Paper short abstract:

Focusing on the example of (Ingrian-)Finnish cultural self-government, I analyse how Estonia’s dysfunctional National Minorities Cultural Autonomy Act serves the interests of the state and shifts the responsibility for the usability of the law to minorities, transforming its very purpose.

Paper long abstract:

When Estonia restored its independence in 1991, it claimed to be picking up from where it had been forced to leave off in 1940. Some of the key laws passed by the young-old state were modelled after regulations that had been in force in the interwar Republic of Estonia. Thus, the 1993 National Minorities Cultural Autonomy Act followed the example of the 1925 Law on Cultural Self-Government for National Minorities. During the past thirty years, only two minorities – Finns (2004) and Swedes (2007) – have used the opportunity to organise themselves based on this act and they both struggle to sustain their hard-won cultural self-governments.

Drawing on interviews with representatives of Ingrian-Finnish and Finnish cultural associations in Estonia as well as on an analysis of media and policy texts, this presentation explores the purposes and shortcomings of the National Minorities Cultural Autonomy Act. Besides discussing how the broken regulation serves the interests of the state, the paper asks how it shifts the responsibility for the usability of the law to minorities’ cultural organisations and eventually to individuals identifying as Ingrian Finns. Consequently, the very purpose of the law to support minority cultures and identities seems to be transforming into something else. This raises further questions about minorities’ reasons for preferring cultural self-governance to other, more mundane forms of self-organisation.