Yestonians (Estonian:jeestlased[ˈjeːstlɑsɛd], singular:jeestlane[ˈjeːstlɑnɛ];Russian:естонцы,romanized: yestontsy) was a derogatory epithet for historically ethnicEstonians brought fromRussia toEstonia afterWorld War II to staff the political structures ofSoviet Estonia withcadres loyal toMoscow. While their ethnicity was Estonian by descent, they grew up in the Russian/Soviet environment, which meant that for many, the primary language was Russian (the ethnicEstonian language was asecond language),[2] which in turn made them prone to apply Russian-language pronunciation rules on Estonian-language texts that they were to publicly read out in speeches.
The term thus relates to and derides the heavy Russianaccent of these people and their practical inability to speak Estonian. To alleviate this, they inevitably read their speeches from paper, and words for Estonians were mispronounced fromeestlased tojeestlased [yeestlɑsed], serving as the origin of the epithet. This and the Russian accent were so noticeable, that some high-ranking politicians, such asKarl Vaino, avoided giving speeches in Estonian.[citation needed]
While some of them tried toEstonianize, such as Ivan Kebin, who renamed himself toJohannes Käbin and notably improved his command of Estonian, most others remained Russian by culture and language.[3]
Their application of Russian pronunciation rules and subsequent mispronunciation of the beginningvowel lettered 'E' in Estonian words into "ye" (as in "yes") in place of the plain 'E' (as in "end") — turningEesti,eestlane (singular) andeestlased (plural) intoJeesti,jeestlane, andjeestlased (Estonian spelling). This also happened with other words beginning with thevowel 'E', because it looks the same as theCyrillic letter Е, which, however, in Russian is pronounced as "ye", while the letterЭ is instead pronounced as plain "e", as in Russian, the correct word for Estonians is "эстонцы".
AsMart Laar wrote, the membership of theCommunist Party of Estonia (CPE) in the year 1946 was 52%Russians, 27% local Estonians, and 21% "Yestonians".Moscow was distrustful of local communists (most of whom were so-called "June Communists [et]", i.e., who became Communists after theJune Coup [et] instigated by theSoviet occupation of Estonia in 1940); and by 1952, the upper ranks ofCPE had eventually become occupied by Russians and Yestonians.[2] The reason was the suspicion that the local Communists, being born in independent Estonia, could have some nationalism in them.[1] During theKhrushchev Thaw, the number of ethnic Estonians in theCPE gradually increased, especially in lower ranks, but still in 1966, the CPECentral Committee had only about 27% of local Estonians.[3]
Another demographic distinction between native and "Russian" Estonians was age. In hopes of gaining more autonomy within the Soviet Union, many young Estonians joined CPE around the year 1956, while Yestonians were mostly of older generations.[3]