Civil Society, Corruption and Ethnic Relations

Abstract

In 2007 the Estonian government began to relocate a highly contentious Soviet era war memorial from the centre of Tallinn to a nearby military cemetery. The ‘Bronze Soldier’ was erected in 1947 to honour the memory of the fallen Soviet soldiers who had fought in the battles that liberated Tallinn from German forces during the Second World War. At that time it was known as the ‘Monument to the Liberators of Tallinn’. An eternal flame was added in 1964. Following independence, Estonian authorities rededicated it to all soldiers who had died during the war and dismantled the eternal flame in an attempt to depoliticise the memorial. For ethnic Estonians, however, it remained an acrimonious symbol of annexation and repression, although Russophones viewed it as one of the few remaining public symbols of Soviet victory over fascism. The April 2007 exhumation of Soviet soldiers buried below the monument triggered an unprecedented two days of Russophone rioting and looting in Tallinn.