VABARIIGID JA KOMITEED: MASSILIIKUMINE EESTI VALDADES 1905. AASTAL MIKROAJALOOLISES MÕÕTKAVAS
REPUBLICS AND COMMITTEES: THE 1905 MASS MOVEMENT IN ESTONIAN PARISHES ON A MICROHISTORICAL SCALE

Summary/Abstract: Replacing autocracy with democracy was a widespread leftist slogan heard at public rallies and expressed in leaflets and handbills as well as programmes of left-wing parties during the first Russian revolution. The terms “revolutionary self-government” and “parish committee” were introduced in the Estonian language in 1905. In the course of the 1905 revolution, the Baltic Provinces (Estonian and Latvian territories) witnessed the emergence of public rallies, illegally re-elected parish administrations and single-issue committees as institutions of a new, alternative people’s government. The public rallies rushed to adopt hard-line political decisions, including appeals to replace the government and the establishment of committees, while lacking an executive apparatus for the implementation of these decisions – something that the parish administrations did possess. The intensity and role of the public rallies in parish life surged during the so-called days of freedom and after the November 1905 All-Estonian Congress in Tartu, when the government lost control of the situation in rural areas. It was mostly at public rallies that new parish officials were elected and committees formed. Of the 365 parishes of Estonia, in total ca 100 were involved in various illegitimate actions concerning the local administrative bodies (postponement of elections, dismissal and appointment of officials), or new limited-purpose structures (committees, commissions, offices) which had no legitimacy as far as the tsarist government was concerned. About 40 parishes elected, fully or partially, new executive officials (parish elders and their aides, judges, parish clerks), who mostly did not take office for various reasons, though. Committees (usually 3–9 members) were formed of individuals from all classes, with a dominant role played by farmers: landowners and tenants; also parish clerks, school teachers and artisans were elected in relatively large numbers. The committees spawned by the revolution did not achieve much during their brief existence (a few weeks), however. The activities of the new, alternative administrative bodies were more conspicuous in Mõisaküla, Märjamaa, Velise, the village of Vaali in the parish of Udeva, Jõhvi, Sangaste, Tarvastu, Olustvere, Mõniste and Saaremaa in its relative isolation from mainland Estonia. Occasionally revolutionary actions were accompanied by republican propaganda and wrecking of imperial symbols. However, it would be an exaggeration to call it a ubiquitous people’s government; a more appropriate description would be a paralysis of the legitimate government. Although held in most of the parishes of Estonia, public rallies did not usually involve early re-elections of parish officials or formation of committees; the legitimate parish administrations stayed in office. Many, though, got carried with the popular movement and were able to achieve more than the newly-formed committees.

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