EESTI LÄHIAJA UURIMINE 21. SAJANDIL
ESTONIAN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY IN THE TWENTY­FIRST CENTURY

Summary/Abstract: The main objective of the article is to give an overview of the research into Estonian contemporary, i.e. twentiethcentury, history over the last twenty years. The article is focussed mainly, but not exclusively, on the work of historians who are active at Estonian universities and other research institutions and on their monographs and articles published mainly in Estonia. This article is deliberately limited to the general branch of historical research. Special branches like archaeology, ethnology and art history are left outside of the scope of this paper. During the last twenty years historical research has been conducted primarily at two universities, the University of Tartu and Tallinn University, in addition to which a few research centres have been created under different initiatives. These work usually in the form of NGOs or foundations, indirectly financed from the state budget. First, there is the Estonian Repressed Persons Records Bureau, at the nationallevel Estonian Memento Union of former Soviet political prisoners and deportees. Secondly, in 1992/1993 the Estonian parliament founded the Estonian State Commission on the Examination of the Policies of Repression. The commission finished its work in 2005 with publishing of the White Book on Estonian losses due to the occupations, 1940–1991. Both institutions had explicit tasks meaning that broader academic research was a side product of their activities. Thirdly, in between 1996 and 1999 NGO SKeskus (SCentre) was founded for research into the Soviet period in Estonia. Fourthly, the Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity was convened in 1998 by then President of Estonia Lennart Meri in order to research crimes against humanity during and after World War II in Estonia. The commission’s research team worked in the form of a foundation. On this basis later President Toomas Hendrik Ilves convened the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory in 2008 to conduct research into the violation of human rights in Estonia during the postwar period. And last but not least, historical research, particularly into the twentieth century, has been actively conducted at the Estonian State Archives (today part of Estonian National Archives).

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