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Russians in Estonia: Is Narva the Next Crimea? Eurasian Geography and Economics ISSN: 1538-7216 (Print) 1938-2863 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rege20 Russians in Estonia: Is Narva the next Crimea? David J. Trimbach & Shannon O’Lear To cite this article: David J. Trimbach & Shannon O’Lear (2015): Russians in Estonia: Is Narva the next Crimea?, Eurasian Geography and Economics, DOI: 10.1080/15387216.2015.1110040 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15387216.2015.1110040 Published online: 11 Nov 2015. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rege20 Download by: [University of Kansas Libraries] Date: 11 November 2015, At: 09:04 Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15387216.2015.1110040 Russians in Estonia: Is Narva the next Crimea? David J. Trimbach* and Shannon O’Lear Department of Geography, University of Kansas, 1475 Jayhawk Blvd., 213 Lindley Hall, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA (Received 31 May 2015; accepted 15 October 2015) Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and involvement in Ukrainian border regions pose serious consequences and questions. The precedence of Russian military intervention illustrates the porosity and potential for conflicts in other post-Soviet border regions. The Estonian borderland city of Narva, populated predominantly by Russian-speakers, is one such potential site of tension. Based on preliminary findings and data collected in Narva in 2013, this article provides an overview of citizenship, identity, and geographic affiliation issues among Narva’s Russian-speaking commu- nity in an effort to generate insights as to how any Russian overtures and potential intervention might be received in Narva. Keywords: Narva; Estonia; Russia; Russian-speakers; identity; citizenship Introduction On 26 February 2015, in honor of its Independence Day, Estonia hosted a military parade and invited troops from fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries to participate in the celebration. Said parade, however, was held in Narva, a town right on Estonia’s border with Russia in which, according to government data, the dominant majority of the populace identifies ethnically or linguistically as “Russian.” No doubt seeing this demonstration as provocative, Russia in response soon held mili- tary drills involving 2000 paratroopers in the Pskov region of Russia bordering Estonia and Latvia (Freeman et al. 2015). In fact, Estonian–Russian relations wax and wane, ranging from the 2007 riots precipitated by the Estonian government’s plan to move a Soviet-era war memorial, which was seen as an “anti-Russian” move (Shemetov 2014) and which was followed by a cyber attack that was widely suspected to have originated in Russia in retaliation (Kaiser 2015); to the peaceful border resolution between the two countries in 2014; and more recently to the kidnapping of an Estonian Internal Security Downloaded by [University of Kansas Libraries] at 09:04 11 November 2015 Service officer on the Estonian side of the southeastern Estonian–Russian border by the Russian Federal Security Service (Borger 2014). Estonia and its Baltic neighbors, Latvia and Lithuania, have all been members of both the European Union (EU) and NATO since 2004, but Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, still internationally recognized as part of Ukraine, raised concern in states adjoining Russia that Russian expansion may threaten other border areas, includ- ing along Estonia’s northeastern borderland, where the City of Narva is located. Narva shares many paralleled similarities with Crimea and the Donbas region. Crimea, the *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] © 2015 Taylor & Francis 2 D.J. Trimbach Donbas, and Narva are predominantly Russian-speaking, are proximate to Russian territory, are areas of historic contention (with Russia and Soviet Union) (Wilson 1995; Thompson 1998; Biersack and O’Lear 2014), and contain(ed) sizeable Russian citizen- ries (State Statistic Committee 2001; Narva Department of Development and Economy 2012). Like the Donbas region, Narva and its surrounding area comprise Estonia’s industrial and natural resource (oil shale) heartland, which has witnessed dramatic eco- nomic shifts and declines since the collapse of the Soviet Union (Holmberg 2008; Bengtsson 2009; Seiffert 2014). Additionally Estonia’s northeast and Ukraine’s east encountered unrest and calls for autonomy and/or secession during the early 1990s (Sneider 1994; Smith 2002). Russia has, in fact, been militarily active in several of its border areas. In late March 2015, the Russian military conducted large-scale “sudden” exercises on several fronts. Air and naval forces in the Barents Sea practiced protecting nuclear missile-armed sub- marines, and the Russian defense minister, Army General Sergei Shoigu announced on 18 March that additional exercises were planned in the Baltic region, the Black Sea, the Far East, and central Russia (Felgenhauer 2015a). Additionally, it is not clear if Russian ballistic missiles (known as the Iskander-M) deployed in Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad during exercises in 2014 will remain at that forward location or not (2015a). Iskander-M’s 500 km range poses a serious threat to Kaliningrad’s neighbors and has reinforced the notion of the Baltics as a new military frontline (Isachenkov 2015). Russia has also been upgrading military equipment and capacity in the Stavropol region of the North Caucasus. Stavropol is the headquarters for the 49th army, Russia’s offensive force in the Southern Military District (Goble 2015). According to an article written by Anton Chablin, a political analyst in the North Caucasus, large training exer- cises have been conducted near borders of Georgia and Ukraine, which have both indi- cated interest in joining NATO, and there is concern that possible Russian movement in Georgia could amplify Russia’s established military presence in Armenia (as quoted in Goble 2015). Russia’s actions on its borders have motivated the Lithuanian parliament to reinstate conscription to its military (Felgenhauer 2015a), and Sweden, not a member of NATO, is sending troops to the island of Gotland, located in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Russia, despite having demilitarized the area for a decade (Milne 2015). The aforementioned conventional overt military strategies have been complemented by what many military experts call “hybrid warfare,” or the blended usage of conventional, unconventional, overt, and covert military strategies, actions, information, and threats (Van Puyvelde 2015). Russia’s increased militarization has intensified NATO and the US military activities in the Baltics, exacerbating tensions and diplomatic woes. Estonia in particular has seen Downloaded by [University of Kansas Libraries] at 09:04 11 November 2015 an influx of NATO and the US military equipment, defense funds, and even boots on the ground (Kund 2015). Following the US Congress’ approval of $25 million for the modernization of Estonian military bases and the initiation of a two-year contract permitting the USA to use Estonian Defense Force areas, Estonia has seen a boom in military infrastructure improvements and expansions (2015). Russia’s military endeavors on multiple, simultaneous fronts might seem to be a phenomenal feat in light of Russia’s recent economic downturn, but President Vladimir Putin has called for a mas- sive repatriation of capital by wealthy Russians who have deposited multiple billions of dollars of wealth in offshore locations (Felgenhauer 2015b). What might Russia’s military activity mean for Narva, Estonia? How might Russian overtures to this Russian irredenta, if activated as part of what has become known as “hybrid war,” be received by the population there? In the case of Crimea, a 2011 survey Eurasian Geography and Economics 3 of Crimean residents indicated that people there had a stronger sense of attachment to Crimea itself rather than to Russia or to Ukraine. More emphatically, survey respon- dents, comprised of Russians, Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, and some other groups, strongly preferred Crimean autonomy (Charron 2012). These findings coalesce well with other scholarship that suggests that Ukrainian-Russian-speakers in the south (Crimea) and east (Donbas) are less likely to identify with Ukraine or support Ukrainian territorial integrity, and are more likely to support local autonomy and Russian language policies (Moser 2014). Given recent history with Crimea and the presence of ethnic Russian irre- denta in easternmost Estonia, a closer examination of Narva’s population in an attempt to gauge its sense of citizenship, identity, and spatial affiliation is warranted. Background on Narva, Estonia’s borderland Russian enclave Narva is Estonia’s third most populous city, the country’s industrial center and energy producer, and is home to a predominantly Russian-speaking community located along the Estonian–Russian border (Figure 1). Narva is no stranger to Russian military actions. The “Battle of Narva” is a near-ubiquitous phrase in Estonian history and geopolitics referring to two major battles during the Great Northern War (1700, 1704) between the Swedish and Russian empires and major World War II (WWII) battles (1944) between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (Raun 2001). Narva was also the home of the Estonian Workers’ Commune (1918–1919), which provided a short-lived Bolshevik foothold in Estonia and partial legitimation
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