著者

庄司 博史 Hiroshi Shoji

出版者

国立民族学博物館

雑誌

国立民族学博物館研究報告 = Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology (ISSN:0385180X)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.22, no.4, pp.765-801, 1998-03-31

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The recent dissolution of the Soviet Union has had manifold effectson the reorganization of nations and small ethnic groups, especially inborder areas. In this article I examine problems that confront the Setos,a small Estonian subgroup in the southeastern border area of Estonia.After briefly reviewing the birth of the Estonian nation, I will describethe historical background of Petseri question, one of the Russo-Estonianterritorial disputes. I will then highlight practical problems and conflictsthat have arisen from the dispersion of the Seto community, following recentdemarcation of the border.Disintegration of the Soviet Union was definitely put into full swingby the successful departure of the three Baltic republics. Estonia, accordingto its present formal stand, should recover the whole territory as of1940, when it was annexed to the Soviet Union by military force threat.In fact, most part of Estonia's former Petseri region (Pechora in Russian), in the Southeast, has remained under de facto Russian control.Until 1920, the Petseri region was part of the Russian Pskov Province(guberniya) , but it was ceded with its inhabitants to the newly bornEstonian Republic by the Tartu Peace treaty, which recognized for thefirst time the independency of Estonia with clear borders. Almost twothirds of the approximately sixty thousand inhabitants of Petseri were,however, ethnic Russians, whereas three fourths of the remaining twentythousand Estonians were orthodox Setos. Estonia, during its shorthistory of independence, tried to integrate and 'civilise' the Setos, whohad been denigrated for example for their distinct dialect and conservativeliving traditions. Later in 1945, after reintroduction of the Sovietregime, three quaters of Petseri were again restored to Russia's PskovProvince (now termed oblast) , thus dividing the Setos into two administrativelydifferent areas.Due to the very limited sovereign controle of borders betweenformer Soviet republics, local residents could freely cross borders for dailyneeds in many areas. Setos on both sides were therefore able to keepclose contacts with each other.For local communities, real problems have only emerged in the early1990's with Estonia's splitting from the Soviet Union, and with its aspirationto recover the whole Petseri territory. Russia reacted to this invarious ways, including unilateral demarcation of a border, that dividesthe Setos into two groups that are unable to maintain regular and dailycontacts.The Setos launched efforts to preserve and activate Seto culturaltraditions in the late 1980s, and they see the present border issue as extremelythreatening to both daily life and to their cohesion as an ethnicgroup. The present paper examines the growth and vacillation of Setoethnic consciousness in the face of conflicts between Russia and Estonia.