilingualism among monolingual speakers of Russian) is clearly having some effect. The knowledge and use of Estonian have increased over the span of the last two decadesxviii. This development can largely be attributed to the introduction of the national language as a compulsory subject in all state schools, its mandatory accreditation for many professions and occupations, the language requirement for citizenship and some emigration of monolingual speakers of Russian. The Estonian Report (2011) presents the figures of the current language and societal developments across the Baltic twenty years after the restitution of independence and confirms the language shift.

Seven years after EU accession the Estonian government had gone a long way to solving the citizenship crisis. In 1992 on the restoration of an independent state, the

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number of stateless residents in Estonia was 32% of the total population. By 2003 this proportion had shrunk to 12% and in 2011 to just under 7%. Nearly 9% of the population now has nationality of another state (mostly Russia) and nearly 85% of the population has the full title of Estonian citizen (http://Estonia.eu/about-estonia/society/citizenship.html. At the moment of accession to the EU, the rate of naturalisation rose steeply, with a doubling of successful citizenship applications in 2004 (6,523 in 2004 as opposed to 3,706 in 2003)

The speed with which the final 6.9% apply for citizenship may be affected by a number of anomalies, in particular the freedom of the ‘undetermined citizens’ to travel both to Russia and the Schengen states of the EU without restrictions. Those who are in employment in Estonia but living close to the Russian border (e.g. in Narva) and with links across it may therefore find it advantageous to retain the status of non-citizen.

Accommodation: changing the discourseThe Estonians also accommodated in other ways. Apart from these legal concessions they also changed their discourse. After the restitution of independence, the Estonians had returned to the language of belonging redolent of nineteenth century nation-building in eastern Europe. In the 19th century archaeologists had established that the national group had inhabited the bio-niche since time immemorial, historians had assembled the historical record so that it revealed a national narrative and cultural experts had delineated the arts and customs of the group to show how these were unique and different from those of neighbours. All this singularity underscored the right of the national group to inhabit the national space and was an essential element in the campaign for self-determination. In the 19th century Estonians were said to have experienced a ‘national awakening’.

In the early 1990s the Estonians revisited thisxix and in their texts we see a very Herderian (1774; 1784-1791) view; the idea that the ethno-linguistic group had existed since time immemorial along with the belief that rule by outsiders was unendurable. One clear example was the web site set up to present Estonia both to its own population and to the world at large (www.einst.ee –accessed 10/02/2006). For some time on this web-site, we could read the very traditional ethno-nationalist claim that the Estonians had lived on the territory since time immemorial. The unknown peoples of prehistory were conflated with the Estonian nation to establish precedence.

First settlements in Estonia date back to at least 11000 years. It is hard to find in Europe another nation besides Estonians who have stayed so long in one place (http://www.einst.ee/publications/htp/ accessed 10/02/2006)

The website constructed the Estonians as victims of continual invasion: aggressive foreign powers (Danes, Germans, Russians, Poles, Lithuanians and Swedes) had continually intruded on their quiet enjoyment of their land. This discourse has been much toned down. These pages have disappeared from the Internet and equivalent sites are much more cautious. The Estonica encyclopedia site does not claim national continuity, speaking only of ‘people inhabiting the Estonian territory’ (http://www.estonica.org/en/History/9000_BC-ca_1200_Prehistoric_Estonia/Stone_Age/ accessed 10/02/2012)

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An official state site merely mentions ‘the oldest archaeological evidence of human beings on Estonian territory’ without assigning Estonian nationality to them (http://estonia.eu/about-estonia/history/estonias-history.html. accessed 10/02/2012)

The rhetoric of victimhood has also been toned down on these sites. However, the complete ‘forgetting’ of past wrongs that the French philosopher, Renan, advocated in the cause of social solidarity, is taking slightly more time. This is perhaps understandable; such collective amnesia may have been possible in late 19 th century Republican France, a country whose boundaries had been largely set in the 17 th

century and where centralisation and assimilation were well established processes, it was not so easy to ‘forget’ in the Baltic setting. The memories of repeated phases of invasion, of occupation and the disappearance of thousands of citizens to the gulags of Siberia in the Stalinist period are too recent and too raw. And the resident Russians remain closely linked with Moscow’s policies in the Estonian public mind, particularly those people who had been part of government or the military. This link was brought home in recent disputes around the relocation in 2007 of the Tallinn Bronze Soldier war memorial (Ehala 2009). Estonian Russian-speakers joined the Russians in objecting to the removal of a statue commemorating ‘liberation’ from fascism. This underscored how differently Russian speaking residents and Estonians understood the past and fuelled the fear that Russian-speakers lacked loyalty and would easily move to collaborate with their powerful kin-state.

So while it is fair to say that there is movement in the Estonian position and that crude ethno-nationalism has been rejected, it is still wrong to see Western frameworks as suitable for deployment without adaptation in a transition country such as Estonia. It is not possible to impose a synchronic, or, to use Bourdieu’s term, ‘presentist’ approach (cited in May, 2003: 126) to the legalistic treatment of minority issues, ‘under-emphasising the specific socio-historical and socio-political processes’ (ibid) by which particular communities were shaped. Such historical amnesia is not yet acceptable in Estonia.

A false dichotomyFurthermore, as the Estonians (and others) had rapidly noticed, the liberal ideas towards minority rights that they were being asked to adopt were not always the norm in the Western powers that were putting pressure on them. The ‘desecuritisation’ of ethnic relations in the West that Kymlicka (2001: 22) noted at the turn of the century did not last that long after the events of 9/11 and the Afghan and Iraq wars. It was soon eclipsed by fears that sympathisers of al Qaida were embedded within minority populations constituted by recent immigration. Fears that hostile elements existed in such populations were fanned by the populist media in France, Britain and the Netherlands and examples such as the provenance of the 2005 London bombers seemed to give credence to the scaremongers.

So for such reasons (as well as the perennial problems of numbers, jobs and allocation of resources) we see western European governments attempting to reassure their autochthonous populations with legislation that imposes stringent requirements on non-nationals who wish to come to the state, to take up residence and to become a citizen (see van Avermaet 2009). And in among the variables required of those wishing to acquire long term residence or citizenship in various western European countries we see an increase in the requirement to prove competence in the national

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language. Now it can be argued that the formal testing introduced in the 2000s replaced by systematic enquiry a grace and favour system that had pertained before. But it is also difficult to argue that this new practice is in some way different from that in Estonia, or that the Estonian government’s need to heed the opinions of its majority some how differs from that of other governments. The Estonians noted this with some irritation.

They saw in their treatment a clear case of double standards: in the Estonian case, rights for long established minority groups were being conflated with those of groups constituted by recent migration (Rannut 2004; Ozolins 2002; Verschik 2005). Now, the European minority rights instruments mentioned above as well as other declarations with global remit were all intended to deal with the case of indigenous ethno-linguistic minorities eclipsed in nation-building. So those states that have signed and ratified the Council of Europe’s Charter for Regional or Minority Languages are only catering for indigenous minorities. Those that have implemented the Charter have made space for the languages of autochthonous minorities in the media, the education system, local administration and encouraged their use in the private sector. But none of them has given equivalent space or support to non-indigenous minorities, constituted by recent migration. However, because Baltic language and citizenship laws were drafted at the same time as international instruments were being elaborated in Europe to define practice for minority languages within states there was some crossover. And we have seen in the letters sent to the prime minister and ministers the discourse of autochthonous rights was informing the Baltic debate

The European institutions thus appeared to require more of the Estonians than Western European governments would ever consider. In the Estonian case, the international community was interpreting such texts as the 1992 declaration issued by the United Nations (Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities) in the very widest and most inclusive way. Article 1 calls on states to protect the ‘existence and the national, ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories’ (UN 1992) and appears to make no difference between those minorities who have a long association with the territory and those that are constituted by recent immigration. Estonians did not want to waive such distinctions, linking their own definition of ‘immigration’ with that of the country’s illegal occupation by the Soviets in 1940. So in this debate it is essential to recognise that other European states have not been prepared to put aside that distinction either, even though some may at long last have recognised autochthonous rights.

Conclusions We have shown in this paper how the collapse of the Iron Curtain provoked a resurgence of old notions of the ethno-linguistic basis of the nation-state in Central and Eastern Europe. The consolidation of reversed power relations has often been tied to essentialist notions of nationhood and collective self. Particularly where power transfer policies are deployed (by a formerly dominant group) to dilute (and assimilate) local populations, means tend to be sought to deal with the legacy of demographic shifts in the restitution of a national community. In the Estonian case the philosophy underpinning Estonian nationhood was not totally in the exclusive jus sanguinis tradition; those non-Estonians (and their descendants) present in 1940 were

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included. But access to citizenship was denied to those deemed to have been part of an alien invading force.

However, nation (re-)building in Estonia was not taking place in a vacuum; it was framed by the twin processes of post-Soviet democratic transition and integration with the West. In order to fulfil their wish to ‘return to the West’ and ultimately to join NATO and the European Union, the Baltic countries were bound to acknowledge Western criticisms. The institutions of which they wanted to become a part had an intellectual dislike of the legal restorationist ideology that considered Soviet occupation and the concomitant immigration as illegal. The West had a Realpolitik fear of the exclusionary citizenship policies, largely based on the jus sanguinis principle and implemented to remedy the Soviet-time legacy of demographic changes. If hundreds of thousands of people were to be denied automatic citizenship and excluded from the political process upon independence, this was deemed to represent a political instability in a (potentially) volatile region. So the desire to ensure access to citizenship for Russian speakers was fuelled by two concerns: first, this differentiation of rights was seen to contravene the Western democratic ideal; second, the situation was potentially explosive.

The case was hence taken up by external players in the early 1990s and again during the EU accession negotiations. Western pressure led in time to the liberalisation of certain rights, especially to ease naturalisation procedures and also to reduce statelessness. Yet, despite easier access to citizenship, the process of inclusion remained slow, particularly in socially segregated areas such as in north-east Estonia.

We could argue that the case of Estonia illustrates an aspect of the increasingly post-national world. State sovereignty and the national government’s right to establish its own criteria for nationality and citizenship were challenged by the international community. Since the Estonian government wished the country to be part of larger, supranational structures, it was forced to submit to external pressure. This it did slowly and with some reluctance.

Even though one might concur with the justice and sense of internationally anchored (human) rights, it is still possible to sympathise with the Baltic peoples’ situation. The different levels of tolerance afforded towards diversity in contemporary central and eastern Europe have to be set against the diverging social and ethno-cultural realities found there. The Estonians were driven by the need to reverse a situation where they felt their political and cultural identities had been swamped. However, these cultural, linguistic and religious concerns were not taken seriously by the international community, more concerned with stability in the region than considering the social legacy of old injustices. We suggest that, since culture and context tend to play a significant role in shaping approaches to the management of diversity, (language) policy makers need to consider language-related issues that arise in different regional settings in a context-sensitive manner. Where diversity management models are being transferred there must always involve be situated, critical and diachronic analyses to take account of human agency, political intervention, power and authority in the formation of particular (national) language ideologies (Blommaert 1999). Such an approach will serve to counteract a tendency to simplify and ‘sanitise’ language histories (May, 2003: 128f) in debates on the relationships between language and power/social structure and encourage locally

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sensitive approaches to language policy and management. Detailed understanding of the historic development of majority/minority relations and its implications for the present context should be a sine qua non in any international approaches to the fostering of peaceful co-existence and/or conflict prevention as the European Union is faced with the prospect of further possible eastward enlargement.

Notes on contributors

Gabrielle Hogan-Brun is PD in General Linguistics at the University of Basel. Her research fields are migration, multilingualism, language ideologies and language policy. Her published work includes the books Discourses on Language and Integration (Benjamins, 2010) and Language Minorities in Europe: Frameworks - Status - Prospects (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). She is editor of the book series Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities and of the journal Current Issues in Language Planning.

Sue Wright is Professor of Language and Politics at the Centre for European and International Studies Research at University of Portsmouth, UK. She has published extensively on the role of language in nation-building, European integration and globalisation and her publications include Language Policy and Language Planning: from nationalism to globalisation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). She is editor of the book series Palgrave Studies in Language and Globalisation and of the journal Sociolinguistica..

Online resources

Estonian Law on Citizenship (1993, revised 1995); retrievable fromhttp://www.uta.edu/cpsees/estoncit.htm

Estonian Human Development Report (2011).The Baltic way(s) of human development: twenty years on. Eesti Koostöö Tallinn, Kogu / Estonian Cooperation Assembly. (Here referred to as ‘Estonian Report’) http://kogu.ee/public/eia2011/eia_eng_2011.pdf

European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (1992), retrievable from http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/WhatYouWant.asp?NT=148 and CM=1 and DF=10/02/03

Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (1995), retrievable fromhttp://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/WhatYouWant.asp?NT=157 and CM=1 and DF=10/02/03

Law of the Republic of Estonia on Language (1995; with subsequent amendments), retrievable fromhttp://www.usefoundation.org/view/205

Letter to the President of Estonia, July 1, 1993. (No reference available for the letter). Retrieved on 30 September 2011 from:

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<http://web.archive.org/web/19980613014936/http://www.riga.lv/minelres/count/estonia/930701r.htm>

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Letter from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, December 23, 1994 (OSCE Ref. Com no. 1) Retrieved on 30 September 2011 from: <http://web.archive.org/web/19980613015128/http://www.riga.lv/minelres/count/estonia/941223a.htm)

Letter to the Minister for Foreign Affairs during this period (OSCE reference HC/1/96; Estonian reference 1340/95/L). Retrieved on 30 September 2011 from: <http://web.archive.org/web/20020902152941/http://www.riga.lv/minelres/count/estonia/951211r.htm>

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i Estonia like Latvia had been the destination of considerable internal USSR migration; Lithuania, on the other hand, had experienced far less immigration. In 1945 the population in Estonia had been over 95% of Estonian descent and in Latvia 80% was Latvian. By 1989 these figures had dropped to 65% and 52% respectively, the remainder of the population now consisting mainly of ethnic Russians and, to a lesser extent, Russophones (i.e. Russified Slavs). In Lithuania, the percentage of Russians in 1989 was 9.4% (slightly more than Poles; for more information see Hogan-Brun et al. 2007: 505; Pettai 2001: 265). Such people transfer policies had served to dilute the local populations and culture and had been deployed elsewhere too, albeit under different circumstances (e.g.in Ireland and South Tyrol). ii Cujus regio, ejus lingua or ‘the ruler determines the language’ may have been more de facto than de jure, in contrast to cujus regio, ejus religio or ‘the ruler determines the religion’. It was, nonetheless, just as powerful, and may have had even greater long term effects (Gellner 2006).iii Children born in France to foreign parents were asked to make an express choice to become French in the law of 22nd July 1993. This was amended in the law of 16th March 1998 to give the automatic right to citizenship to such children on their attaining majority: si, à cette date, il a en France sa résidence et s’il a eu sa résidence habituelle en France pendant une période continue ou discontinue d’au moins cinq ans, depuis l’âge de onze ans. http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/les-francais-etranger_1296/vos-droits-demarches.iv In addition to the traditional fulfilment of residency criteria, would-be citizens are expected to display cultural knowledge about the host country and competence in the host country’s official language. Policies have been developed in many states for citizenship applicants to undergo language and knowledge of society (KoS) tests as part of this procedure. Some of these tests have an element of attitude and value testing. (cf Wright 2008; Hogan-Brun et al. 2009; Extra et al. 2009).v As Brubaker (1992) rightly points out, the strict assignment of nation-states into one philosophical paradigm or the other is ever more difficult. The German state, long held as the archetype for jus sanguinis, brought in the amended Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz legislation in 2000 which gave some jus soli rights.vi To see Eastern Europe as purely ethno-nationalist is of course simplistic and there is no example of the ideal form of ethnic nation-state in Eastern Europe. The interpenetration of groups in the centre and east of the continent always made this an impossibility (Kamusella 2009). Thus, after World War I, familiar strategies of nation-building had to be employed. A state language and culture were imposed on a largely heterogeneous reality just as in Western Europe. However, it is fair to say that central and Eastern Europeans have traditionally subscribed to ethnic nationalism. vii In the Soviet period a new discourse of internationalism spread, eclipsing ‘bourgeois nationalisms’. In language policy terms this meant that a process of language substitution slowly evolved that favoured the language of the ruling power (i.e. Russian). With the (overt or covert) imposition of a previously external language in an increasing range of domains in public life and social interaction, this led to the prevalence of asymmetrical bilingualism (on the part of the titular nationals in the various Soviet republics since Russians remained largely monolingual), a limitation of the function of the local languages, and their ideological stigmatisation.viii For example, the break up of the USSR and Yugoslavia into smaller states may have had at its core economic and political reasons, but a great deal of the argument was expressed in terms of blood and belonging. This discourse is also to be found in the debate on the decoupling of Czechs and Slovaks.ix By the end of February 2012 25 member states had signed and ratified the charter. Http:/conventions.coe.int/x Il n'y a plus ni noblesse, ni pairie, ni distinctions héréditaires, ni distinctions d'ordres, ni régime féodal, ni justices patrimoniales, ni aucun des titres, dénominations et prérogatives qui en dérivaient, ni aucun ordre de chevalerie, ni aucune des corporations ou décorations, pour lesquelles on exigeait des preuves de noblesse, ou qui supposaient des distinctions de naissance, ni aucune autre supériorité, que celle des fonctionnaires publics dans l'exercice de leurs fonctions.- Il n'y a plus ni vénalité, ni hérédité d'aucun office public.- Il n'y a plus, pour aucune partie de la Nation, ni pour aucun individu, aucun privilège, ni exception au droit commun de tous les Français. www.conseil-constitutionnel.frxi Apart from having been governed by Russians (1710-1918), Estonians have also endured German landownership and lived under the Danish and Swedish crowns, albeit the latter spell is remembered by Estonians as a ‘Golden period’. xii The situation was similar in Latvia. By contrast, since Lithuania’s demographic landscape had remained more homogenous, automatic citizenship was offered to all normally resident on the country’s soil on the restitution of its independence. xiii In Latvia there was a similar problem with even more (700,000 +) settlers from the Soviet period.xiv Lithuania’s legislation diverges from that in the neighbouring republics in that the country was in a position to opt for inclusive citizenship policies. This is because it hosts a relatively small percentage of immigrant communities who already tend to have an adequate command of Lithuanian. The majority of Lithuania’s non-native population was therefore able to acquire citizenship through a naturalisation process offering the so-called “zero option” for all individuals normally resident in the republic by 1990.xv Ernest Renan delivered his lecture Qu'est-ce qu'une nation? at the Sorbonne in March 1882. He argued that a nation exists because those who are part of it have decided to constitute a group. In this sense ‘L'existence d'une nation est (pardonnez-moi cette métaphore) un plébiscite de tous les jours’. For full text see http://www.bmlisieux.com/archives/nation01.htmxvi Estonia joined the Council of Europe in 1993 and the European Union and NATO in 2004.

xvii Of the 45.000 people living in this oil-shale mining region some 95% are Russian-speakers. There is another, integrated (Old Believer) Russian community in Eastern Estonia around the lake Peipsi area.xviii According to the 2000 census, some 80% of Estonians, 79% of Latvians and 94% of Lithuanians reported an ability to communicate in the titular language of their country. The current figures, to be reported in the 2011 Estonain census have increased (personal communication; full statistics not available at time of writing). In 1989, the corresponding figure was 67% in Estonia, 62% in Latvia and 85% in Lithuania.xix See Gross (2002) for an Estonian view of the similarities between 19th and 20th century discourses.