The history of Estonia forms a part of the history of Europe. Humans settled in the region of Estonia near the end of the last glacial era, beginning from around 9000 BC.
The three independent Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – were invaded and occupied in June 1940 by the Soviet Union, under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in August 1939, immediately before the outbreak of World War II. The three countries were annexed by the Soviet Union as "constituent republics" in August 1940. Most Western countries did not recognise this annexation, and considered it illegal. On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union and within weeks occupied the Baltic territories. In July 1941, the Third Reich incorporated the Baltic territories into its Reichskommissariat Ostland. As a result of the Red Army Baltic Offensive of 1944, the Soviet Union recaptured most of the Baltic states and trapped the remaining German forces in the Courland Pocket until their formal surrender in May 1945.
In Estonia, the population of ethnic Russians is estimated at 306,801, most of whom live in the capital city Tallinn and other urban areas of Harju and Ida-Viru counties. While a small settlement of Russian Old Believers on the coast of Lake Peipus has an over 300-year long history, the large majority of the ethnic Russian population in the country originates from the immigration from Russia and other parts of the former USSR during the 1944–1991 Soviet era of Estonia.
In the course of Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany invaded Estonia in July–December 1941, and occupied the country until 1944. Estonia had gained independence in 1918 from the then-warring German and Russian Empires. However, in the wake of the August 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Soviet Union had invaded and occupied Estonia in June 1940, and the country was formally annexed into the USSR in August 1940.
The history of Jews in Estonia starts with reports of the presence of individual Jews in what is now Estonia from as early as the 14th century.
Estonia–Russia relations are the bilateral foreign relations between Estonia and Russia. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were established on 2 February 1920 after the Estonian War of Independence ended in Estonian victory with Russia recognizing Estonia's sovereignty and renounced any and all territorial claims on Estonia.
Arnold Meri was a Soviet World War II veteran and the first Estonian Hero of the Soviet Union. After Estonia became independent, he was later charged with genocide for his role in the deportation of some Estonians to the inhospitable regions of the USSR. He was a first cousin of the President of Estonia, Lennart Meri. At the time of his death, Meri was an honorary chairman of the Estonian Anti-Fascist Committee.
Soviet deportations from Estonia were a series of mass deportations in 1941 and 1945–1951 carried out by the Stalinist regime of the former USSR from then Soviet-occupied Estonia. The two largest waves of deportations occurred in June 1941 and March 1949 simultaneously in all three occupied Baltic countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The deportations targeted primarily women, children and the elderly, calling them 'anti-Soviet elements'. In addition, there were Soviet deportations from Estonia based on the victims' ethnicity and religion. Ethnic Estonians who had been residing in Soviet Russia had already been subjected to deportation since 1935.
The June deportation was a mass deportation of tens of thousands of people from the territories which were occupied in 1940–1941: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, occupied Ukraine and occupied Poland, and Moldavia by the Soviet Union.
Estonia declared neutrality at the outbreak of World War II (1939–1945), but the country was repeatedly contested, invaded and occupied, first by the Soviet Union in 1940, then by Nazi Germany in 1941, and ultimately reinvaded and reoccupied in 1944 by the Soviet Union.
The Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 refers to the military occupation of the Republic of Latvia by the Soviet Union under the provisions of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany and its Secret Additional Protocol signed in August 1939. The occupation took place according to the European Court of Human Rights, the Government of Latvia, the United States Department of State, and the European Union. In 1989, the USSR also condemned the 1939 secret protocol between Nazi Germany and herself that had led to the invasion and occupation of the three Baltic countries, including Latvia.
The Bronze Night, also known as the April Unrest and April Events, was a number of riots in Estonia surrounding the controversial 2007 relocation of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn, a Soviet World War II memorial in Tallinn.
The Estonian Police was the law enforcement agency of Estonia. It was subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior. In 2010, the organization was superseded by the Police and Border Guard Board.
Operation Priboi was the code name for the biggest Stalin-era Soviet mass deportation from the Baltic states on 25–28 March 1949. Also known as the March deportation. More than 90,000 Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, labeled as "enemies of the state", were deported to forced settlements in inhospitable Siberian areas of the Soviet Union. Over 70% of the deportees were either women or children under the age of 16.
Aleksandr Reshideovich Dyukov is a Russian author and blogger. Dyukov is considered by critics to be a historical negationist downplaying Soviet repressions. He is persona non grata in Latvia, Lithuania and other Schengen member-states.
Russian influence operationsin Estonia consist of the alleged actions taken by the government of the Russian Federation to produce a favorable political and social climate in the Republic of Estonia. According to the Estonian Internal Security Service, Russian influence operations in Estonia form a complex system of financial, political, economic and espionage activities in Republic of Estonia for the purposes of influencing Estonia's political and economic decisions in ways considered favourable to the Russian Federation and conducted under the doctrine of near abroad. Conversely, the ethnic Russians in Estonia generally take a more sympathetic view of Moscow than that of the Estonian government. According to some, such as Professor Mark A. Cichock of the University of Texas at Arlington, the Russian government has actively pursued the imposition of a dependent relationship upon the Baltic states, with the desire to remain the region's dominant actor and political arbiter, continuing the Soviet pattern of hegemonic relations with these small neighbouring states. According to the Centre for Geopolitical Studies, the Russian information campaign which the centre characterises as a "real mud throwing" exercise, has provoked a split in Estonian society amongst Russian speakers, inciting some to riot over the relocation of the Bronze Soldier. The 2007 cyberattacks on Estonia is considered to be an information operation against Estonia, with the intent to influence the decisions and actions of the Estonian government. While Russia denies any direct involvement in the attacks, hostile rhetoric from the political elite via the media influenced people to attack.
The Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Estonia, or simply Estonia, was a union republic of the Soviet Union (USSR), covering the occupied and annexed territory of Estonia in 1940–1941 and 1944–1991. The Estonian SSR was nominally established to replace the until then independent Republic of Estonia on 21 July 1940, a month after the 16–17 June 1940 Soviet military invasion and occupation of the country during World War II. After the installation of a Stalinist government which, backed by the occupying Soviet Red Army, declared Estonia a Soviet constituency, the Estonian SSR was subsequently incorporated into the Soviet Union as a "union republic" on 6 August 1940. Estonia was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941, and administered as a part of Reichskommissariat Ostland until it was reconquered by the USSR in 1944.
The Soviet occupation of the Baltic states covers the period from the Soviet–Baltic mutual assistance pacts in 1939, to their invasion and annexation in 1940, to the mass deportations of 1941.
The guerrilla war in the Baltic states was an insurgency waged by Baltic partisans against the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1956. Known alternatively as the "Forest Brothers", the "Brothers of the Wood" and the "Forest Friars", these partisans fought against invading Soviet forces during their occupation of the Baltic states during and after World War II. Similar insurgent groups resisted Soviet occupations in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and Ukraine.
Patarei Prison, also known as Patarei Sea Fortress and Tallinn Central Prison, commonly known as The Battery (Patarei), is a building complex in Kalamaja district of Tallinn, Estonia. The premises cover approximately four hectares of a former sea fortress and prison, located on the shore of Tallinn Bay.
