page 1page 2page 3page 4page 5page 6page 7page 8page 9page 10page 11page 12page 13page 14page 15page 16page 17page 18page 19page 20page 21page 22page 23page 24page 25page 26page 27page 28page 29page 30page 31page 32page 33page 34page 35page 36page 37page 38page 39page 40TITLE: ESTONIA ON THE EVE OF INDEPENDENCE: Nationalitiesand Society in the Transition from State SocialismAUTHOR: Mikk Titma, Brian D . Silver & Barbara AndersonTHE NATIONAL COUNCILFOR SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEANRESEARCHTITLE VIII PROGRAM1755 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20036PROJECTINFORMATION:*CONTRACTOR:The Uhiversity of MichiganPRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR:Barbara Anderson & Brian SilverCOUNCIL CONTRACT NUMBER:805-19DATE:October 21, 1994COPYRIGHT INFORMATIONIndividual researchers retain the copyright on work products derived from research funded byCouncil Contract. The Council and the U.S. Government have the right to duplicate written reportsand other materials submitted under Council Contract and to distribute such copies within theCouncil and U.S. Government for their own use, and to draw upon such reports and materials fortheir own studies; but the Council and U.S. Government do not have the right to distribute, ormake such reports and materials available, outside the Council or U.S. Government without thewritten consent of the authors, except as may be required under the provisions of the Freedom ofInformation Act 5 U.S.C. 552, or other applicable law.Thework leadingto thisreportwassupportedin part by contract funds provided by the National Councilfor Soviet and East European Research, made available by the U. S. Department of State under Title VIII (theSoviet-Eastern EuropeanResearch and Training Act of 1983). The analysis and interpretations contained in thereport arethoseofthe author.NCSEER NOTEThis paper describes a book-length monograph available from the Council uponrequest [Tel. (202) 387-0168, FAX (202) 387-16081. The description contains:An Abstract;The monographContentsincluding lists of Figures and Tables by chapter;The face page;The IntroductionThe ConclusionA list of authors;The AcknowledgementsABSTRACTThis book is about Estonian society on the eve of its independence from the Soviet Union.Based on a unique attitude survey conducted in 1991, it examines ethnic relations, political attitudesand polifical activity, support for independence, educational and work careers, and many otheraspects of social, political, and economic life of the Estonian people. Estonia is one of the successstories in the transifion from authoritarianism, but it still must come to terms with its past, includingthe civil status of the half-a-million Russians still resident there and the history of political repressionby the Soviet regime. Yet both during the rise of the nationalist popular front in the late 1980s andin the post-independence period, Estonia has moved forward calmly and without the kinds of majorviolent episodes seen in so many other former state-socialist countries.The survey provides valuable insight into Estonia's course of development at a criticalmoment in its history. Italsosheds light on dimensions of social change that are common to mostof the post-communist countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The reshaping ofpolitical orientations and acfivities, support for transitions to market, attitudes of ethnic groupstowards one another, dealing with the past — these are all common to the post-communist countries.The survey's special features provide particular insight into the processes of intergenerationalchange and ethnic attitudes and relations. First, the core sample is based on individual Estonianswho had been interviewed previously by Titma in 1979; by 1inking the results of the 1979 and 1991surveys, the investigators are able to examine change in individua1 attitudes and activities amongEstonians between 1979 and 1991. Second, in addition to reinterviewing these individuals, theinvestigators interviewed the oldest child (between ages 16 and 25) of these persons; this permitsdirect inter-generational comparisons of attitudes and experiences. Third, the sample indudedamatching group of Russian respondents from each of the generations, which permits directcomparison between Estonians and Russians as well as between generafions.The book is written by an international collaborative research team of Americans, Estonians,and Russians. The collaboration began in 1988 as part of a binational commission on longitudina1survey research sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences in the U.S., and the USSR Academyof Sciences. With subsequent financial support from theSocialScience Research Council, theNational Council for Soviet and East European Research, and the National Science Foundation, theinvestigators designed and conducted a survey of the life course and generational change in Estoniaduring 1991, on the eve of Estonia's independence from the Soviet Union.The study illustrates the value off focusing on the life-course of individuals during thetransition from state socialism. It eschews the "grand theory" of transitions that often ignoresfundamental changes that are taking place in individual lives. By examining individual experiences,it can show the extent of continuity and change over time and over the life-course in fundamentaloutlooks on work, politics, and ethnic relations. It can show that on the eve of transition the strongantipathy of most Estonians toward the Soviet Union was not correlated with antipathy towardsRussians – despite the great difficulties in developing a just citizenship policy in the post-Sovietperiod. Similarly, it can show that despite the dear targeting of Soviet repression on certain classesof people after the annexation in 1940, the grandchildren of the repressed did not carry a heavystigma that kept them from upward mobility in Soviet Estonia.iiCONTENTSAuthorsAcknowledgmentsFiguresTablesIntroductionI:HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND SURVEY DESIGNChapter1Transitions from Totalitarian Society:Historical OverviewMikk Titma and Brian D. SilverChapter2Estonia: A Country in TransitionMikk TitmaChapter 3 The Survey ProjectRein Vöörmann, Douglas Johnson, Brian D. Silver, and Mikk TitmaII:POLITICAL ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORChapter4Support for an Independent EstoniaBrian D. Silver and Mikk TitmaChapter 5 Estonian and Russian Communities:Language and Ethnic RelationsBarbara A. Anderson, Brian D. Silver, Mikk Titma,and Edward PonarinChapter 6 Political