Playing the Compatriot Card in Estonia and Latvia : School Reform and the Bronze Soldier Crisis

Since the early 1990s, Russia has proclaimed itself the protector of the Russian diaspora and has employed a variety of military, economic, and political pressures to advocate for the rights of its compatriots in former Soviet Republics. Estonia and Latvia were the primary targets of Russia's compatriot policy during the 1990s as a result of the restrictive citizenship and language policies they adopted. Russia has used the situation of the Russian-speaking minority in Estonia and Latvia as an excuse to meddle in the internal affairs of these states and to keep them within its sphere of influence. Russia has used a variety of tools to accomplish its geostrategic objectives including historical aggravation, border agreements, citizenship policy, military and economic pressure, international organizations, and propaganda campaigns. The influence of Russia's activism on ethnopolitics and minority rights in the Baltic States has received far less attention in academic literature than the role of European institutions. Pressure from European institutions particularly EU conditionality, are most often credited for bringing about reforms to citizenship and language policies in Estonia and Latvia in the late 1990s. This paper argues that focusing on formal policy changes alone underestimates the impact of Russia's activism on ethnopolitics in these societies. Through case studies of education reform in Latvia and the Bronze Soldier Crisis in Estonia, as well as interviews with Estonian and Latvian elites, this paper argues that Russia's activism provokes interethnic tensions and reinforces exclusive conceptions of nation-building, both of which have serious implications for minority rights in these societies