Toetus enamlusele Eestis novembrist 1917 jaanuarini 1918

Abstract: Support for Bolshevism in Estonia from November of 1917 to January of 1918 Only a few weeks after the Bolsheviks stormed to power, elections for the All-Russian Constituent Assembly were held. They were also held in the Estonian province of the Russian state. The Bolsheviks claimed a clear victory in Estonia with two-fifths of the votes cast in their favour. At the end of January 1918, elections were held for the Estonian Constituent Assembly to determine the political organisation of Estonia. This offers a unique opportunity to study the electoral impact of experiencing really existing Communism during the first months after the October Revolution. The Estonian Assembly elections, however, were not fully completed since the Bolsheviks abruptly stopped the proceedings before approximately a third of the municipalities were able to cast their votes. Still, as reported by previous authors, the partial election results show that during this short period, the Bolsheviks saw their support decrease by a few percentage points. Eduard Laaman and Joosep Saat, both contemporaries of that time, have completed the most thorough analyses of the first few months of Bolshevik rule in Estonia, with the former representing the non-Communist viewpoint, and the latter adhering to the Communist line. Other authors have largely followed their arguments. Both Laaman and Saat agree that the agrarian policies of the Estonian Bolsheviks, which were more hard-line than those of their Russian comrades in aiming for immediate agricultural collectivisation, was one of the main reasons why the Bolsheviks saw their support dwindle, since most (semi-)landless folk wanted land of their own. Laaman also lambasted the urban economic policies of socialisation of the enterprises, which saw the plight of industrial workers in the urban areas worsen during the ‘reign of the proletariat’. Both agree that the occasionally violent seizure of power in the municipalities could also have been a detriment since the previous local governments had democratic legitimacy. Finally, an important change was that by the time the Estonian Assembly elections were held, all other political parties had begun supporting and campaigning for the independence of Estonia. The Bolsheviks and the bolshevised Russian troops stationed in Estonia were alone in opposing this. This article has four aims. First, it seeks to check and correct the election results as computed by previous (Soviet) historians. Second, it intends to map the results from both elections by municipalities, which has not been done before, in order to gain a precise understanding of spatial variations in the support for Bolshevism. Third, it aspires to arrive at an exact comparison of the election results by comparing only those municipalities (N = 219) in which both elections were held and where the results were published, which has not been done by previous authors. Fourth, using the results from these municipalities, it seeks to explain the changes in the support for Bolshevism during this short but dynamic period. The article’s main sources are the official county and voting station protocols for both elections. Additionally, results published in contemporary newspapers are also used in some cases. For the most part, both elections were held on the same principles and procedures, which fully justifies their comparison. It is important to note that at that time, the Bolsheviks did not actively and unequivocally tamper with the election results nor did they engage in voter intimidation or sabotage the campaigns of other political parties, as was the rule later on. The main results are as follows. First, the article proved that for some municipalities, the calculations of previous authors are incorrect. Here, it is estimated that the Bolsheviks got 40.2% of the vote in the elections for the Russian Constituent Assembly. In the unfinished elections for the Estonian Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks gained 36.9% of the vote. Second, an exact comparison was arrived at by comparing only the municipalities for which we have results from both elections. With this limitation, the Bolshevik vote decreased from 41.8 to 36.9%, which in relative terms means a drop of 12%. Still, the relative vote share of other leftist political parties (the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Social Democrats) decreased even more, meaning that the Bolsheviks became more dominant on the left wing of the political spectrum. The vote share of the centrist Labour Party and the right-wing political parties increased in relative terms by a quarter and a third, respectively. Third, looking at the spatial distribution of Bolshevik support in the elections for the Russian Assembly, greater Bolshevik support stands out in urban centres, in the north and the southeast of the country. However, there are substantial differences in this distribution, frequently even among neighbouring municipalities. Such fluctuations cannot be explained by structural (compositional) factors. These discrepancies decreased in the later election. This means that municipalities with greater Bolshevik support in the first election saw a greater decrease in the later election, and municipalities with lower Bolshevik support in the first election mostly recorded an increase in their support in the later election. Fourth, in terms of explaining the changes in Bolshevik support, it is claimed that increasing understanding of the political landscape among the electorate evened up the vote share across socio-demographically similar municipalities. Also, it is evident that the Bolsheviks were able to gain the support of previous Socialist-Revolutionary and Social Democratic supporters. The article found support for the hypothesis that the Bolshevik vote share fell more in the more industrial areas. Increased voter participation and land ownership rates in the rural municipalities, on the other hand, were shown to have no effect on the change in Bolshevik võte share. Finally, the article questioned if the timing of local Bolshevik action in taking over local municipalities or creating local soviets had an impact on the change in the Bolshevik vote. The analysis showed this to be true for Harju County but the data on local political actions is too flawed to say anything conclusively about Estonia more generally

Влияние детской смертности на рождаемость в Эстонии в условиях демографического перехода

The correlation between infant and child mortality and fertility holds an important place in the demographic transition theory. The Princeton project that aimed to empirically check the validity of the theory with reference to the material of European states, however, produced mixed if not contradictory results, which led to a disagreement on the importance of infant mortality for fertility transition. This research considers the peculiarities of Estonia’s demographic transition and is relevant because as early as the nineteenth century, Estonia was among the countries whose fertility decline was the fastest. This article refers to a nominative source, the Family Register of the Estonian Republic, and adds to a series of research works studying the correlation between infant and child mortality and fertility. More specifically, the article focuses on the fertility histories of two generations of Estonian women born between 1860 and 1879 and 1880 and 1899 and reaching childbearing age at the beginning and at the end of the demographic transition period respectively, as well as Estonia’s industrialisation and urbanisation. The data received as a result of the analysis testify to the fact that parents who had lost a child aimed at making up for the loss; as a result, new pregnancies were more likely to occur following the loss of children. In scholarly literature, this phenomenon is referred to as replacement, and in Estonia it was particularly noticeable among women residing in cities and those of the later generation which resulted from the spread of control over reproductive behaviour. The research demonstrates that in terms of spacing, child deaths decreased the interval before the next birth. This is a mix of both deliberate behaviour and a biological effect caused by the death of an infant that has been breastfed. The effect on the spacing, however, does not gain strength among urban women and women of the later generation, but rather the contrary, and the decrease in the birth ratio was not so much due to an increase in the intervals between births, but due to the conscious decision of Estonians to have a small family.Сюжет о связи младенческой и детской смертности с рождаемостью занимает важное место в теории демографического перехода. Однако Принстонский проект, направленный на эмпирическую проверку достоверности теории на материалах европейских государств, дал противоречивые результаты, что привело к возникновению дискуссии о влиянии снижения смертности детей в раннем возрасте на изменение репродуктивного поведения родителей. Изучение особенностей демографического перехода в Эстонии актуально, поскольку по темпам снижения рождаемости она занимала одно из первых мест в Европе уже в конце XIX в. Данная статья, выполненная на номинативном источнике — Посемейном регистре Эстонской Республики, дополняет серию исследований, посвященных феномену связи младенческой и детской смертности с рождаемостью. В частности, в ней проанализировано репродуктивное поведение двух поколений эстонок, родившихся в 1860–1879 и 1880–1899 гг. и вступивших в репродуктивный возраст, соответственно, в начале и в конце периода демографического перехода, индустриализации и урбанизации Эстонии. Полученные в ходе исследования результаты свидетельствуют о том, что пары, утратившие ребенка, стремились восполнить потерю, и вероятность наступления новой беременности увеличивалась с ростом числа умерших детей. В литературе это явление известно как «замещение», и в Эстонии оно наиболее четко проявлялось в среде горожанок и женщин более позднего поколения, что было связано с распространением контроля за репродуктивным поведением. Проведенное исследование также показало, что смерть ребенка приводила к сокращению интервала до следующих родов, что являлось как результатом прекращения кормления грудью, так и свидетельством распространения практики планирования семьи. Однако в среде горожанок и женщин позднего поколения эта взаимообусловленность проявлялась меньше или совсем отсутствовала, а снижение рождаемости шло не столько за счет увеличения интервалов между родами, сколько за счет сознательного решения эстонцев иметь небольшую семью

Maltusliku ehk Lääne-Euroopa abiellumustüübi kõrgaeg Eestis

This article analyses the trends and spatial patterns of i) the mean age at first marriage and ii) the proportion of people who remained single by the age of 45 for Estonian men and women born in the latter half of the 19th century. First, trends in these two indicators and for the two sexes are analysed for people born in 1850–99. Second, spatial patterns for both indicators and both genders are investigated at the municipality level for the cohorts of 1875–94. Third, this spatial data is linked to other socio-economic and cultural variables derived mostly from the censuses in order to explain the causes of the spatial clustering of marriage indicators. The theoretical reasoning for this article rests on the work of Thomas Robert Malthus and John Hajnal. Malthus is famous for explaining the demographic-economic dynamics of a traditional agrarian society in which periodic increases in mortality occur, lowering population numbers that have reached the carrying capacity (limit of available food) of an agrarian society. But Malthus (1798) was also the first to describe a phenomenon that was present in the upper and middle classes of his contemporary Britons, which also resulted in containing population growth. To be more precise, Malthus observed that people got married in their late twenties (thus postponing the start of their childbearing period); and that a considerable proportion of people remained single (thus they did not bear any children at all). Thomas Hajnal (1965) used considerable census material from the late 19th and early 20th centuries to place these observations on a sounder foundation. He claimed that a unique marriage system was prevalent in the countries of Western Europe. Namely, people married late (women around the age of 25, men around the age of 29) and 10 or more percent of the population remained single. Hajnal hypothesised that European uniqueness in this regard could in fact be linked to a higher standard of living in Europe from the Early Modern period onwards. Several economic historians have recently claimed that this was in fact the case, and that the Western European marriage pattern was one of the causes of European economic headway compared to other regions of the world (for example van Zanden, de Moor and Carmichel 2019). In the case of Estonia, little research has been conducted on the prevailing marriage system. Heldur Palli (1984, 1988) has studied the demographic situation in a few parishes during the 18th century and has shown that the Western European marriage pattern was present in the Estonian countryside in the late 18th century, if it can be assumed that these parishes constitute a representative sample of the country. Later researchers have cited Palli and early 20th century census and population statistics material to make the same claim. Here a novel data set, the Estonian Family Register, is used to analyse marital dynamics during the time of general societal modernisation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Gortfelder (2020) has previously used and described the Family Register. Its main advantage is that cohort analysis can be used, which makes it possible to precisely pinpoint the values of mean age at people first married and the proportion of persons remaining unmarried by the age of 45. There are also disadvantages, the greatest of which is the issue that the data for some municipalities is wholly or partially missing due to the ravages of the Second World War. The analysis shows that for men and women born in 1850–1899, the mean age at first birth was stable. For men it was at 29–30 and for women at 25–26 years of age. Regarding persons who remained unmarried, change was slightly more pronounced. The proportion of women rose from 15 to 18 percent, while that of men rose from 9 to 13 percent. Spatial patterns of mean age at first marriage are mostly the same for both men and women. Namely, marital age is higher in urban areas and in the counties of Viljandi, Valga, Tartu, and Võru. The greatest sex differences are found in the West Estonian islands. From the perspective of women, marriage occurred relatively late in these areas; for men the situation is the opposite. The youngest marital ages are evident in Petseri County. The picture is mostly the same regarding the proportion of persons who were not married by the age of 45. In the studied cohorts, there are more single people (by the age of 45) in urban areas and the counties of Viljandi, Valga, and Tartu. Regarding women, Lääne County also had high values. Once again, the western islands have a very different rank by sex. A sizeable proportion of women remained single by the age of 45, while only a small percentage of men remained bachelors. Finally, a number of variables can explain the spatial patterns of mean age at first marriage and the proportion of persons remaining single by the age of 45. For example, the sex ratio of young adults is a crucial factor. If there were relatively few men in an area, more women remained single and married late. Also, variables related to economics are important. Agrarian areas with a more market-oriented economic structure featured later marriage and a larger percentage of single men

Determinants of Fertility During the Fertility Transition in Estonia: A Spatial Analysis

The Princeton European Fertility Project famously studied the determinants of fertility transition using geographical data. The project, however, received criticism for using highlevel spatial units that hide much of the variation within. Additionally, although the project underlined the importance of neighbourhood influence through linguistic and cultural similarities, the spatial aspects were not comprehensively studied. This article investigates fertility determinants during the second half of the fertility transition in Estonia, a country with one of the earliest transitions in Europe. We study the completed cohort fertility of married women born between 1875 1894 in Estonia at the lowest-level of municipalities. Given the spatial nature of the data, spatial Durbin models are used in addition to the OLS model. The results show that demographic, cultural, educational, economic and spatial influences were all important in determining the level of fertility during the transition

Eesti ühiskonna poliitilised hoiakud murranguaastatel 1932–1934

Abstract: Political attitudes in Estonian society in the pivotal years 1932–1934 This article deals with the Constitutional crisis of the Estonian Republic and analyses the results of the three referendums (August of 1932, June of 1933, and October of 1933) that took place on the three different amendment proposals to the 1920 constitution. Thus, unlike previous research that has mostly looked at the topic of the political crisis from the viewpoint of the political elite and the leaders of the League of Veterans movement, we map the moods and opinions of the electorate during this volatile time. To be more precise, we try to find out the parties whose supporters voted for amending the constitution and the parties whose supporters did not. We link this with the official stances of the said parties and see whether or not their supporters aligned their votes with their representatives. Additionally, on the basis of the last referendum, where people voted on the proposal of the League of Veterans, we speculate on what percentage of votes the movement could have obtained in the parliamentary elections scheduled for 1934. mostly looked at the topic of the political crisis from the viewpoint of the political elite and the leaders of the League of Veterans movement, we map the moods and opinions of the electorate during this volatile time. To be more precise, we try to find out the parties whose supporters voted for amending the constitution and the parties whose supporters did not. We link this with the official stances of the said parties and see whether or not their supporters aligned their votes with their representatives. Additionally, on the basis of the last referendum, where people voted on the proposal of the League of Veterans, we speculate on what percentage of votes the movement could have obtained in the parliamentary elections scheduled for 1934. We use not only the results from the 1932 parliamentary elections, but also those from 1929. This is due to the fact that the party system changed before the 1932 elections. The two agrarian parties formed a unified party (the Union of Settlers and Smallholders). Konstantin Päts’ Farmers’ Assemblies (Põllumeeste Kogud) that represented the wealthier established farmers was very much in favour of constitutional amendments. The Settlers’ Party (Asunikud), which represented small-holders, was neutral to this. A unified party was also established in the political centre (the National Centre Party). However, the parties had different stances here as well. Jaan Tõnissons’ centre-right People’s Party (Rahvaerakond) was very supportive of constitutional change, while the centre-left Labour Party (Tööerakond) was not. The leadership of both of these consolidated parties went to fractions that supported the revision of the constitution. In August of 1932, a proposal put forward by the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu) was surprisingly rejected – only 49.2% of the electorate supported it. The analysis shows that greater support for the Union of Settlers and Smallholders in 1932 and for the Farmers’ Assemblies in 1929 predicts greater support for the amendment proposal. For the Settlers’ Party, the result is weaker, but still positive. The relationship is inverse for the Socialists and Communists. All of this is to be expected since the unified agrarian party was for the motion and the Marxist parties were against it. In the political centre, however, we can see unexpected results. The National Centre Party does not have a statistically significant effect on the results of the referendum. This is also true for the People’s Party. For the Labour Party, we see a negative relationship, which indicates that their supporters rejected the stance of the unified party and voted against the constitutional amendment. For many supporters of the People’s Party, the amendments were probably not radical enough for the Socialists and Communists. All of this is to be expected since the unified agrarian party was for the motion and the Marxist parties were against it. In the political centre, however, we can see unexpected results. The National Centre Party does not have a statistically significant effect on the results of the referendum. This is also true for the People’s Party. For the Labour Party, we see a negative relationship, which indicates that their supporters rejected the stance of the unified party and voted against the constitutional amendment. For many supporters of the People’s Party, the amendments were probably not radical enough. In June of 1933, the Riigikogu’s second proposal was overwhelmingly rejected – only 32.7% of the electorate supported it. It is important to note that this motion was weaker in its rearrangements than the previous one. For the agrarian parties, we can still see a positive relationship – a higher percentage of support for them also meant greater support for the amendment. This, however, is much weaker than previously, reflecting the view of their electorate that the proposed changes were not radical enough. The support of the Social Democrats still has a negative effect on the results, while support for the Communists has a statistically insignificant effect. Again, at the political centre we see the most noteworthy results. Greater support for the People’s Party predicted less support for the second amendment proposal, while greater support for the Labour Party predicted greater support for the amendment. This means that by this referendum, the People’s Party had very little influence on their electorate, who rejected the small-scale reforms convincingly. This time it was the supporters of the Labour Party that followed the line of Jaan Tõnisson at the helm of the unified centre party. In October of 1933, the proposal put forward by the League of Veterans received overwhelming support – 72.7% of the electorate voted for substantial changes to the constitution. It appears from the results that the supporters of agrarian parties were still in favour of constitutional change, while the supporters of the Marxist parties were still opposed. The supporters of the People’s Party again rejected the opinions of Jaan Tõnisson and voted en masse in favour of the proposal, as, to a lesser extent, also did the electorate of the Labour Party. The results of the October 1933 referendum was a great success for the League of Veterans movement. It has oft en been claimed that this was a wholesale defeat for the established parties. This, however, is a half-truth. Agrarian parties largely kept most of their electorate, as to a significant extent did the Socialists and the Communists. In addition, the ethnic minorities still voted against the proposal of the League of Veterans. It was the centrists and especially the supporters of the People’s Party that flocked to the League of Veterans. So even under optimistic assumptions, we believe that the Freedom Fighters might have gotten about 35% of the vote in the parliamentary elections, which is far less than an absolute majority. &nbsp