Eestlaste oma ajalooteadus
Estonians’ own historical research

Summary/Abstract: The article addresses some recent discussions on the relations between historical research and national interests in Estonia. In a general case, professional historians and the public have approached the problem differently. By the public, scholarly discussions on different scientific approaches as well as on whether this or that publication is fully based on professional standards or not have sometimes been interpreted as political debates. Well-known examples are the analysis of 13th-century Estonian history in the historical context of the Crusades, or evaluation of the activities of President Konstantin Päts in the 1930s. Due to Soviet occupation, Estonian historical research was, to a significant extent, isolated from international development and subjected to pressure from Soviet ideology. As a result, in the 1980s–1990s historical truth was often identified with the pre-Soviet heritage of the 1930s, a period when historical research was emphatically seen as a carrier of a national-pedagogical mission. Nevertheless, the leading historians of the time always also emphasised the importance of professional competence. However, the views of the nature and historical role of nations, which were acceptable for scholars before World War II, have ceased to be so. As a result, a considerable difference has developed, on some points of earlier Estonian history, between the popular historical vision, which still bears the influence of pre-war literature, and the scientific one, while the latter is sometimes seen as a threat to national historical memory. A solution could be brought by understanding that national identity is supported by any professional, versatile and international research of history, which together with scientific progress is indeed expected to change historical visions. Such research, however, obviously needs some extra funding, because neither the peripheral location nor the small population of Estonia stimulate, for purely economic reasons, the competitiveness of topics of Estonian history on the international market of historical research, where publishers and journals keep a close eye on circulation and number of downloads.

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