There are approximately 1 million ethnic Estonians worldwide, with the vast majority of them residing in their native Estonia. Estonian diaspora communities formed primarily in Finland, the United States, Sweden, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Estonia was first inhabited about 10,000 years ago, soon after the ice from theBaltic Ice Lake had melted. Living in the same area for more than 5,000 years would put Estonians' ancestors among Europe's oldest permanent inhabitants.[21] On the other hand, some recent linguistic estimations suggest thatFinno-Ugric speakers arrived around the Baltic Sea considerably later, perhaps during theEarly Bronze Age (ca. 1800 BCE).[22][23] It has also been argued that Western Uralic tribes reachedFennoscandia first, leading into the development of theSámi peoples, and arrived in theBaltic region later in the Bronze Age[24] or the transition to theIron Age at the latest.[25] This lead into the formation ofBaltic Finnic peoples, who would later become such groups as Estonians andFinns.[24]
The oldest knownendonym of the Estonians ismaarahvas,[26] literally meaning "land people" or "country folk". It was used until the mid-19th century, when it was gradually replaced byEesti rahvas "Estonian people" during theEstonian national awakening.[27][28]Eesti, the modern endonym of Estonia, is thought to have similar origins toAesti, the name used by theGermanic peoples for the neighbouring people living northeast of the mouth of theVistula. The Roman historianTacitus in 98 CE was the first to mention the "Aesti" in writing. InOld Norse, the land south of theGulf of Finland was calledEistland and the peopleeistr. TheWanradt–Koell Catechism, the first known book in Estonian, was printed in 1525, while the oldest known examples of written Estonian originate in 13th-century chronicles.
Public education systems founded during prior Swedish rule turned Estonia and Finland into the two most literate areas ofRussian Empire (map of1897 censusliteracy data)Estonian farmers playing cards (byOskar Hoffmann, ca 1895)
Although Estonian national consciousness spread in the course of the 19th century during theEstonian national awakening,[29] some degree of ethnic awareness preceded this development.[30] By the 18th century the self-denominationeestlane spread among Estonians along with the oldermaarahvas.[26]Anton thor Helle'stranslation of the Bible into Estonian appeared in 1739, and the number of books and brochures published in Estonian increased from 18 in the 1750s to 54 in the 1790s. By the end of the century more than a half of adult peasants could read. The first university-educated intellectuals identifying themselves as Estonians, includingFriedrich Robert Faehlmann (1798–1850),Kristjan Jaak Peterson (1801–1822) andFriedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (1803–1882), appeared in the 1820s. The ruling elites had remained predominantlyGerman in language and culture since the conquest of the early 13th century.Garlieb Merkel (1769–1850), a Baltic-GermanEstophile, became the first author to treat the Estonians as a nationality equal to others; he became a source of inspiration for the Estonian national movement, modelled on Baltic German cultural world before the middle of the 19th century. However, in the middle of the century, the Estonians became more ambitious and started leaning toward theFinns as asuccessful model of national movement and, to some extent, toward the neighbouringLatvian national movement. By the end of 1860 the Estonians became unwilling to reconcile with German cultural and political hegemony. Before the attempts atRussification in the 1880s, their view ofImperial Russia remained positive.[30]
Estonians have strong ties to theNordic countries stemming from important cultural and religious influences gained over centuries duringScandinavian andGerman rule and settlement.[31] According to a poll done in 2013, about half of the youngEstonians considered themselves Nordic, and about the same number viewed Baltic identity as important. The Nordic identity among Estonians can ovelap with other identities, as it is associated with being Finno-Ugric and their close relationship with the Finnish people and does not exclude being Baltic.[32] In Estonian foreign ministry reports from the early 2000s Nordic identity was preferred over Baltic one.[33][34]
After theTreaty of Tartu (1920) recognised Estonia's 1918 independence from Russia, ethnic Estonians residing in Russia gained the option of opting for Estonian citizenship (those who opted were calledoptandid – 'optants') and returning to their fatherland. An estimated 40,000 Estonians lived in Russia in 1920. In sum, 37,578 people moved fromSoviet Russia to Estonia (1920–1923).[35][failed verification]
DuringWorld War II, when Estonia wasoccupied by the Soviet Army in 1944, large numbers of Estonians fled their homeland on ships or smaller boats over theBaltic Sea. Many refugees who survived the risky sea voyage toSweden orGermany later moved from there toCanada, theUnited Kingdom, theUnited States orAustralia.[38] Some of these refugees and their descendants returned to Estonia after the nation regained its independence in 1991.
Over the years of independence, many Estonians have chosen to work abroad, primarily inFinland, but also in the UK,Benelux,Sweden, andGermany.[39]
Recognising the problems arising from low birth rate and emigration, the Estonian government has launched various measures to increase the birth rate and to lure migrant Estonians back to Estonia. For example, a campaignTalendid koju! ("Bringing talents home!")[40] has aimed to coordinate and promote the return of Estonians who have particular skills needed in Estonia.
One of the largest permanent Estonian communities outside Estonia is in Canada, with about 24,000 people[7] (according to some sources up to 50,000 people).[41] In the late 1940s and early 1950s, about 17,000 arrived in Canada, initially inMontreal.[42]Toronto is currently the city with the largest population of Estonians outside of Estonia. The first Estonian World Festival was held in Toronto in 1972.
Y-chromosome haplogroups among Estonians includeN1c (35.7%),[43]R1a (33.5%)[44] andI1 (15%).[43] R1a, common in Eastern Europe,[45] was the dominant Y-DNA haplogroup among the pre-Uralic inhabitants of Estonia, as it is the only one found in the local samples from the time of theCorded Ware culture and Bronze Age. Appearance of N1c is linked to the arrival of Uralic-speakers.[25] It originated in East Eurasia[46] and is commonly carried by modern Uralic-speaking groups but also other North Eurasians, including Estonians' Baltic-speaking neighborsLatvians andLithuanians.[43] Compared to the Balts, Estonians have been noticed to have differences in allelic variances of N1c haplotypes, showing more similarity with other Finno-Ugric-speakers.[47][45]
When looking atmaternal lineages, nearly half (45 %) of the Estonians have the haplogroupH . About one in four (24.2 %) carry the haplogroupU, and the majority of them belong to its subcladeU5.[46]
A PCA of Estonians and several other European populations.[48]Regional population structure of Estonians.[49]
Autosomally Estonians are close withLatvians,Lithuanians andRussians (especially Northwestern Russians).[50] However, they are shifted towards theFinns, who are isolated from most European populations.[51][52][53] Northeastern Estonians are particularly close to Finns, while Southeastern Estonians are close to the Balts; other Estonians plot between these two extremes.[49]
Estonians have highsteppe-like admixture, and lessfarmer-related and morehunter-gatherer-related admixture than Western and Central Europeans. The same pattern is found also in the Balts, Finns andMordvins, for example.[54] Uralic peoples typically carry aSiberian-related component, which is also present in Estonians and makes up about five percent of their ancestry on average. Although they have a smaller share of it than other Balto-Finns, it is one factor that distinguishes them from the Balts.[46] Estonians can also be modelled to have considerably more Finnish-like ancestry than Baltic-speakers.[53][47]
^Statistics Finland does not record ethnicity and instead categorizes the population by their native language; in 2017, Estonian was spoken as a mother tongue by 49,590 people, not all of whom may be ethnic Estonians.[3]
^Ivković, Sanja Kutnjak; Haberfeld, M.R. (10 June 2015).Measuring Police Integrity Across the World: Studies from Established Democracies and Countries in Transition. Springer. p. 131.ISBN9781493922796.Estonia is considered Protestant when classified by its historically predominant major religion (Norris and Inglehart 2011) and thus some authors (e.g., Davie 2003) claim Estonia belongs to Western (Lutheran) Europe, while others (e.g., Norris and Inglehart 2011) see Estonia as a Protestant ex-Communist society.
^Ringvee, Ringo (16 September 2011)."Is Estonia really the least religious country in the world?".The Guardian.For this situation there are several reasons, starting from the distant past (the close connection of the churches with the Swedish or German ruling classes) up to the Soviet-period atheist policy when the chain of religious traditions was broken in most families. In Estonia, religion has never played an important role on the political or ideological battlefield. The institutional religious life was dominated by foreigners until the early 20th century. The tendencies that prevailed in the late 1930s for closer relations between the state and Lutheran church [...] ended with the Soviet occupation in 1940.
^abLang, Valter:Homo Fennicus – Itämerensuomalaisten etnohistoria, pp. 335–336. Finnish Literature Society, 2020.ISBN978-951-858-130-0
^abSaag, Lehti; Laneman, Margot; Varul, Liivi; Malve, Martin; Valk, Heiki; Razzak, Maria A.; Shirobokov, Ivan G.; Khartanovich, Valeri I.; Mikhaylova, Elena R.; Kushniarevich, Alena; Scheib, Christiana Lyn; Solnik, Anu; Reisberg, Tuuli; Parik, Jüri; Saag, Lauri; Metspalu, Ene; Rootsi, Siiri; Montinaro, Francesco; Remm, Maido; Mägi, Reedik; D’Atanasio, Eugenia; Crema, Enrico Ryunosuke; Díez-del-Molino, David; Thomas, Mark G.; Kriiska, Aivar; Kivisild, Toomas; Villems, Richard; Lang, Valter; Metspalu, Mait; Tambets, Kristiina (May 2019)."The Arrival of Siberian Ancestry Connecting the Eastern Baltic to Uralic Speakers further East".Current Biology.29 (10): 1701–1711.e16.Bibcode:2019CBio...29E1701S.doi:10.1016/j.cub.2019.04.026.PMC6544527.PMID31080083.
^abAriste, Paul (1956). "Maakeel ja eesti keel.Eesti NSV Teaduste Akadeemia Toimetised 5: 117–24; Beyer, Jürgen (2007). Istmaarahvas ('Landvolk'), die alte Selbstbezeichnung der Esten, eine Lehnübersetzung? Eine Studie zur Begriffsgeschichte des Ostseeraums".Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung.56:566–593.
^Piirimäe, Helmut. Historical heritage: the relations between Estonia and her Nordic neighbors. In M. Lauristin et al. (eds.),Return to the Western world: Cultural and political perspectives on the Estonian post-communist transition. Tartu: Tartu University Press, 1997.
^abLappalainen, Tuuli:Human genetic variation in the Baltic Sea region: features of population history and natural selection. PhD thesis. Helsinki University Print, Helsinki. 2009.http://hdl.handle.net/10138/22129
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