The Russian elephant and the Estonian mouse (1)
2007 05 15
Recently Russian politicians and media give a lot of time on the radio and TV, using a lot of printing paint for attacking Estonians, despite the fact that Russia is the largest country in the world by the area with 150 million inhabitants. Estonia, on the contrary, is among the smallest states in Europe with 1,5 million inhabitants.
Why is the elephant so much worried about the mouse, and why are comments of the Russian side so emotional? The questions become particularly relevant after the replacement of the old soviet monument from the centre of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.
Partly, the response lies in the fact that the monument symbolises different values and meanings for different people: for Estonians - it is the reminder of the soviet occupation; for Russians – the award for the role of the Red Army in the victory against the Nazi Germany.
Anyway, there is something more vital and fundamental: we have to deal here with a huge country, which is not capable of facing the reduction of its mighty and power.
But why Putin’s Russia is so hostile to the democratic Estonia? And eventually the Bronze Soldier is related to the former Soviet Union, and not to the Russian Federation. The answer is rather simple: the Russian regime of today considers itself the successor of the Soviet Union.
The Kremlin attempts to save last moral justifications for the existence of the Soviet Union – that its courageous people played the decisive role in the victory against the Nazi Germany. Without this justification the entire soviet era becomes an experiment of regret, an absurd period in the history.
Material has been prepared by the Centre of Geopolitical Research with reference to the article in “Delfi.ee” of 07 05 2007 | 
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