“Sovietisation and Violence: The Case of Estonia”: A new tool to understand how communists took over countries

 

Proceedings of the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory I (2018) „Sovietisation and Violence: The Case of Estonia“ gives English-reading public a new tool to understand the violent process of the establishment of the communist rule in Baltic States by the Soviet Union that has similarities with the faith of other Eastern European countries. Fruits of the fact-based research, presented it this volume, help to understand the mechanism of a power, which aimed to build a society based on communist ideology.

„This volume contains important new and reprinted contributions to the historiography of the Soviet takeover of the Baltic states. (…) The articles take excellent advantage of the overall maturation of the historiography of post-communism period in the Baltic States, along with the possibilities of research in fresh archival sources from Soviet period (…). Buy its very nature, the Soviet takeover of the Baltic state was a violent process that involved the use of the „repressive organs“ of the Soviet state – the NKVD, the MGB, and the judicial system.“

 

„The history of the incorporation of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union is reminiscent of the fate of Eastern Europe in the same period. The role of Soviet intelligence services was very similar. “

Norman M. Naimark

World-famous researcher of the history of Eastern Europe
Stanford University
Member of the Learned Committee of the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory

 

Proceedings of the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory 1 (2018): Sovietisation and Violence: The Case of Estonia. Ed. Meelis Saueauk and Toomas Hiio (Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2018), 336 pp.

The Publication is available at University of Tartu Press.

 

Contents

 

Olaf Mertelsmann. How to Define Sovietisation?

Tõnu Tannberg. The Baltic Question in the Kremlin in the Last Months of 1944: How to Combat the Armed Resistance Movement?

Peeter Kaasik. Misapplication of Enforced Psychiatric Treatment in the Soviet Union – a Few Examples from Estonia.

Eli Pilve. Family Members of „Exploiters“ and „Enemies of the People“ in the Fetters of the Soviet Regime.

Ivo Juurvee. Publishing Activities by the Secret Service of a Totalitarian Regime: The Case of the Estonian SSR`s KGB.

Aivar Niglas. One of the Possibilities for Systematising Soviet Repressions.

Meelis Saueauk. „Spetskadry“: Nomenklatura and State Security in the Estonian SSR in 1940-1953.

Indrek Paavle. Grain and Eggs in the Service of the Regime: Coercive Procurement in Estonian Villages in the 1940s.

Hiljar Tammela. Rumours of Impending Deportations as a Phenomenon Pertaining to the History of Mentalities.

Aigi Rahi-Tamm. Forced Migrations of Estonian Citizens to the East 1941-1951: Some Similarities with the Accounts of People Who Fled to the West.

Meelis Saueauk, Tõnu Tannberg. How Was the Decision to Carry out a Joint Deportation Operation in the Soviet Baltic Republics in the Spring of 1949 Adopted in the Kremlin?: Nikolai Karotamm`s Notes on his Meeting with Joseph Stalin on 18 January 1949.

Toomas Hiio. Estonia and the Communist Century: an Essay.