At the northeast corner of Lindamäe park, near Toompea Castle, stands a monument to Estonia's Independence from the Soviet Union. The monument includes a large granite boulder, with its accompanying glass marker, which briefly describes the most recent independence of Estonia. The marker is presented in three languages; Estonian, English, and Russian. It reads:
"Estonia's road to freedom from the decades long occupation by the Soviet Union was complicated and full of hazards. On 18 January 1991, after the bloody events in Vilnius and Riga, all access roads to Toompea were blocked with boulders and concrete blocks.
On 20 August 1991, during the attempted coup d'etat in Moscow, The Supreme Council of the Republic of Estonia passed a resolution about the state sovereignty of Estonia. The Replublic of Estonia was restored without bloodshed and casualties.
This boulder was one of the blocks on the road to Toompea. It was turned into a memorial in August 1993."
"Estonians have been living in this tiny portion of the Baltic lands since approximately 2,500 B.C., making them the longest settled of the European peoples. Due to Estonia ’s strategic location as a link between East and West, it has been highly coveted through the ages by both kings and conquerors.
Centuries of struggle to retain its identity and achieve independent statehood are the hallmark of Estonia 's history. Human habitation in the area dates back to at least 7500 BC, but the first forebears of the present inhabitants were Finno-Ugric hunters who probably arrived between 3000 and 2000 BC.
In the late 19th century a powerful Estonian nationalist movement arose. Eventually, on the 24 th of February 1918 , Estonia declared its independence. Its period of independence was brief, however, and Estonia was forcibly annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. But in 1991 Estonians again reasserted their independence, and peacefully broke away from the Soviet Union .
The fight to emerge as an independent nation seemed to have been won in 1920 when Soviet Russia signed a peace treaty with the Parliamentary Republic of Estonia, recognizing its independence in perpetuity. But, caught between the ascendant Soviet Union and expansionist Nazi Germany, Estonia soon lapsed from democracy into authoritarianism, and Prime Minister Konstantin Päts took over as dictator in 1934.
The Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939 secretly placed Estonia under the Soviet sphere of influence and the Soviet authorities began nationalization and purges that saw up to 60,000 Estonians killed, deported or forced to flee. That's why some Estonians mistakenly saw Adolf Hitler's troops as liberators when they invaded the USSR and occupied the Baltic States in 1941.
Estonia lost around 200,000 people during WWII and lost its independence yet again. The Soviet reoccupation of 1944 ushered in a period of Stalinism highlighted by the collectivization of agriculture and the killing or deporting of thousands of Estonians.
But throughout the decades of Soviet domination, Estonians still hoped for freedom. In the late 1980s Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev gave substance to their hopes and a mixture of pent-up bitterness and national feelings fuelled mass demands for self-rule. In 1988 huge numbers of people gathered in Estonia to sing previously banned national songs in what became known as the “Singing Revolution”. An estimated 300,000 attended one song gathering in Tallinn .
In November 1988, Estonia 's Supreme Soviet passed a declaration of sovereignty. In August 1989, two million people formed a human chain stretching from Tallinn to the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius , many of them calling for secession. In August 1991, Estonia declared full independence, and the following month the country joined the United Nations and began to consolidate its new-found nationhood." (
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