Borderland Swedes: Minority Politics and Transnational Identification among Estonia's Swedish Population

Abstract

Governments use identifications of groups – whether it is state-determined or self-identified – in formulating minority policies, while organizations and individuals often use forms of identification in searching for areas of sameness. In both cases, the classification used affects policies and actions. Identifications based on language, religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, and citizenship create borders in society, but simultaneously offer opportunities to transcend other forms of borders. From the 1870s until the Second World War, Estonia went through four governments, each with its own form of identification – tsarist Russia, independent Estonia, Soviet Estonia, and Nazi Germany. For the Swedish minority living in a borderland, subsequent minority policies shaped the direction of their cultural development, but it was the transnational connection with individuals and organizations in Sweden, and later the Swedish government (although the type of identification shifted over time) that transcended political borders and had the greatest impact on the population's cultural development.