Why Estonia's schools are abandoning teaching in Russian | Focus on Europe
Estonia's large Russian-speaking minority used to be taught in Russian. The government has responded to Russia's invasion with a reform to end this. Now, lessons will only be taught in Estonian.
As a person who started to learn Russian few years ago, it's sad to see, but ultimately it's a good choice for Estonian people or any other nation which is at risk of Russian expansionism .
Vladimir Putin is the worst thing that happened to Russia, Russian culture and Russian language.
Undoubtedly Putin is an evil, horrible dictator. But the worst? I'm not so sure about that. They had Stalin, that's at least a close contender.
In my crystal ball... I see... Orthodox Christian Schools popping up everywhere.
I believe that Latvia did this a year ago; not sure about Lithuania.
fuck yes, finally!
Because fuck Russia. 😘
Why though?
With a substantial native Russian speaking minority in Estonia and other baltic countries this is IMHO a very bad idea and will only result in resentment and kids struggling in school due to language issues.
When Russia occupied Estonia and other countries, they deported a large number of locals to Russia. That served the purposes of decimating local populations, decreasing resistance, giving the Russians hostages, and also giving them slave labor for their work camps. And then they moved in a bunch of Russian civilians to run the government in various levels, and insisted that all official business be conducted in Russian. The local Russian "elites" got special privileges, including special schools and special stores. There was some acculturation, but they generally had their own groups and didn't spend more time accommodating the locals, expecting the locals to conform to them instead.
When the Soviet Union fell, the previously-occupied countries were left with these families who had cultural ties with the Soviet Union, but who had been living locally for like 50 years. It was generally decided that those who wanted to repatriate could and the rest could remain; most people decided to remain.
In most places, the resurgence of local language and culture also accommodated the remaining Russian elements; documents were available in both languages, schooling could be in either language, etc. The countries didn't want to offend Russia, didn't want to truly upset their Russian neighbors, and it was easier to ignore it and focus on developing their countries. They figured the remaining Russians would eventually fully acclimate locally.
However, the local Russians have some resentment against the locals, as they've mostly lost their previous privileges, they have nothing to return home to, and they've had stressed relations with their local neighbors. In short, they didn't really want to acclimate, nor did their neighbors fully trust them. That left fairly insular communities of cultural Russians in previously occupied countries.
Russia has been using the existence of those communities to invade it's neighbors.
At this point - 80+ years since occupation and 30+ years since liberation - the "local Russian" population has had plenty of time to acclimate. If they haven't yet, that's their problem. For these countries, standing up to Russia and reducing future pretexts for invasion is significantly more important than a disgruntled minority who has little intention of integrating and who is already disconnected.
This detailed reply provided the context I needed to understand the situation. Thank you!
We should add that it wasn't just ethnic Russians that were moved in. The Soviets would move undesrables, dissidents and poor people from one satellite to another, leaving them cturally isolated with no option but to switch to Russian. Resentment was fostered via tools such as transfer of property, and schooling, such that the native population and the immigrants always had conflict, and the Russian soviets could resolve conflicts and civilize the total population. Russian ethnics outnumber native ethnics in many Russian regions that did not leave the union.
Latvia did it a year ago, and the blowback has been less than expected. I saw a Documentary on it that interviewed Russian ethnic Latvians, and they seemed to accept it, as long as there were no social restrictions. There were of course Russian nationalists who objected, mainly the older generation.
Great idea. Surely punishing your country's children for the decisions of a foreign government will end the war.