Tallinn is the capital and most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of about 461,000 and administratively lies in the Harju maakond (county). Tallinn is the main governmental, financial, industrial, and cultural centre of Estonia. It is located 187 km (116 mi) northwest of the country's second largest city, Tartu; however, only 80 km (50 mi) south of Helsinki, Finland, also 320 km (200 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia, 300 km (190 mi) north of Riga, Latvia, and 380 km (240 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden. From the 13th century until the first half of the 20th century, Tallinn was known in most of the world by variants of its other historical name Reval.
The Singing Revolution was a series of events from 1987 to 1991 that led to the restoration of independence of the three Soviet-occupied Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania at the end of the Cold War. The term was coined by an Estonian activist and artist, Heinz Valk, in an article published a week after the 10–11 June 1988 spontaneous mass evening singing demonstrations at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds.
The occupation of the Baltic states was a period of annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania begun by the Soviet Union in 1940, continued for three years by Nazi Germany after it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, and finally resumed by the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991.
Tunne-Väldo Kelam is an Estonian politician and former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Estonia. He is a member of the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union, part of the European People's Party.
In Estonia, the population of ethnic Russians is estimated at 296,268, 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.
The Estonian resistance movement was an underground movement to resist the occupation of Estonia by Nazi Germany, 1941–1944 during World War II. Due to the unusually benign measures implemented in Estonia by the German occupation authorities, especially in contrast to the preceding harsh Soviet occupation of Estonia (1940–1941), the movement was slower to develop effective tactics on a wide scale than in other occupied countries.
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.
Soviet deportations from Estonia were a series of mass deportations in 1941 and 1945–1953 carried out by Joseph Stalin's government 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. 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.
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 three Baltic countries, or the Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – are held to have continued as independent states under international law while under Soviet occupation from 1940 to 1991, as well as during the German occupation in 1941–1944/1945. The prevailing opinion accepts the Baltic thesis that the Soviet occupation was illegal, and all actions of the Soviet Union related to the occupation are regarded as contrary to international law in general and to the bilateral treaties between the USSR and the three Baltic countries in particular.
Museum of Soviet occupation may refer to:
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.
The Estonian Institute of Historical Memory is a non-governmental foundation that focuses on the investigation of war crimes and human rights violations committed by totalitarian regimes and research of totalitarian ideologies that created such regimes. The Institute aims to give the general public a comprehensive, objective and international overview of human rights violations and crimes committed by totalitarian regimes both in Estonia and abroad.
Resistance Fighting Day also known as Otto Tief Government Day is a public holiday in Estonia which takes on 22 September. It honors the Estonian commander Otto Tief's attempt to restore Estonian independence in 1944. The holiday is a date of remembrance, commemorating the victims of the subsequent re-establishment of Soviet rule in Estonia following the Nazi rule, and the resulting sovietisation of the republic from 1944–1950. It falls under the cultural symbols designed to recognize the Occupation of the Baltic states until 1991. It was known in the former Estonian SSR, as well as today by the Russian Federation and pro-Russian forces in Estonia as the Day of the Liberation of Tallinn from Nazi Invaders, celebrating the Soviet Tallinn Offensive by the Red Army's 2nd Shock and 8th Armies and the Baltic Fleet against the Wehrmacht.
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.
Jaan Piiskar (11 February 1883, in Vastemõisa Parish was an Estonian educator and politician.
