‘Ethnicity is not a Physiological Moment’: German Minority Elite’s Constructivist Perceptions of Ethnicity in Interwar Estonia

The emergence of nation-states in Central and Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 20th century created the need to manage ethnic diversity and handle issues of drawing boundaries between communities. This resulted in minority activism, aimed at protecting the interests of minorities and ensuring their survival. This article focuses on the latter aspect and shows how the research on countrylevel minority activism helps better understand majority-minority relations and their impact on the society by analysing the example of interwar Estonia. The German minority elite’s perceptions of ethnicity are discussed, based on the sources reflecting the inclusion policy of the German Cultural Self-Government, the autonomous institutional body of the German minority in Estonia. The article discusses the constructivist rhetoric of the German minority elite and explains the genesis and background of such rhetoric. It shows that first, German elite’s constructivist perceptions had historical roots; second, the elite needed to be pragmatically open rather than primordially protectionist for their dwindling community to survive; and third, the German minority had no reason for protectionism stemming from the fear of the malicious infiltration of members of other ethnic groups. Since such an open inclusion policy turned out to be relatively successful, it can be concluded that the German minority that formed the ruling elite in Estonia in earlier centuries, continued to be attractive, and this, in turn, caused significant social tensions, making the Estonians, being now politically dominant and in the numerical majority, doubt their own survival chances. The results of this article also highlight the relevance of instrumentalisation of ethnic ambiguities in forming minority activism and boundary-making between majority and minorities.