Chapter 7.3: The Road to Independence; 7.3.1: Politics at the turn of the century.

When the effects of russification started to dissipate around the turn of the century, a new wave of the national movement began. It expanded and its main ideological wings started to shape out more clearly. There was a liberal wing, which consisted of a moderate and a radical faction, and a socialist wing, which had a national and an international faction.

Moderate nationalism continued to centre around the newspaper Postimees. In 1896, a young legal scholar by the name of Jaan Tõnisson became its head editor. Under his leadership, the newspaper became more lively, braver and determined in its political goals and started to reinvigorate the Estonian national movement, which had become fairly passive during the Russification era.

He came into conflict with Grenzstein and his newspaper, but won the fight over whether or not Estonians should russify and Grenzstein left the country soon afterwards. Tõnisson also lambasted Estonians who preferred to speak German in public places. So he and his followers demonstratively spoke Estonian in cafes, businesses and other public places. In this way they managed to reestonianize some partially germanized Estonians.

Postimees took a stand against the privileges and the economic dominance of the Baltic-Germans, demanding equal opportunity for Estonians. As they defended personal property however, they were not too keen on the idea of nationalising manor land. They believed that liberal reforms and legitimate, lawful political activity was the way to achieve their goals. Unlike his predecessors, Tõnisson never believed that Estonians should work together with either the Germans or Russians to better themselves, but rather work together, amongst each other.

To this purpose, he started promoting cooperation amongst Estonians to improve the economic standing of Estonians. In 1902, the first Estonian bank was created in Tartu, the Eesti Laenu- ja Hoiuühisus (Estonian Loan and Savings Cooperation). Other similar joint communal banks formed quickly across the nation, and soon other cooperatives formed as well, like consumer, milk and machine cooperatives. Postimees also promoted the creation and activity of cultural education societies.

Postimees found most of its backing amongst Estonian intellectuals, city bourgeoisie and wealthy farmers. Despite this, Tõnisson treated Estonians as one whole, trying to avoid the differences of opinion that had appeared due to the socio-economic stratification. Postimees wanted to make people ignore their class based differences and focus on what united them, their language and culture.



Jaan Tõnisson (1868-1941) around the 1900s.

In 1901 the publication of a new daily newspaper Teataja began in Tallinn. Its main editor was Konstantin Päts, a young lawyer. Teataja too promoted the need for Estonians to cooperate, work in societies and was anti-russification and critical of the privileges of the Baltic-Germans, but it soon came into conflict with Postimees. This was primarily due to regional differences. The North was more industrial and the soil was less fertile than the South, so most of the population was made up of small farmers and factory workers, whose standards of living were rather miserable. Teataja started to focus more on the working class, and made its primary objective the betterment of their living conditions, which was a bit different to the “being one single united block” that Postimees stood for.



Konstantin Päts around 1900. (1874-1956)

Teataja was also supported and influenced by a group of young Estonian intellectuals who had been educated in St. Petersburg, who believed that the only way to solve problems in Estonia was to radically restructure the entire Russian Empire. Postimees considered excessive ambitiousness as a potential danger for the small nation. As a result, Teataja blamed Postimees for being cowardly and clerical, Postimees answered by calling Teataja too influenced by Russian affairs and politically extremist.

Despite this, the more material Tasuja and the more cultural Postimees did not come into direct opposition, but instead complemented each other. There, where Postimees did not want to see social inequality, helped Teataja, and there, where Teataja forgot about common national interests, helped Postimees. Both newspapers supported a nationalistic and liberal world view, Postimees was just moderate and Teataja was radical.

Around the turn of the century socialists ideas also spread to Estonia. Because Russian authorities sent revolutionary university students and factory workers from Russian metropolises to the “quiet province” to pacify them, both the university students of Tartu and workers of Tallinn soon had secret marxist organisations. The ones in Tallinn joined the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (Venemaa Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Tööliste Partei, VSDTP) in 1902. This would form the international faction of the socialist movement.

The father of social democracy in Estonia, or the national faction, was a wealthy decorator named Mihkel Martna, who already in the 1880s got acquainted with the German social-democratic movement. Together with a school teacher and journalist Peeter Speek, he opened a newspaper called Uudised in 1903 in Tartu. Although due to censorship it was not possible to use the newspaper for socialist agitation, they did use it to criticise the socio-economic situation and introduce its readers to principles like materialism and social darwinism.

Liberals hoped to improve the situation with gradual reforms, socialists believed that first the autocracy must be toppled with an uprising and then the exploitation of workers and private property must be abolished. Nobody could dream of an independent Estonia yet, the country remaining as a part of the Russian Empire seemed inevitable.

In the meantime, Estonians slowly started to gain a foothold in the town councils. With the number of Estonians in cities increasing and, as the voting was wealth based, more and more Estonians became wealthier, they started to form ethnic blocks that would support Estonian candidates at elections. In 1901, the first Estonian mayor was elected, Johannes Märtson in Valga, who led the city until 1917. Most likely due to a very active campaign from Teataja, the joint Estonian and Russian bloc won a victory over the Baltic-Germans at the Tallinn council elections of 1904. Estonians got a majority, 37 out of 60 seats belong to them. Konstantin Päts became the deputy mayor, due to political reasons a Russian got the mayoral seat.