The Estonian Swedish National Minority and the Estonian Cultural Autonomy Law of 1925

Bibliographic Data

ID11048488
AuthorsMart Kuldkepp (0000-0002-0942-717X, University College London, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume50
Issue5
Pages923-941
Publication date2022-09-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNationalities Papers (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-5992 • E-ISSN: 1465-3923
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/nps.2021.86
OpenAlexW4293071594
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited11

The 1925 Estonian cultural autonomy law is a rare example of the idea of nonterritorial national minority rights officially adopted in the interwar period. Scholarly interest in this legislation, however, has so far overwhelmingly concentrated on the case of the Baltic Germans. This article is intended to make a contribution toward a broader understanding of the 1925 law and the “cultural autonomy” discourse in Estonia altogether by examining the Estonian Swedish minority’s political leadership’s understanding of cultural autonomy: how it changed and developed up to 1925, and what the subsequent Swedish attitudes toward the 1925 Estonian cultural autonomy law were. I demonstrate that although the Swedish leaders had been closely involved in the long process leading up to the law’s passing in 1925, it ended up seen as being of little substantive relevance from the Swedish perspective. Furthermore, by being strongly associated with the term “cultural autonomy,” the law also deprived the Estonian Swedish national movement of an important slogan that had long functioned as the overarching goal of Estonian Swedish nationalism

Autonomy · Estonian · Legislation · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Relevance (law · Slogan · Sociology · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · European Cultural and National Identity · Gender Studies · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · Law

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access