Bilingualism in Estonia: politics, education, culture, and mentality

In Estonia, there is only one official language. At the same time about 25-29 % of the population in Estonia considers Russian as their native language. The area of the Russian language in Estonia is located mostly in the northeastern county (Ida-Virumaa). Trying to integrate the region into the Estonian-speaking space leads to the building of Estonian-language cultural and educational institutions, while the country leaders seem to be ready to use the Russian language in the communication with Russian-speaking minority. At the same time, there is a tendency to reduce the share of Russianlanguage education: opposition requires complete and immediate liquidation, while the government still insists on the gradual changes in the system, when there will be only a small number of Russianlanguage educational institutions. However, programs with partial teaching in Russian have remained at higher educational institutions, and some Russian-language conferences are still held at research centers. Estonia uses Russian speakers to attract foreigners who want to study Russian in Europe and to be taught by Russian native speakers. The Language Act regulates the correlation of Estonian and Russian in official institutions and the service sector. The Language Inspectorate constantly checks the compliance of services with the Language Act, at the same time infringing on the rights of the Russian-speaking population, which are also specified in the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. The popularity of recently appeared Russian-language channel ETV+ cannot be compared with Russian federal channels. At the same time, the appearance of the TV programs “My Estonias” and “My Truth”, which create dialogue between the communities, is a good sign. These programs were launched due to the cultural interaction, in which the theater played a role of a platform for negotiations between Estonians and Russians. The problems of the Russian-speaking population outlined in theatrical productions are also caused by its heterogeneity, since language is not an unequivocal sign of national identity.