Abstract
This study examines the Estonian War of Independence Veterans’ League (Eesti Vabadussojalaste Liit) and its profound impact on Estonian politics during the 1930s. The Veterans’ League, most commonly referred to as the Vaps movement or the Freedom Fighters,1 played a central role in the demise of liberal democracy and the emergence of authoritarianism in Estonia. Ernst Nolte’s ground-breaking study of European fascism, which first stimulated scholarly interest in the phenomenon in the mid-Sixties, noted the significance and uniqueness of the Estonian Veterans’ League, stating that it was ‘the only one of all the fascist groups to succeed in legally obtaining the absolute majority vote of the people, but which the government nevertheless brought to its knees by means of a coup d’etat’.2 No other European radical right-wing party ever achieved a success of such magnitude. Though Nolte stressed that the Estonian case ‘must not be overlooked’, that is in fact what has happened, largely because source material was inaccessible to Western scholars while Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union.
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Notes
Ernst Nolte, The Three Faces of Fascism (London, 1965), p. 12.
Eduard Laaman, Vabadussõjalased diktatuuri teel (Tallinn, 1933); Erakonnad Eestis (Tartu, 1934), pp. 54–62; ‘Põhiseaduse kriisi arenemine 1928–1933’, in Põhiseadus ja Rahvuskogu (Tallinn, 1937), pp. 29–45; Konstantin Päts. Poliitika- ja riigimees (Stockholm, 1949).
Märt Raud, Kaks suurt: Jaan Tõnisson, Konstantin Päts ja nende ajastu (Toronto, 1953);
Evald Uustalu, The History of Estonian People (London, 1952);
Artur Mägi, Das Staatsleben Estlands während seiner Selbständigkeit. I. Das Regierungssystem (Stockholm, 1967).
William Tomingas, Vaikiv ajastu Eestis (New York, 1961).
Georg von Rauch, The Baltic States: The Years of Independence 1917–1940 (London, 1974);
V. Stanley Vardys, ‘The Rise of Authoritarianism in the Baltic States’, in V. Stanley Vardys and Romuald J. Misiunas, eds., The Baltic States in War and Peace (University Park, Pennsylvania, 1978), pp. 65–80;
Toivo U. Raun, Estonia and the Estonians (Stanford, 1991);
John Hiden and Patrick Salmon, The Baltic Nations and Europe: Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania in the Twentieth Century (London, 1991).
R. J. Crampton, Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century (London and New York, 1994), p. 99;
Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe between the Two World Wars. A History of East Central Europe, vol. IX (Seattle, 1974), p. 373.
Tönu Parming, The Collapse of Liberal Democracy and the Rise of Authoritarianism in Estonia (London, 1975);
Alvin Isberg, Med demokraten som insats. Politisk-konstitutionellt maktspel i 1930-talets Estland, Studia Baltica Stockholmiensia 4 (Uppsala, 1988).
Olaf Kuuli, Vapsidest Isamaaliiduni. Fasismi ja fasismivastase võitluse ajaloost kodanlikus Eestis (Tallinn, 1976);
Olaf Kuuli, Six Years of Fascist Dictatorship in Estonia (Tallinn, 1975);
Eesti NSV ajalugu, vol. 3 (Tallinn, 1971); V. A. Maamägi and H. T. Arumäe, ‘Fasismi Baltiassa’, Historiallinen Arkisto, 72 (1977), pp. 93–112.
Rein Marandi, Must-valge lipu all. Vabadussõjalaste liikumine Eestis 1929–1937. I. Legaalne periood (1929–1934), Studia Baltica Stockholmiensia 6 (Uppsala, 1991); II. Illegaalne vabadussõjalus (1934–1937), Studia Baltica Stockholmiensia 18 (Uppsala, 1997).
Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London, 1991), p. 119;
Roger Griffin, ed., Fascism (Oxford, 1995), p. 215;
Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914–1945 (Madison, 1995), p. 323.
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© 2000 Andres Kasekamp
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Kasekamp, A. (2000). Introduction. In: The Radical Right in Interwar Estonia. Studies in Russia and East Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403919557_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403919557_1
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