Talk:Estonia/Archive 1

message: Please provide a REFERENCE, or REMOVE the comment that Estonians joined the Nazi forces only towards the end of the WWII.  The comment is VERY subjective, if not documented...
*Thanks for asking, done!--Termer 06:48, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: September 28, 1994. Andres 15:18, 28 June 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  General comments 

message: I am gonna move the infobox over to a template, keep the main page a bit clean, if anyone has any concerns just not them here. --Boothy443 04:14, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox 

message: I think people here will be interested to tell their opinion at this vote for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Occupied territories of Baltic States. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DeirYassin (talk • contribs) 09:10, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vote for deletion

message: I don't understand why terms as annexation and occupation are used as they are. if Germans occupied this country in 1941, then why SU annexed it in 1944? I'd consider that SU both occupied it and annexed, for example Eastern Germany was only occupied, but not annexed and remained semi-indepandant. As for 1940 may be possible to consider the issue as unclear, though occupation is most widely used term, at least if to take into account resolution of Parliament Assembly of Council of Europe of 1960 concerning 20 years of Soviet occupation of Baltic states or Europaen Parliament's resolution of 1983 on occupied Baltic States. I propose this should be in line with the other Baltic states —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bete (talk • contribs) 10:07, 6 June 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just some sad vandalism. Some stalinists I think? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.156.169.76 (talk) 15:41, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Occupation, annexation 

message: Estonia's declaration of independence (February 24th 1918), albeit indirectly, makes references only to the sovereign rights previously held over the country by Tsarist Russia. Neither Imperial Germany (which occupied Western Estonian islands since 1917), nor Bolshevist Russia (which occupied Estonian mainland since 1917) had never before even gained full control over Estonia by that moment, regardless of their respective claims of sovereignty over Estonia. Hence, one could argue that de jure Estonia declared independence from the Russian Empire, and de facto from the German Empire and the then "Russian Republic" (or "Soviet Republic", which only later was renamed Russian SFSR). Of course, the Feb. 24th 1918 declaration had very little practical effect at first, as the whole country was in the following few days occupied by the Germans. Estonia became de facto independent only after Germans were forced to hand over power to the provisional government of Estonia according to the terms of the November 1918 armistice that ended WWI.--3 Löwi 20:48, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Declaration of independence 

message: ok, i deleted few pictures for following reasons: they were of very bad quality; they were absolute stupidity(jõhvi picture)and because we have too little text, too much pictures. if you want to add more pictures let's make this gallery into bottom of the page, as it can be seen for example over here Grass Snake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.159.175.129 (talk • contribs) 21:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photos 

message: Hello. I would like to inform you all here that there is an ongoing discussion at article Territorial claims of the Baltic States (formerly was known as "Lost territories of the Baltic States", but was recently renamed; some users seems to disagree with that renaming). Recent edits as well were accused of POV, and, in fact, article was disputed for a long time already. There currently seems to be no Estonians editing the article and in order to get the most neutral viewpoint represantatives from all of related nations are needed. It would be nice if you would add that article to your watchlist and continue helping to improve it until a decition will be reached about its future (there is currently a poll about it in the article's talk page). I hope together we all will be able to make that article neutral. Kaiser 747 10:52, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please take part in the improval of this article 

message: Hi, I was hoping to find links to sport and on through to the soccer team. Sport in Estonia surely is worth a mention? Cheers SeanMack 12:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sport

message: The infobox currently says Estonia was occupied by USSR 2 February 1920 - 16 June 1940. As far as I know, this was not the case. In fact, isn't this actually the time of Estonias first independence before the Soviet annexation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.113.245.55 (talk • contribs) 17:34, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusion with the infobox 

message: Hi! Can someone add the translation of your national anthem in English, please? Markov 12:56, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The translation is at the article for the anthem, see Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm'. --Boothy443 |  trácht ar 03:23, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anthem 

message: The remark aout counties not being states only showed the idiocy of the author.
(Compare: Federal State/Free State,  USA, Germany, Russia, Switzerland/France, Estonia, India, Luxembourg) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.196.41.185 (talk • contribs) 18:40, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Counties/States 

message: The section on the religion of Estonia seems to be full of contradictions. In the first paragraph it states: "less than a quarter of ethnic Estonians define themselves as active believers at present." but the start of the next paragraph states: "Today, over 31% of the adult population are active followers of a particular faith" and then in the last paragraph: "only 16% of Estonian citizens responded that "they believe there is a God"".
This strikes me to be the result of multiple surveys being progressibly added, resulting in a fragmented and contradictory reading. In addition, only the 2005 poll in the last paragraph is actually referenced, I don't see anyway of validating the other numbers which (especially with the 31% follow a faith) seem to be out of sync with the EU poll (which appears very professionally sampled and compiled). Canderra 02:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion Section full of contradictions 

message: Maybe someone who has time will elaborate it ...
According to 2000 census there were 1 121 582 people over 15 years of age in Estonia; 327 832 of them (29.2%) "followed a particular faith", 152 237 were Lutherans, 143 554 Orthodox, 6 009 Baptists, 5 745 Roman Catholocs, 3 823 Jehova's witnesses, 2 648 Pentecostalists, 2 515 "old believers",  1 561 adventists, 1 455 methodists, 1 387 muslims, 5 008 of "other" religions,  1 890 of "unknown" faith, 381 911 had no religious affiliation, 68 547 were atheists, 163 304 "could not define the affiliation",  89 691 "refused to answer", 90 297 just did not respond.
Reference: []
Can you give a reference to the "EU poll"? If you mean Eurobarometer then the difference may be the matter of time (2000 vs 2005) or sampling error (almost all people were polled in the census, whereas maybe 1000 people participated in Eurobarometer).
More statistics. The census and polls are about people's opinions, not behavior. So how many actual (and active) members do the churches have?
Lutheran church -- 161 144 members ion 2005, of them 39 879 paid the membership fee. (So many of these 161 144 people may actually be members only in a formal sense.)
Reference: []
Unfortunately, no similar statistics is available for other churches.
More references. According to ... [] ... a poll among 1000 people in 2000 revealed that only 4% participated regularly at religious services, and 5% considered religion to be "very important" in their lives.
List of religious organisations in Estonia (as of dec., 2006):
http://www.siseministeerium.ee/index.php?id=16682
A poll in 2005 []
Ethnic issue: Russians consider themselves to be more religious than Estonians (both in 2000 census and 2005 poll). According to the 2000 census, 24.30% of ("ethnic") Estonians were religious (most of them Lutherans), and 38.74% of Russians (most of them Orthodox).
See also:
* a review of sociological polls on religion [] (in Estonian)
* a dissertation on changes in religiosity in Estonia: [] (has a short English summary)
Finally: I'd suggest deleting or shortening the text on 2002 poll and eurobarometer. Official census is more accurate ... maybe only "interesting facts" could be taken from polls. (Like 10% cherishing "Taara usk" or 54% believing in "supernatural forces" or Estonians being the least religious in EU.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.235.60.66 (talk) 14:19, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some comments on the religion section 

message: OK, I am no expert, but I consulted a variety of general sources including the Estonian Foreign Ministry website - www.vm.ee - and the Estonica website - www.estonica.ee - which has a very detailed history of Estonia. I tried to give info on each era of history and compared the section to similar articles for Sweden and Finland to make sure it conforms to "Wiki" style. I welcome further edits to make it as clean as possible... Polaaroo 15:02, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History Clean Up 

message: I keep having to clean up the general history section which references the forest brothers. Someone keeps posting that the guerillas that fought the Soviets in the woods until 1957 were either all former SS officers or loyal to the Nazi regime (which surrendered in 1945, 12 years before the amnesty of 1957).
Many of the forest brothers were simply TOO YOUNG to participate as SS officers in World War II. It is accurate that there were German army veterans, but it is also accurate that many were Finnish army veterans, and even more had served no army during World War II.
The current article states that they were German and Finnish army veterans as well as thousands loyal to the Republic of Estonia. I find that to be the most accurate. Most historical documents assert this to be the case. - Polaaroo 15:02, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: hello! i'm  just letting you know, that i'll delete that stupidity from the motto section! that's the worst place for it. Sorent 20:53, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Metsavennad were from all ages and all armies, they were just people who fought against the sovie order (An estonian) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.159.253.68 (talk • contribs) 19:29, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Metsavennad 

message: Hmm  footnote 4, for the freedom index, leads to a freewebs site, an unreliable source - I'm replacing it with the original source for that data.
Osakadave 18:46, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: footnote source

message: Hi, I'm a graduate student writing a dissertation on the Moldova/Transnistria conflict. Interestingly, the group on which I focus, the United Work Collective Council--the transliteration of the Russian acronym is OSTK--had an analogue in Estonia which was also working against Estonian independence. I am trying to expand the breadth of my project to account for this broader OSTK phenomenon, and I wondered if any of the editors of this page might know of any sources. Russian (or English) is ideal, but I could have friends translate (short) Estonian sources. If anyone has run into any information about the Estonian OSTK and would be willing to share with me where they found it, I would be very appreciative. Thanks! Jamason 15:05, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: OSTK

message: Several unregistered users keep removing from this article in the "Culture" and "See also" sections the links to Gay rights in Estonia and Same-sex marriage in Estonia. The last unregistered user to do so gave the reasoning that these are "irrelevant" links. I do not believe them to be so for several reasons.
1. They are valid links with valid information and have Wikipedia articles.
2. Wikipedia does not endorse POV, and while it may be difficult to prove, the users removing these two listings generally always remove both. This leads one to assume it is for POV reasons or to censure information.
3. Given that other listings such as the National Boy Scouts and Islam in Estonia are listed (smaller percentages of the Estonian population, I am sure) then I believe that these two items are just as relevant.
I would also like to note that the last person to remove these two items (User talk:193.219.28.146) has previosuly be warned about POV and has been blocked prior. ExRat 16:08, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removals 

message: The map of Estonia is strange as it shows some small and not very important places as Kunda and Maardu. On the other hand, several towns much larger than Kunda are omitted: Võru, Paide, Rakvere, Keila, etc. I'd suggest a more informative map, something like this:
[] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.235.60.66 (talk) 15:39, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map 

message: A reference has been added by me, a link to one of several relevant rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, in which the illegal occupation, the struggle againsts the Soviet occupiers and the war crimes of the occupying power is summarized. Therefore cleared the tag--Bete 10:02, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  On Estonia's entry to the USSR - no ground for doubts 

message: There is a definite mistake in the first paragraph of the article, where it is stated, that:
Along with Finnish, Hungarian and Maltese, Estonian is one of the few official languages of the European Union that is not of Indo-European origin.
Maltese, as it's stated on the Maltese page, is a Semitic, i.e. arabic language, so it has nothing to do with Estonian, Hungarian and Finnish! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tomatensaft (talk • contribs) 13:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The article does not state that Maltese is a Finnish-Hungarian language.  It is saying that Maltese, Finnish, Hungarian, AND Estonian are the only languages of the EU that are not Indo-European in origin.  Srose (talk) 18:38, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, my bad. I guess, since unlike Maltese, all others are Finnish-Hungarian languages, I got a bit confused.Tomatensaft 13:49, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hehe, don't worry about it.  I got mixed up, too, when I read it quickly the first time. :) Srose (talk) 12:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maltese is not a Finnish-Hungarian language! POV? 

message: Ive started a stub to where Digwurren winked about Estonian national awakening. Please feel free to contribute :) --Alexia Death 08:15, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:   [[Estonian Age of Awakening]] 

message: You're invited to discuss a new series of vector maps to replace those currently used in Country infoboxes: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries#New European vector maps. Thanks/wangi 13:10, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New European vector maps 

message: This topic arises interesting question. If pro-soviet people here remove the "Occupation" from titles, claiming: "Russia does not accept the occupation theory"... Should we rename Holocaust article aswell, to something like "Theory of Holocaust", to keep it less POV, because "Holocaust deniers deny the existence of holocaust". :) Suva 07:28, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They are not the same. The German government has acknowledged the Holocaust. The Russian government has not acknowledged the "occupation".--Ilya1166 12:05, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but Russia and Estonia are two independent countries. Why is the opinion of Russian government important here ? We don't look for opinions of e.g. Georgia, Indonesia or Finland on the occupation of Estonia, so why Russia is mentioned ? --Lysytalk 12:35, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Because Russia is considered the Soviet Union's successor state in diplomatic matters (it inherited the Soviet Union's permanent seat on the UN). Russia is the country that the Baltic States target with trying to get to apologise (not Kazakhstan, Belarus or any of the other republics) and are even seeking monetary compensation in the form of "war reparations" from Russia (not Tajikistan, Ukraine or any of the other republics)  for the "occupation" during Soviet times.--Ilya1166 12:42, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, then it's not surprising that Russia denies the occupation, isn't it ? --Lysytalk 12:57, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, Russia rejected the idea of "occupation" long before Estonia's demands of compensation.--Ilya1166 13:05, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Do you know a source that says Estonia has filed demands for monetary compensation? Estonians have requeste4d retuns of some removed valuables but I do not know of any compensation demands...--Alexia Death 13:15, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:    --Ilya1166 13:20, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  These sources say that there was an investigation to damages and it was passed to parliament for feasibility of seeking compensation in Estonia and that Latvia did and was denied. As far as I know Estonia never filed the request.--Alexia Death 13:28, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: These sources clearly state that Estonia is equating occupation to monetary compensation from Russia. The fact that it can't enforce this is irrelevant ("However, Vello Salo realizes that Russia will not pay this compensation").--Ilya1166 13:36, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: True, but my point was that you cant say that Estonia has made demands, when it really has not... Still, thanks for sources.--Alexia Death 13:40, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem :) --Ilya1166 13:51, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing soviet occupation wordings 

message: Substituted at 20:32, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment