The Cycle of Terror in Estonia, 1917–1919: On its Preconditions and Major Stages

World War I changed more than just the political map of Europe. One noteworthy consequence of the revolutions and war in East and Central Europe was the brutalization of human relations. Estonia saw three major “paroxysms” of violence in 1918–1919, which, although relatively limited in scale, are examples of the brutalization of human relations that occurred in the postwar period. The years 1918 and 1919 marked the first explosion of mass terror in Estonia, which led to the death of almost 2000 civilians. This article explores the preconditions and the stages of this terror focusing on the relationship between occupation, revolution, and land distribution. The author argues that the cycle of violence was unleashed by the radical transformation of landownership at the end of 1917. The previous owners often took advantage of the arrival of the German forces in February 1918 to exact revenge on those who had seized their property. The temporary return of the Bolsheviks at the beginning of the Estonian War of Independence was often seen as a pretext to avenge the injustices suffered under German occupation. The liberation of Estonia from the Red Army at the beginning of 1919 resulted in yet another wave of violence. The terror abated with the strengthening of state authority and the coming to power of a democratically elected government in April 1919.     

Judicial Behavior After a Change of Regime: The Effects of Judge and Defendant Characteristics

This article examines the determinants of judicial behavior in the context of transition. It tests two assumptions: first, that the judges with experience from the pretransition criminal justice system behave differently from the judges with no such experience; second, that minorities are discriminated against due to their dominant position in society before the transition and stereotypical attitudes after the transition. Using evidence from trial-level courts in Estonia, we find no statistically significant effects between case outcomes, the experience of the judge, and the ethnicity of the suspect.     

The ghost of essentialism and the trap of binarism: six theses on the Soviet empire

This article endeavors to open a new critical space for Soviet studies and for nationalities studies more generally. Through analyses of recent trends in Soviet studies, the article dismantles the frequently used opposition between subjective and objective approaches to Soviet empire and suggests instead that truths and categories, whether considered “subjective” or “objective,” are constructed discursively, through legitimizing certain interpretive models over the others. The article also argues against disciplinary avoidance of “what is” questions (e.g. “what is a nation?”) and claims that an excessive concern for (re)producing essentialism should not hinder scholarly inquiry. Several new lines of inquiry for the study of the Soviet empire are suggested and also applicable in nationalities studies more generally: research on the role of symbolic violence in manufacturing consent and research concerning the role of affect in producing linkages between the performative life of a singular human being and the pedagogical discourse of a nation or empire. The article also offers an analysis of the Soviet Union as an empire in becoming and it advocates for postcolonial approaches within Soviet studies. The practical dimensions of Soviet rule are exemplified with data from the Baltic borderlands in the postwar years.