WOMEN IN ESTONIA

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 261, 4 August 1928, Page 18

WOMEN IN ESTONIA

Among the new States which that earthquake, the Great War, heaved into being'is Estonia, a small country on the shores of the Baltic, and bordering in the east on Russia (writes Madame'Kallas, wife of the Estonian Minister in London). Its population is about 1,300,(100. It is inhabited mainly, by. Estonians, who came to this fertile land some 2000 years ago from the Volga valleys, and the Middle • Ural, a race related to the Finns and • Hungarians. Before the present independence, Estonia had for centuries been under foreign rule. Germans, Swedes, Poles, and Russians have conquered and ruled over Estonia in turn, until the country was declared an independent republic on February’ 21, 191 S. The development of the feminist moveinent'in Estonia differs from that in many other countries. The present position of the women of Estonia is not the result of a struggle between the sexes, like nearly. everywhere else. The women have always held an important position in the life of Estonia, even in ancient days. In the old peasant homes the women, the mother of the home, was supreme in domestic affairs, and it is the game to-day. The old Estonian folk songs breathe the high estimation in which womanhood, especially motherhood, -was held in Esto--nia It is also interesting to notice that far the greater part these folk songs'Were song bv women, while in the nearby related and neighbouring country of Finland the folk singers are mostly men. In fh§ southern part of Estonia peasant women, able to improvise long songs on ceremonious occasions, such as weddings and funerals, may. still be found. In spite of her arduous labours, which shg shared with the men, the Estonian

....peasant woman ,in the old days found ;->ime for really admirable handicraft work. Every parish had its own special national dress, and the patterns and embroidery were sometimes of wonderful beauty. The headdresses, sleeves, blouses, and handbags, were all embroidered in elaborate designs, and mostly iu bright ..colours, the stockings, girdles, and gloves being knitted. It is to be deplored that these handsome national dresses.have now practically disapepared, except in the routhern part of Estonia, and in some ,of the Islands. These earlv pat- - terns are now being revived, and the old Estonian peasant gloves are proving a .most handsome and practical design for sports gloves in other .countries. There is still one thing to be mentioned in connection with the Estonian women of former days. As in all' the . countries bordering on Russia, where the language of the people was severely sup- ... pressed, the mothers helped to keep it I alive. They also taught their children to ..read, in the-mother tongue, and we have to .thank the Estonian mother for the ' fact that .nearly 100 per cent, of the population are literate.

The lyrical vein which was to be found in the Estonian woman of former' days still persists.. The first real poet in Estonia was a young girl who adopted the rom de plume of “Koidula.” meaning “Dawn,” under which she has become famous in her country. She was the daughter of a journalist, and in the sixties of the last century, at the very dawn of. the national movement in Estonia, she began to write her passionate, enthusiastic hymns for the freedom of Estonia, full of fire, and spirit—a revelation at I hat time. Her fate was a sad oue. After

• being hailed: as a Valkyrie of the young — national movement, she married a man of ■ alien nationality, who had no understand-

FORCE IN SMALL NATION’S DESTINY

ing for her ardent patriotism and poetic feeling, and she died at an early age in exile in Russia, almost. forgotten by her compatriots. One of the foremost poets' of present Estonian literature is also a woman—Marie Under. Her poems show passionate feeling, often of an erotic character, and great ' beauty of form. . As has been already mentioned, there scarcely at any time existed iri Estonia anything’which might have been termed a struggle between the sexes, or even a strong feminist movement jn the ordinary sense of the word. Under Russian

rule there was very Ijttle opportunity of organising _ such a movement. Still since 1905, some women’s organisations have existed. When Estonia became an independent State, there was no struggle over the question of women’s rights. : On the contrary, it was considered the natural thing for women to be treated on an equality with men. The population of the country was small, and as the amount of work to be done was enormous, the men were only too willing to accept and welcome the women as their fellow workers. So, without anything which could be-called a “suffrage movement,” the Estonian women obtained the right to vote and to stand for parliament. In the first Constituent Assembly of 100 members 7 were women.

.Since then, however, the number has noticeably decreased, ant) I regret to say that at present there are no women in the Estonian Parliament. One ;of the reasons may be that many of, the leading women, as the result ot years of hard work, may have preferred temporarily to retire from the political life. Another reason has to be sought in party politics. The political parties are afraid .of placing women candidates bn their lists, in ease they failed to secure election. In Estonia, qs in many other countries, the same thing dan be noticed; the women voters are not very keen to give their votes to women candidates; nor do they in general show very much interest in polities. It was easy in Estonia for women to-get their political rights, ‘it has not proved equally easy for them to put them into practice. To take only one instance: the Estonian’women have in vain tried to get a woman representative sent to Geneva to attend the meetings of the League of Nations. There exist now about 50 women’s societies in Estonia. In 1917. soon after the March revolution in Russia, the first women's Congress was; held in Estonia, about ten tnousand organised women taking part in it.

At the pr,setif moment the Estonian women are showing great activity. There are womilu taking a prominent part in the work, for temperar.ee, there are women in the town councils, women doctors; and women lawyers. A girl guide movement has been starred and a women's section of the Civil. Guard. There are a number of women students at our University of ' Tartu; in fact, their increasing number has lately caus ed some anxiety, because it is extremely difficult to provide them all with suitable work when they have taken their degrees. Of about 5000 students at the Tartu University more than onethird are women. .This phenomenon is not altogether, as Dliave said, a happy one. There is at present a strong movement to get both men and women back to such practical, frbrk as .gardening, agriculture or handicrafts; in a word, back to the land. ■ '-

The colours of t lie new Estonian tlag are blue, black and white. The white has always been to me a symbfl of the still unwritten page, which the small nations have to write in the huge Look of history' of mankind. I a'iii sure that the Estonian women are doing their vei'y best to fill that page.