From: tammet@cs.chalmers.se (Tanel Tammet)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet
Subject: Re: Narva in the inter-war period
Date: 17 Nov 92 11:19:26 GMT
Organization: Dept. of CS, Chalmers, Sweden

In article <1992Nov16.234932.10548@galois.mit.edu> verbit@cauchy.mit.edu (Mikahil Verbitski) writes:
>In article <1992Nov15.120612.2713@enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:
>>Mikhail S. Verbitsky (verbit@brauer.harvard.edu) writes:
>
>>>Dear Erland, you are not exactly right. The problem with Narva
>>>is that this city is almost on the border, and on the other
>>>side of the border there is another city, Ivangorod.
>
>>And to which country did Ivangorod belong in the inter-war
>>period?
>
>	To Russia, I guess. Can someone confirm it?

Well, I'm sorry, Misha, but I cannot resist. How come you start writing
on the subject "Narva in the inter-war period" without knowing the
absolute basics in history? Of course, IVANGOROD BELONGED TO ESTONIA
BETWEEN TWO WORLD WARS. There is an agreement, you know (called the
treaty of Tartu) between Russia (of Lenin) and Estonia, fixing the border.
The Russian-Estonian border goes more than 10 km EAST to Narva.

(flames off :-)

So, you ask, why is the city called "Ivangorod"? Well, it used to
be called "Jaanilinn".

So, you ask, but this is "historically a Russian area"? Well, at least
the rural population was (up to WWII) mostly Ingrians, a fenno-ugric
people closely related to Finns and Estonians. After WWII, they were
largely deported to Siberia. Many escaped to Estonia and Finland beforehand.
So, NOW, yes, it is largely a russian-populated area. But there still
are some ingrians.

Now one very interesting question is where does the Estonian-Russian
border lie? According to a single existing agreement on the matter 
(Tartu treaty), approx. ten km east to Narva (the same for the south-eastern
part of Estonia, where even larger pieces were taken to Russia).
Russia unilaterally considers the borders to be as they stand now 
(between Narva and Ivangorod). Estonia considers the current border
to be an "administrative border" and the area to the east of that to be
taken by Russia using force. Estonian standpoint is that the border should
eventually be decided by a new agreement stemming from bilateral talks.

My personal viewpoint is that the current (administrative) border should
be converted to an official border by a new treaty, effectively giving
the areas to Russia. In turn Estonia should get something herself from
this deal. I do not advocate the viewpoint that Estonia should just 
quietly accept taking the areas by Russia and not ask anything in return.

>	Yes, you are right. Ivangorod was always of smaller
>	size than Narva. I never meant literally that the
>	situation did not change; I wanted to point out
>	that there were reasons beyond political ones:
>	a natural geography of the place. Just like
>	some places in California are becoming Mexican-
>	dominated, Narva become de-facto Russian city
>	because it was too near to mainland and Estonia
>	was always richer than Russia and more liberal 
>	politically. If you opened the border to Poland
>	or Yugoslavia, there appeared Russian cities
>	as well.

I agree completely. Open the borders to Russia (in case we have here it
was done unilaterally by Russia, using force) and the result is
inevitable, especially if the difference in population size is several
orders of magnitude. That is one reason behind the russophobia 
(defined: fear of Russia) you can observe in Estonia.

Regards,
	Tanel Tammet
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet