European Politics and Society

ISSN: 2374-5118 (Print) 2374-5126 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/rpep21

Populisms, popular geopolitics and the politics of

belonging in Estonia

Andrey Makarychev & Vladimir Sazonov

To cite this article: Andrey Makarychev & Vladimir Sazonov (2019) Populisms, popular
geopolitics and the politics of belonging in Estonia, European Politics and Society, 20:4,
450-469, DOI: 10.1080/23745118.2019.1569341

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2019.1569341

Published online: 18 Jan 2019.

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EUROPEAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY
2019, VOL. 20, NO. 4, 450–469
https://doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2019.1569341

Populisms, popular geopolitics and the politics of belonging

in Estonia
Andrey Makarycheva and Vladimir Sazonovb
a
Johan Skytte Institute of Political Science, University of Tartu, Tartu, ESTONIA; bUniversity of Tartu, Tartu,
Estonia

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The current article is focused on the various types of populism in Populism; popular
Estonia (e.g. Estonian national populism, hybrid populist discourse, geopolitics; Estonia;
etc.) in which we discuss the complex phenomenon of populism Russophone community;
in two contexts: EU political upheavals (the refugee crisis of 2015 refugee crisis; Russia-EU
relations; EKRE; Centre Party;
which received special attention from populist politics in Europe) Blue Awakening
and complex Russian-EU relations. For our analysis we interviewed
several Estonian politicians and opinion-leaders. We also analyzed
Russian language media sources in Estonia, covering a broad
spectrum of populist narratives among the Russophone
population of Estonia.

Introduction
This article addresses the various types of populism in Estonia as a complex phenomenon
that might be discussed in two different contexts. The first is related to EU political uphea-
vals like the 2015 refugee crisis that gave a shot in the arm to populist politics all across
Europe, including in Estonia where the Internal Security Service paid particular attention
to this issue.1 The second context is informed by the complexities of EU-Russia relations
that are a major factor in shaping Estonia’s foreign policy as a border country. Russia con-
stitutes an essential part of Estonian domestic politics due to the large Russophone com-
munity directly or indirectly affected by Moscow’s propaganda. Therefore, Estonian
populist discourse is heavily influenced by a domestic integration agenda that is always
a hotly debated issue (Pyalling, 2017).
There are two major research questions we tackle in our analysis. First, we are keen to
find out whether populism in Estonia is a fringe phenomenon or if there is a broader
variety of populisms that span across the political spectrum. To that end, we examine
populist discourse beyond the ‘usual suspects’, i.e. right-wing groups and parties, and
include in the sphere of our analysis multiple Russophone narratives that have not yet
been the subject of scrupulous academic attention in populism studies. Second, we
focus on the structure of these populist discourses and try to look at factors that make
them ideologically inconsistent, incoherent and disjointed. It is these two perspectives –
one related to interactions and interconnections between populist discourses, and

CONTACT Andrey Makarychev [email protected] Johan Skytte Institute of Political Science, University of
Tartu, Lossi 36-327 51003 Tartu, ESTONIA
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 EUROPEAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 451

another related to fractures within their internal ‘fabric’ – that form the bases of our
research strategy.
Methodologically, we first understand populism in the terms of Ernesto Laclau as a
never-ending discursive struggle for hegemony through infusing meanings in key con-
cepts which are inherently open to interpretation (‘nodal points’, or ‘empty signifiers’).
Second, we venture to tackle populism through the prism of the sub-discipline of
popular geopolitics that focuses on home-grown, vernacular and grassroots attitudes,
(mis)perceptions, (mis)representations, and myths and stereotypes when it comes to
public discussion on a plethora of issues related to different dimensions of power. In
the article we apply these two inter-related approaches to the study of Estonian populist
narratives which have been to a large extent informed by the refugee crisis of 2015-2016
and the ensuing debates on immigration policy on the one hand, and Russia’s policies of
supporting compatriots abroad on the other. In particular, we look at how core spatial con-
cepts – Europe, the Russian World, and Estonia – are (re)imagined and (re)constructed in
populist narratives.
Our analysis is based on two types of source. First, we analyse Russian language media
sources pertinent to the topic of our analysis and covering a broad spectrum of populist
narratives among Russian-speaking residents of Estonia. Second, we based our research on
15 interviews conducted by Vladimir Sazonov in January-April 2018 in Tallinn and Tartu
with different representatives of Russophone groups, opinion-leaders and politicians.
We mostly interviewed people holding multiple public roles and identities who, apart
from producing political narratives, are also part of the academic, educational, media
and NGO communities. This variety of perspectives opens new tiers and layers of populist
narrative and allows us to analyse new articulations and meanings embedded in Estonian
popular geopolitics.

Populisms, hegemonies and popular geopolitics

In this article we adhere to a specific understanding of populism as a particular type of
political logic articulated by politicians and opinion-makers. Arguably, ‘the more
western democracies turn to de-politicized or even oligarchic forms of governance, the
more populism will figure as a suitable vehicle for a much-needed re-politicization’ (Kat-
sambekis & Stavrakakis, 2013). Populism ‘targets cultural difference and national origin
as “inassimilable” by the “national community and it presupposes an “interior enemy”
against which it claimed to defend the nation’ (Balibar, 2015).
Along the lines of Laclau’s theorizing, our analysis presumes that each populist narrative
represents a certain set of demands and expectations existent in society. Based on our
reading of Laclau, we single out three structural characteristics of populism. First, populist
discourses draw ‘an internal antagonistic frontier separating the “people” from power’
(Laclau, 2007, p. 74). Laclau mostly spoke about domestic power-holders, thus implying
that populisms can be seen as counter-hegemonic strategies, yet nothing prevents us
from applying this argument to international politics as well.
Second, populism presupposes ‘an equivalent articulation of demands making the
emergence of the “people” possible … and the unification of these various demands
… into a stable system of signification’ (Laclau, 2007, p. 74). These chains of equivalence
are core to the very existence of ‘populist reason’. Laclau in fact presumed an almost
452 A. MAKARYCHEV AND V. SAZONOV

endless process of aggregation of equivalences in discursive chains, which eventually

might evoke an effect of totalization. Apparently, the more extended chains of equival-
ences create a more fertile ground for discursive foreclosures (Laclau, 2007, p. 78) and
the eventual production of political fantasies that promise an unachievable completeness
and fullness of society (Wardle, 2016, pp. 302–319).
To these two conditions we add indispensable appeals to a larger public, which opens
populist discourse up to multiple engagements with the realm of under-conceptualized
knowledge, vernacular narratives, myths, misperceptions, and conspiracy theories. This
is what the discipline of popular geopolitics studies: namely, how ‘representations of
people, place and space inform national identities and foreign policies … Of particular
interest to scholars of critical geopolitics are the process of contemporary myth-making
and the outcomes of geographic imagination’ (Saunders, 2017). From a popular geopoli-
tical perspective, ‘the popular forces are a shifting set of allegiances that cross all social
categories; various individuals belong to different popular formations at different times,
often moving between them quite fluidly’ (Fiske, 1995, p. 24).
Popular geopolitics might become helpful for analysing populist discourses whose
chains of equivalences contain strong references to constantly re-signified notions of
‘ours’ and ‘aliens’, ‘locals’ and ‘strangers’. Yet in spite of the proclivity of different versions
of populism to produce condensed and over-determined discourses (i.e. densely packed
with various meanings), most of them however inevitably remain ‘imprecise and fluctuat-
ing’ (Laclau, 2007, p. 118). In the specific Estonian case populist discourses display a high
level of ideological disjointedness. In other words, we see structural limitations to the
process of the expansion of chains of equivalences. This makes these chains inherently
incomplete and unfixed, especially when it comes to opening up foreign policy and secur-
ity debate to a broad range of the populace, which to a large extent prevents them from
totalization and leaves ample space for political pluralism as a major precondition of
democracy (Norval, 2004, pp. 139–157).
We conclude this brief theoretical introduction with the claim that populism is a matter
of degree and depends on what might be called the ‘politics of belonging’ (Leone, 2012, pp.
449–470; Yuval-Davis, 2006, pp. 197–214). In other words, we relate populist articulations
to different modalities of ‘emotional attachment’, which include feelings of being ‘at
home’ and ‘safe’ (Yuval-Davis, 2006, p. 195). At the same time, belonging implies con-
ditions of societal acceptance of these emotional investments: ‘in different projects of
the politics of belonging, the different levels of belonging – social locations, identities
and ethical and political values – can become the requisites of belonging. Requisites of
belonging that relate to social locations – origins, race, place of birth – would be the
most racialized and the least permeable’ (Yuval-Davis, p. 209). Indeed, on one extreme
of the spectrum of forms of belonging one may find the model of ‘co-presence’ which
is a ‘mechanistic, additive and compositional’ (Odysseos, 2009, p. 39) cohabitation of
different uniform groups whose sense of identity is based on language, ethnicity or reli-
gion. Yet on the other extremity one might expect to find a model of non-essentialist
and non-exclusionary belonging with ample room for multiple and/or hybrid identities.
Seen from this perspective, two lines of distinction are of primordial importance. The
first – between Estonian national and Russian-speakers’ discourses – has oftentimes
been the subject of inquiry. The second, much less researched, deals with multiple distinc-
tions existing within the Russophone community that produces more than one narrative
 EUROPEAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 453

and therefore does not represent any coherent social group. In our onward analysis we
first discuss the populism embedded in Estonian nationalist discourse as a reaction to
the refugee crisis, and then turn to a variety of populist discourses emanating from the
Russian-speaking milieu in this country, mostly as reactions to the deterioration of
Russia-EU relations in the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea and the war in
Donbass. With all typological dissimilarities between these clusters of populist discourses,
we identify areas where they intersect, namely, where Estonian right-wing populism
expects some solidarity from Russian speakers in closing the country to immigrants, and
where Russian speakers react to some activities on the right-wing flank as an important
element of political dynamics in Estonia.

Estonian nationalist populism

Estonian nationalist populism is a rather limited political phenomenon mostly embodied
by the Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond (EKRE, Conservative People’s Party of Estonia). Tra-
ditionally, Estonian national(ist) discourses were targeted against Russian imperialist pol-
icies; consequently, they treated the Estonian Russophone minority as Soviet-era
immigrants (Saar, Krusell, & Helemae, 2017) who needed to be culturally and linguistically
assimilated. Academically, issues of national identity were often approached from a post-
colonial perspective (Peiker, 2016, pp. 113–132) in which Russia plays the role of Estonia’s
colonizing other.
Since its eruption in 2015, however, the refugee crisis added an important landmark to
Estonian political debate and became a major vector for the Estonian extreme and radical
right. The EKRE ostensibly positioned itself on the anti-immigrant/nativist flank of the pol-
itical spectrum; this party’s jingoistic rhetoric became overtly anti-EU and sympathetic to
Central European governments that expressed resistance to Brussels’ immigration policies.
By supporting Catalan independence (HotNew, 2017), the EKRE advocated for a staunchly
nationalist vision of cultural identity.
The EKRE and RÜE (Party of People’s Unity) exploited the refugee crisis to raise concerns
about domestic security in Estonia and in the EU, as well as about the prospects of migrant
integration into Estonian society. In the words of Mart Helme, EKRE leader:
How does Estonia, which has only two people with sufficient knowledge of the Arabic
language, plan to deal with language teaching? How does the Estonian school system,
where catering is provided by procurement, plan to offer halal food for Muslims? … If we
find out that the Islamic State has been infiltrating their fighters among such immigrants,
what will Estonian procedures be? Who and where will check who exchanges what infor-
mation with whom, and what background investigations will take place to prevent radicals
from arriving in Estonia? (Kaukvere, 2015).

On a different occasion Mart Helme mentioned: ‘If a thousand refugees arrive, then girls
cannot ride bikes anymore’ (Helme, 2016) in urban places, which translates the narrative
towards an identity agenda. In a similar vein, Jaak Madison, an MP from EKRE, posited, ‘I
truly stand with my body and soul to prevent Estonian culture from turning into a
mixture or an object of infiltration by the foreign religion which is Islam. What is more
important: following the Estonian Constitution and the will of the Estonian people, or
ignoring all of that by accepting people irrespective of their nationality?’ (Kaukvere, 2015).
454 A. MAKARYCHEV AND V. SAZONOV

Some members of the EKRE (such as Georg Kirsberg)2 are known for controversial state-
ments (e.g. topics related to Islam, the Holocaust, gay rights, etc.) (Kirsberg, 2017a; Kirs-
berg, 2017b; Kirsberg, 2017c) that were considered in the media as coming dangerously
close to neo-Nazi rhetoric targeting ‘aliens’ (Kirsberg, 2016). The othering of Russophones
is part of Kirsberg’s public pronouncements; thus, he pledged to strip Yana Toom, an Esto-
nian politician of Russian background who represents Estonia in the European Parliament,
of her Estonian citizenship (Krashevskiy, 2017).
The EKRE’s youth branch named ‘Blue Awakening’ (Sinine Äratus) is led by Ruuben
Kaalep, another radical figure who calls himself a ‘Finno-Ugrian supremacist’. His world-
view is shaped by mistrust of both Russia which has a record of ‘oppressing Finno-
Ugrian people’ and of Europe as a source of liberal ideology for cosmopolitanism and
human rights. ‘In the West we have insecurity due to immigrants; in the East we have
Russia which doesn’t respect our independence’ (Kaalep, 2017). Both Russia and Europe
are, in his view, ‘empires that come and go, but the Balts remain’. At this juncture his
imagery takes a turn towards a depoliticized narrative of national identity: ‘people are
tired of politics’, he presumes, claiming that ‘we need to eliminate politicians’. This
appeal is grounded in an essentialist and primordialist vision of Estonian authenticity as
an allegedly ‘natural’ phenomenon growing out of belonging to a ‘forest culture’ – ‘The
forest is inside of us, in our hearts’ (Kaalep, 2017). He claims that Estonia was forcefully
Christianized, but preserves and maintains the spirit of paganism: ‘The Frog of the
North has not gone, it is somewhere sleeping and waiting for its reincarnation’ (Kaalep,
2016a). Culturally he considers Estonia a Nordic country capable of ‘saving Europe’ from
liberalism that ‘extinguished the spirit of the Singing Revolution, and now we are dispos-
sessed’ (Kaalep, 2016b).
Kaalep expressed sympathy for Adolf Hitler (Kaalep, 2016c; Koorits, 2016a) and was
accused of racism (Koorits, 2016b). In 2016 at a conference organized by the journal Amer-
ican Renaissance he described the refugee problem as a racial issue (Blue Awakening, 2016;
Koorits, 2016b). Kaalep’s mindset is racial (Estonia, in his view, is one of few ‘last white
places in the world’) and biological (‘I feel connection with my ancestors through identity
and genetics’). It is the racial argument that makes him assume that ‘Russians might come
to support our party: two white groups need to stick together’. This statement is part of a
larger shift of the EKRE to a more inclusive attitude towards Russophones as potential allies
in the struggle against the alleged ‘Orientalization’ of the country.
In an interview a Russian-speaking member of the ‘Blue Awakening’ suggested that
conservatively-oriented Russophones might be sympathetic to views expressed by
right-wing nationalists.3 Jaak Madison admitted that residents of the mostly Russian-
speaking districts of Lasnamäe and Maardu in the Tallinn metropolitan area, being
under the influence of Russian propaganda, distrust Muslims and refugees.4 The accep-
tance of right-wing ideas by many Russian-speakers can be illustrated by the portal
named ‘Estliandskie Gubernskie Vedomosti’ (EGV) that represents overtly nationalist and
conservative discourse compatible with EKRE.5 Similar rhetoric was articulated by the
former Estonian Foreign Minister Kristiina Ojuland6 who called for a common front with
Russia against the ‘Islamization of Europe’ (Ojuland, 2015).
The advent of the EKRE as a new element of Estonian polity was an important subject of
debate in the Russian language milieu. On the one hand, some Russophone opinion-
makers recognized that ‘Estonian society didn’t accept the deconstruction of traditional
 EUROPEAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 455

religious fundamentals, same-sex marriages and child adoption by LGBT couples imposed
by the West, along with the decomposition of ethnic identity through supranational inno-
vations’ (Klensky, 2016a). In the Russian language media one can read that Estonian pro-
testors against the government’s inclusive policy towards refugees might have a point;
thus, the public activities of ‘Blue Awakening’ were covered positively in pro-Russian
media when it came to protests against the Estonian Ministry of Education’s policy of intro-
ducing role-playing games aimed at better integrating refugees into Estonian society (Sto-
litsa, 2017).
Yet, on the other hand, despite the EKRE’s attempts to make gestures of acceptance
towards Russian speakers, the party receives predominantly negative coverage in the
Russian language media as being a destabilizing force for Estonia (Andronova, 2015)
and as being part of the turn towards the right-wing which was significantly provoked
by the securitization of Estonian discourse after the crisis in Ukraine (Stalnuhhin, 2015).
In particular, Russian language journalists ironically reported on the reluctance of EKRE
members to use the Russian language in communication with the media (Postnikov,
2017). In line with this logic,
Estonian patriotism is grounded in systematic exposures of xenophobia, racism, Russophobia
and … misanthropy … . It is these attitudes that nationalists took advantage of … (The current
Estonian nationalism. – Authors) is refugee-focused, but it would be strange if Russians and
Russophones did not project these attitudes onto themselves. They should be wary of the
intentions of ‘Blue Awakening’ to create a party of authentic Estonians modelled after
Finland (Klensky, 2016a).

In the same vein, the pro-Russian media describes Mart Helme as a politician who oppor-
tunistically tries to recruit white race crusaders among Estonian Russophones: ‘In inter-
views with the Russian language media he calls on Estonians and Russians to jointly say
no to migration, yet a minute later, talking with Estonian journalists, he claims that we
still have troubles with Soviet-era migrants and don’t need those black-skinned settlers’
(Ivanov, 2016). This statement betrays the ambiguous policy of the EKRE towards Russo-
phone Estonians, as well as equally ambiguous attitudes towards this party among the
Russophones themselves.

Russophone Reverberations
The question we explore further is what kinds of populist discourse emerged within the
Russophone milieu in Estonia. The extant literature is overwhelmed by overgeneralized
accounts of a ‘Russian-speaking minority’, a term serving to denote ‘those members of
the minority community who declare Russian as their mother tongue or as their second
language’ (Schultze, 2010, p. 363). Russian speakers are very often associated with
ethnic Russians as allegedly a more or less unified social group (Wlodarska-Frykowska,
2016, p. 163).
In our analysis we start from a more nuanced picture of multiple social disruptions
amongst the Russophone groups as related to an intricate combination of its ‘own’
(‘desired’) and ‘alien’ spaces (Masso, 2011, p. 902, 921). Following this reasoning, we con-
sider the Estonian Russophone community as a complex phenomenon engendering a
broad variety of discursive articulations. Two of them seem to be of primordial importance,
discourses that position their speakers as an inalienable, though very specific, part of the
456 A. MAKARYCHEV AND V. SAZONOV

broadly understood Estonian political community, and discourses predicated on a certain

detachment from Estonia by their producers and authors. Between these two poles there
are apparently different synthetic narratives. In our further analysis we scrutinize the popu-
list articulations and pronouncements produced by these three groups and assess them
from the perspective of populist politics.

Discourses of double alienation

We start with those Russophone public speakers who, despite their residency in this
country, explicitly or implicitly operate beyond the Estonian national community. Genea-
logically, most of them share the legacy of the ‘Night Watch’ group that took the lead in
2007 in defending the Bronze Soldier monument, key symbol of the Soviet and Russian
presence in Estonia that was removed from the city centre and placed in a military cem-
etery. Yet, unlike in 2007, their current discourses are characterized by a high degree of
fragmentation, dispersion and conflict that divide Russian speakers (Kornysheva, 2014a).
This discourse of alienation from Estonian national identity is supported by the main-
stream Russian media that regularly depicts Estonia as an economically feeble state
where a significant part of the indigenous population shares right-wing attitudes reminis-
cent of Neo-Nazi sympathies (Chernoguz, 2016). The pro-Kremlin Russian media is full of
comments accusing the Baltic countries and their Western partners of pursuing a confron-
tational policy towards Russia and the ‘moral suppression of the local Russian and Russo-
phone population’ (Klensky, 2018). The Russian Foreign Minister directly related the
Kremlin’s obstruction to signing the border treaty with Estonia to what he called Tallinn’s
‘Russophobe policy’ (Postimees, 2018). Russian popular media culture contains regular
mockery of Estonia as a weak state colonized by the West and unable to protect itself
(Prozhektor … , 2008; Vecherniy Urgant, 2016).
The paradox is that, on the one hand, through sending these multiple messages
Moscow intends to play a consolidating role for ‘compatriots living abroad’. Yet, on the
other hand, attitudes to Russia might be a divisive factor amongst the politically active
part of Estonian Russophones. Thus, Dmitry Linter, one of the key defenders of the
Bronze Soldier in 2007 who now lives in Russia, publicly accused a certain part of the Rus-
sophone community of ‘national betrayal’. In his view, the branch of the Pushkin Institute
in Tallinn being funded by the ‘Russian World’ Foundation and Russian Ministry of Culture
too closely collaborates with Russian Estonians loyal to the Estonian state and is not
sufficiently supportive of the Russian World, particularly after the annexation of Crimea
(Kornysheva, 2014b). By the same token, the organizers of the anti-NATO ‘March for
Peace’ in Tallinn complained that none of the politicians of the Centre Party who claim
to represent Russian voters attended this event (Hantsom, 2017), which adds to the
general picture of political segmentation among Russophones in Estonia.
Another pro-Russian activist Dimitry Klensky, a participant of the ‘Night Watch’ group,
claimed:
Many Russian politicians in Estonia deem that Russia failed to consistently protect the interests
of its compatriots. In particular, Russia failed to prevent the humiliation of local Russians tar-
geted by the Bronze Soldier vandalism of the state. It failed to keep functioning the Russian
political movement that disintegrated into a few human rights activists persecuted by the
security services and the media. Russia also failed to deliver on its promise to preserve
 EUROPEAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 457

fully-fledged Russian education in Estonia … Since the Russian and Russophone population
finally realised that it had been abandoned by everyone and is on its own, all hopes of survival
in Russophobe Estonia can be related only to Russia’s cultural intervention … Russian diplo-
macy is too permissively liberal, adjusting itself to the demands of the Baltic states to
switch from Tallin to Tallinn, from Pribaltika to Baltic states, etc. (Klensky, 2017a).

Commenting on former Russian Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvidkoi’s visit to Estonia,

Klensky argued:
His politeness and flattery towards Estonian politicians looks like blasphemy set against the
backdrop of the incessant discrimination towards the Russian and Russophone population
… it is like during WWII. Stalin’s representative would arrive in Berlin to strengthen cultural
connections between the two states at war and explain how important it was to maintain
the Russian language in German concentration camps (Klensky, 2016b).

The key problem that dislocates this type of populist discourse is its inability to represent
and speak on behalf of Russia; it is rather Russian propaganda that speaks on behalf of
those Russian speakers who alienate themselves from the Estonian national community
and feel discriminated against. Russia is both a major reference point for their narrative
and a divisive factor. The disjointed nature of the discourse of alienation is manifested
in their simultaneous self-identification with the space of the Russian World and the
feeling of estrangement from, if not abandonment by, the same. This ambiguity was
neatly reflected in the negative reactions to the video clip of a bilingual song entitled ‘I
am Russian but Love Estonia’ by Narva rapper Evgeniy Lyapin. His message of hybridity,
cultural integration and double identity was lambasted as unpatriotic with respect to
Russia, and its author was accused of being oblivious of his Russian identity (Klensky,
2017b).

Discourses of belonging
In this section we turn to Russophone discourse predicated on the sense of belonging to
the Estonian political community whilst encompassing its Russophone parts, aimed at con-
tributing to shaping this community through public debate. In our analysis we dwell upon
three particular examples of Russian language discourse whose authors claim to be part of
Estonian polity and to speak on behalf of it.
The most obvious example is discourse emanating from the Centre Party that rep-
resents the opinions of those Estonian Russians who wish to be integrated into Estonian
society on a non-discriminatory basis without fear of maintaining cultural loyalty to Russia
(Anton Stalnuhhin’s web site). The Centre Party advocates for changes in the Estonian gov-
ernment’s policies that would allow all residents to gain citizenship as a matter of principle,
and not only because of the events in Ukraine (Stalnuhhin, 2014a). Party speakers claim
that Estonian society has to follow European norms and appreciate cultural diversity
rather than diminishing it (Stalnuhhin, 2017). Within this type of thinking it is common
to accuse mainstream Estonian politicians of artificially over-dramatizing the negative
roles Russia plays in international politics, and even of preventing Moscow and Brussels
from properly communicating with each other (Stalnuhhin, 2014b).
Yana Toom, Estonian member of the European Parliament who positions herself as a
voice of the Russian-speaking residents of Estonia, argues that genuine freedom includes
a linguistic component, which presupposes official recognition of the status of the Russian
458 A. MAKARYCHEV AND V. SAZONOV

language in Estonia (ETV Pluss, 2018). This translates into an openly pro-Russian inter-
national stance: she assumes that her voters are ‘waiting for sanctions against Russia to
be lifted and the problem of stateless residents to be resolved’ (Toom, 2018a). She sees
no meaningful difference between Russian and Western propaganda, and uses references
to the Soviet era to vindicate the particular sensitivity of Estonian society to any kind of
external imposition, including by the EU and NATO. ‘It is due to tense relations with
Russia that Russophone minorities are perceived as dangerously unpredictable’ (Toom,
2018b), she believes, and posits that politicians need to keep their doors open to com-
munication with all neighbours, including Russia. This sense of mission explains her con-
troversial appearance on one of the most poignant pro-Kremlin political shows on the First
Channel in Moscow in early 2018 where she engaged in discussion with the Russian ultra-
nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky (Vecherka, 2017). She also gave interviews to other
Moscow-controlled media, including Sputnik-Estonia, in which she called for a policy of
bargaining with Russia (Toom, 2018c) without resorting to such clichés as ‘Putinism’
which is for her inappropriate and only conducive to the escalation of conflict. She feels
nostalgic about the Soviet Union (Toom, 2017), yet predicts that the EU would repeat
its destiny (Toom, 2018d). Yana Toom defended Russia over the Skripal affair in London
in March 2018: ‘London has become the centre from which anti-Russian hysteria in the
US is being fanned.’ (Vahtla, 2018). She has also openly expressed her critical views of
NATO and the US: ‘Article five of NATO has no value anymore and has become a
service which is considered to be offered in certain circumstances and for money. The
aggressive language of Americans is the rhetoric of a salesman who demands support
for his service’ (Mägi, 2017). Yana Toom has also visited Syria several times where she
met Bashar al-Asad (Vahtla, 2017), and in April 2017 she criticized Estonian foreign minister
Mikser for his approval of the US military presence in Syria: ‘The Estonian foreign minister
approved the American attack against Syria? Without a UN resolution? This is a failure and
a violation of international law’ (Koorits & Tammet, 2017).
Another discourse that falls into this category is of a left-wing background espoused in
particular by political activist, blogger and author Igor Rozenfeld In his multiple public pro-
nouncements he claims that Estonian national interests are better articulated from a social
democratic perspective, as opposed to the right-wing populism exemplified by the EKRE
and the neoliberal Reform Party, both allegedly supported by ‘the West’, only leading to
the sharpening of tensions between the Estonian majority and the Russian minority sub-
jected to ‘mono-ethnic rule’ (Rozenfeld, 2017a). It is right-wing Estonian politicians who,
according to this logic, prevented former member of the European Parliament Guilietto
Chiesa from entering Estonia due to his leftist and pro-Russian views. Other examples of
post-Soviet ‘ethnocratic nationalism’ conducive to ‘wars of all against all’ are Mikhail Saa-
kashvili’s rule in Georgia and Poroshenko’s presidency in Ukraine (Alexandrova, 2017a).
Projecting this reasoning onto Estonia, Rozenfeld claims that the dilemma Russian speak-
ers in this country face is between an ethnic marginalization and a struggle for the return
of ethnic equality that existed, as he believes, in the Soviet era (Klensky, 2017c). Like Toom,
he is sympathetic to Russia’s role in Syria and accuses the European government of being
unprepared to tackle the situation with refugees.7
Within this left-oriented political mindset Europe is portrayed as victim of propagandis-
tic myths predicting Russian intervention in the Baltics, which serves as justification for
NATO’s enhanced security role at Europe’s eastern borders (Rozenfeld, 2017b). The
 EUROPEAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 459

open disapproval of this alarmism looks consistent with the interpretation of the annexa-
tion of Crimea as a direct outcome of the ‘coup’ in Kiev ‘masterminded by the West, and as
a logical step in securing Russia’s interests in the Black Sea’ (Rozenfeld, 2017c). According
to this line of reasoning, the war in Ukraine was provoked by a clash of two national con-
servatisms: the Ukrainian one supported by the West, and the Russian one with strong
imperial connotations.8 However, the de facto justification of Russia’s policy in Ukraine
remained inherently incomplete due to the characterization of the Novorossiya project
as a product of Kremlin’s ‘conservative bluff’ (Rozenfeld, 2017d) that was unable to
tackle the Ukraine policy properly and ultimately failed, in spite of the annexation of
Crimea. Obviously, from a left-wing viewpoint, Russian imperialism can neither be attrac-
tive to Ukraine nor to Estonia.
A different reference point in this cluster of discourses is a right-wing narrative that
emerged under the direct influence of the Russian-Ukraine conflict and the ensuing
debates on its implications for the Baltic states. The bulk of the Russophone community
in Estonia supported the annexation of Crimea; however, the debate also contained
appeals to Russian speakers from right-wing Estonian politicians openly sympathetic
to Ukraine. This type of discourse was strengthened by an ostensibly pro-Ukrainian
and anti-Russian position taken by Evgen Tsybulenko, an Estonian politician of Ukrainian
origin, professor of law and the head of the Ukrainian community in Estonia who, in
2015, campaigned for parliament with a short video predicting the Russian invasion
of Estonia on grounds similar to the war in Donbass (Klensky, 2015). He sees the specifi-
city of Estonia in the pro-Putin sympathies of a majority of ethnic Ukrainians living here
who are nostalgic about the Soviet Union and fall victim to Russian propaganda. At the
same time, ‘pro-Putin leftist populism’ makes them subjects of interest to the Centrist
Party and the Estonian United Left Party which ‘actively play on the Russophone
field’. From his perspective, one major problem for Estonian conservative politicians is
the cooperation of many ideologically akin parties in Europe with the Putin regime, a
stance which discredits the idea of right-wing nationalism. Against this backdrop
Estonia looks quite different since the ‘EKRE’s position is diametrically opposed to
that of the Kremlin’9 and the most pro-Kremlin voices come from the left and
centre-left.

Hybrid populist discourses

In this section we look at Russian language discourses that, on the one hand, are aimed at
those Russian speakers who consider themselves part of the Estonian political community
but, on the other hand, simultaneously undermine these allegiances by explicit self-
identification either with the Soviet Union or with Putin’s Russia. These plural, overlapping
loyalties make these hybrid discourses particularly inconsistent and disjointed.
Our first example would be one of the staunchest opponents of right-wing nationalism,
including pro-Ukrainian discourse in Estonia, the ethnic Armenian Rafik Grigoryan (Grigor-
yan, 2015). His loyalties to the Estonian state and the EU appear rather problematic:
In 1992 power in Estonia took easy riders who started dividing people into “ours” and “aliens”.
They deprived citizenship to half-a-million people. This had nothing to do with the ideals of
the People’s Front … I don’t see any bright future in a state that permanently anticipates sub-
sidies from the EU. What is the price we pay for attaining the “European highs”? The loss of
460 A. MAKARYCHEV AND V. SAZONOV

independence … If earlier we were ruled by the Kremlin, now it is Brussels or Washington that
determines our problems’ (Alexandrova, 2017b).

In denying the supremacy of the European choice for Estonia he assumes that ‘to be an
Asian, an African, an American or an Australian is not inferior to being a European’ (News-
Balt.ru, 2014). Grigoryan deems the Estonian model of integration doomed to failure since
it stipulates ‘unification on the basis of the dominant language, ethnos and culture, and
disregards the will and cultural norms of other ethnic groups. This contravenes the
United Nations declaration of December 18, 1991 that demands from states the preser-
vation of the authenticity of minorities’ (Giroryan, 2014).
Unsurprisingly, he de facto denies the Soviet occupation of Estonia, explaining it in
terms of a class-based civil war that split the Estonian nation and made many Estonians
denounce their compatriots. Answering the question ‘In which country you would like
to live?’ he predictably replied ‘the Soviet Union’ (MK-Estoniya, 2012).
In the meantime, Grigoryan’s attitudes to new Estonian right-wing groups such as
‘Parem Sektor Eest/Leegion’ look ambiguous:
On the one hand, they claim not to propagate violence or call for ethnic hatred yet, on the
other hand, they fight with immigrants. On the one hand, they pledge to respect the rule
of law yet, on the other hand, they are against multiculturalism and homosexuality that, in
their view, are detrimental to the Estonian language and culture. Yet denying multiculturalism
in a multi-ethnic country is tantamount to teasing a bull with a red rag, or denying the obvious
(Kopylkov, 2016).

This ambiguity reflects the wider phenomenon of indecisiveness inherent to many Russo-
phone narratives in Estonia: they would potentially be prepared to support crusaders
against a liberal understanding of human rights that encompass the protection of
sexual minorities, but are suspicious towards far-right ideas of a total debunking of multi-
culturalism. In other words, the array of slogans promoted by Estonian nationalist popu-
lism (anti-liberalism, anti-LGBT, anti-immigration) evokes only partial and selective
sympathies within Russian-speaking groups already wary of the prospect of these
slogans being turned against them as a vulnerable ethnic minority themselves.
Our second example of hybrid discourse is the portal ‘Estlandskie Gubernskie Vedo-
mosti’ (EGV) which describes itself as a ‘Russian language portal for normal people of Chris-
tian faith and traditional sexual orientation who consider Estonia to be their homeland’.
Their penchant for traditionalism is expressed through publishing using old Russian
graphics. This type of populist discourse can be properly understood against the backdrop
of the refugee crisis that brought a whole plethora of issues of cultural identity to a head
that were intensely articulated in public discussion. The immigration debate triggered dis-
cursive mutations within the Russian-speaking communities that, on the one hand, pro-
jected such right-wing anti-immigration rhetoric back on themselves yet, on the other
hand, was highly sceptical of expressing solidarity with non-European refugees and
asylum-seekers. EGV is a typical illustration of the complexities of this hybrid narrative
that synthesizes a number of hot points: loyalty to Estonia as a multi-national country;
loyalty to Russia as a source of cultural inspiration and a major political reference point;
a clearly articulated anti-immigration stance; and a well-pronounced conservative stand-
point when it comes to the Orthodox Church (Rodina, 2017a) and a plethora of biopolitical
practices of a healthy body. In spite of the evident right-wing bias, EGV seems to be quite
 EUROPEAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 461

sympathetic to the Estonian United Left Party (Rodina, 2017b) known for its pro-Russian
orientation.
The West as an interfering Other is one of the pivotal points for EGV. This argument is
articulated through the racialized perception of immigrants as invaders and trouble-
makers. The chain of equivalences at this point encompasses the protection of Estonia
against refugees, religious extremists and fundamentalists (Rodina, 2017h), black-
skinned people, sexual perverts and perpetrators (Rodina, 2017c). This discourse
assumes that the liberal West projects onto Estonia its practices of multiculturalism and
tolerance that are incompatible with values intrinsic to Estonians (Rodina, 2014). In a
more general sense, Europe is portrayed as a civilization in decay being destroyed by a
capitalist/neoliberal economy. This trans-ideological blend leads EGV into a de facto repro-
duction of Kremlin rhetoric that denies the Soviet occupation (Rodina, 2017d) and claims
that modern Estonia finds itself under the sway of the American military (Rodina, 2017e).
These portal materials ridicule the Estonian government’s concerns about Russia’s
influence in the country (Rodina, 2017f) and express strong sympathy and support for
separatism in Donbass (Rodina, 2017g).

Looking at populist discourses through Laclau’s prism

The approach developed by Laclau allows us to understand populism not as a coherent
phenomenon but rather as a matter of varying forms and degrees. In this section we
look at the discourses we introduced above from the viewpoints of their counter-hegemo-
nic potential, the nodal points that make chains of equivalence, and appeals to popular
geopolitics. We also track disjointed positions existing within each of these discourses.
Let us start with counter-hegemony. Here we see a variety of power loci against which
populist discourses set and assert themselves. The populism of the EKRE is oriented
against ‘Western liberalism’ with the EU at its core as a source of the refugee crisis. The
EKRE also simultaneously targets the Estonian political establishment that bases its
policy on the principle of European solidarity, and on Russia as the main protector of its
‘compatriots’ residing in Estonia. By the same token, ‘Western liberalism’ is the main
target of the Estonian Russophone left and the pro-Ukraine right. For two other populist
groups (Russian World zealots and Soviet sympathizers) the main opponents are Estonian
nationalists, both within and without the government. Their versions of populism are also
directed against the West that allegedly supports official Tallinn in its ‘Russophobic’
exposures.
Now let us turn to the second criterion we used for fleshing out populist discourses. The
EKRE’s list of demands includes such nodal points as the ethnic and cultural homogeneity
of the Estonian nation, resistance to EU-imposed principles of multiculturalism and toler-
ance that cause insecurity, and ultimately the re-signification of Europe into traditionalist
and conservative categories. The pro-Ukrainian narrative in Estonia has a similar counter-
imperial vector. It re-signifies Europe as a principled supporter of victims of aggression and
projects this narrative onto Estonia as a part of Europe that is more vulnerable than many
other states vis-à-vis Russia.
At the opposite flank we find pro-Russian World populism. Their chain of equivalences
includes demands for language-related rights (including in education), memory politics
(including veneration of the symbols of the Great Patriotic War) and citizenship, but
462 A. MAKARYCHEV AND V. SAZONOV

also extends to supporting the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbass. Somewhere
in between these two polar opposites lie Centre Party narratives that articulate a set of
demands synthesizing Russian and Estonian cultures and identities, advocating for bilingu-
alism, and referring to European norms of minority protection as the legal foundation of
their expectations. Unlike the Russian World crusaders, the Centre Party does not extend
its chain of equivalences to direct vindication of the annexation of Crimea.
Finally, we conclude our analysis by identifying the major sources of inconsistency
inherent to all variants and modalities of Estonian populism. Starting again with the
EKRE, we see that the political roles of Russophones for the right-wing Estonian polity
remain structurally incomplete and situational; they are rejected as Soviet-era immigrants
yet are potentially accepted as bearers of conservative values and opponents of the ‘Orien-
tal invasion’. In other words, a consistent application of this anti-immigration stance
requires the re-articulation of negativity towards local Russians as Soviet-era migrants,
yet widespread anti-refugee attitudes in the Russophone community make a certain
part of the EKRE think of local Russians as potential allies.
Pro-Russian World populism is also inconsistent, but in a different sense: it, paradoxi-
cally, is unable to fully incorporate Russia as the genuine motherland for Russophones.
Lambasting the liberal West and sympathizing with separatism in Donbass do not necess-
arily translate into full identification with Russia which remains a close other and inspira-
tional neighbour, but not an inner part of Estonian Russians’ collective identity. The Russia
that is supposed to be at the centre of the Russian World concept is often perceived as an
indecisive actor lacking any clear policy towards its ‘compatriots’ living abroad. The same is
true for left-wing Russophone populism. Rozenfeld’s critique of neoliberalism paved the
way for lambasting the EuroMaidan in Ukraine and the de facto justification of the annexa-
tion of Crimea, but does not lead to political self-identification with the Putin regime as too
conservative and ultimately inefficient. Grigoryan’s rhetorical loyalty to the original spirit of
the People’s Front and positive references to ‘Estonia’s independence’ do not preclude
him from overtly sympathizing with the Soviet Union.
In the case of Russian Estonians who identify themselves with the Estonian political
community and represent it politically (such as Yana Toom), the counter-hegemonic
elements of their populism are harder to distinguish from the hegemonic core. This is
due to the fact that they are part of the system they try to partially distance themselves
from as being allegedly unfair to Russophones. The main problem we see here is that
this chain presupposes an equivalence between ‘Russia’ and ‘Europe’ as the condition
of its functioning structural integrity and the basis of their compatibility with each
other. The current EU-Russia conflict undermines this logic and thus questions the seam-
less inscription of Estonia in the context of drastically deteriorated EU-Russia relations.

Conclusions
In this article we have reached a number of conclusions. First, our research demonstrates
that populist discourses function as sources of politicization of Estonian polity and, in this
sense, challenge the rationale of the technocratic, administrative and managerial logic of
governance largely associated with the EU. These mechanisms of politicization differ dras-
tically. Estonian nationalist populism, largely strengthened by the refugee crisis and the
ensuing immigration debate, portrays Estonia as a victim of both EU liberalism and
 EUROPEAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 463

Russian imperialism, while populist narratives in Russophone milieus are more sensitive to
– and inspired by – the crisis of Russian relations with the West from 2014 onwards.
Second, the populist discourses that we have identified in one way or another commu-
nicate with each other, either establishing relations of complementarity or contesting and
challenging their opponents. In this sense, reactions and responses to ideologically pro-
nounced populism (i.e. emanating from the far right) can represent a different form of
populism. This widens the market of populist discourses that might come in a variety of
versions, from ‘adapted’ (Centre Party) to ‘untamed’/non-systemic (‘Blue Awakening’),
and from pro-Russian (Yana Toom) to explicitly pro-Ukrainian (Evgen Tsybulenko). Simi-
larly, among major reference points for discourse on Estonian identity – the Russian
World, the Estonian national project, and Europe – it is only the latter which fails to stir
up strong populist momentum. In other words, Europe as an identity marker is perceived
as an ‘other’ for most populist narratives.
Third, we have found evidence of two forms of inconsistency inherent to populist dis-
courses. One of them is exemplified by trans-ideological mutations and cross-ideological
transgressions within each of the populist discourses. As a result, left-right and liberal-con-
servative distinctions become increasingly blurred, and/or lose their political vitality. For
example, having criticized Brussels from leftist positions for its alleged ‘neo-imperial’ pol-
icies of conditionality and norm projection, Yana Toom simultaneously repeatedly refers to
the vital importance of the EU as a pivotal source of liberal norms that protect minority
rights. That same paradox can be found in the heart of the EU itself which, on the one
hand, implies policies of equalization of member states through its cohesion policy and
yet, on the other hand, has been enjoying the fruits of an effective single market
regime since the mid-80s which is based on neo-liberal principles.
Another inconsistency manifests itself in the inevitable extension of political agendas to
encompass arguments that undermine their cohesion. For example, far-right discourse,
originally bent on equating Russia and the EU as major sources of challenge and threat
for Estonia, came to admit with the advent of the refugee crisis that, in principle, local Rus-
sians might be reconceptualized from aliens to allies in a ‘culture war’ against the alleged
‘Orientalization’ of Estonia. Russia-friendly discourse is disjointed in a different way: those
who vociferously demand the protection of the Russian language, identity, and civiliza-
tional specificity under the Kremlin-sponsored umbrella of the Russian World at a
certain point had to admit that Russia is a culturally close but neighbouring country, an
external point of cultural reference, while the demands related to their everyday grie-
vances and troubles should in any case be addressed to and discussed with the Estonian
authorities.
Fourth, the case of Estonia gives us some food for thought regarding the uneasy corre-
lation between populism and democracy. On the one hand, the variety of different popu-
list discourses popping up all across the ideological spectrum might be seen as evidence
of open debate and democratic pluralism, and as an antidote to the advent of a totalizing
and unifying ideology. On the other hand, the construction of the ‘extended we’, i.e. an
inclusive and non-discriminatory ‘regime of belonging’ encompassing the entire nation
regardless of ethnic origin, comes across as rather cumbersome and complicated in any
type of populist discourse. This is because populist reasoning, with its strong bias
towards popular geopolitics, values identity debates and ‘culture wars’ over the logic
464 A. MAKARYCHEV AND V. SAZONOV

and rationality of governance, which is ultimately conducive to the further fragmentation

of the political space into a plethora of often disconnected ‘regimes of belonging’.

Interviews
Interview with Fedor Stomakhin, 10 April 2018, Skype
Interview with Jaak Madison, 22 March 2018, Tallinn
Interview with Dr. Ilya Nikiforov, 19 March 2018, Skype
Interview with Georg Kirsberg, 7 April 2018, Skype
Interview with Prof. Evgen Tsybulenko, 23 January 2018, Tallinn
Interview with Dr. Igor Rozenfeld, 13 February 2018. Tartu
Interview with Dr. Igor Kopytin, Tartu, 28 February 2018, Tartu
Interview with Oudekki Loone, 31 March 2018, Skype
Interview with Hagani Gayibli, 8 February 2018, Tartu

Notes
1. The Annual Review of the Estonian Internal Security Service (2015, 5) says, ‘The main issue
relating to the subject of migration in Estonia is fear caused by ignorance, which has
created fertile ground for the growth of anxiety, tension and aggression in society. Opposition
to the EU and support for populists and extremists has grown. Anti-refugee groups were
created on social media and about ten public meetings were organized. Amid increased
public and media attention, the accommodation centre for asylum-seekers in Vao was repeat-
edly attacked. Such sentiments, mainly triggered by ignorance and irrational fear, show signs
of xenophobia and the wish to oppose the state and society and defy the authorities’ actions.
Populism that takes advantage of social tensions in turn damages the security of society and
international stability, dividing the European Union. The national populists who use the
refugee crisis to instigate fear are generally opposed to a European liberal and tolerant
world-view, as well as to Europe, the USA and NATO.’
2. Interview with Kirsberg, 7 April 2018.
3. Interview with Stomakhin, 10 April 2018.
4. Interview with Madison, 22 March 2018.
5. Interview with Nikiforov, 19 March 2018.
6. She is leader of Party of People’s Unity (Rahva Ühtsuse Erakond), and former Minister of
Foreign Affairs of Estonia.
7. Interview with Rozenfeld, 13 February 2018.
8. Interview with Rozenfeld.
9. Interview with Tsybulenko, 23 January 2018.

Funding
This work has been supported by Institutional Research Funding (IUT 20-39) of the Estonian Ministry
of Education and Research.

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