Tallinn University Publications
Not a member yet
873 research outputs found
Sort by
Идея классицизма у Л. В. Пумпянского (К постановке проблемы) [Lev Pumpyansky’s Idea of Classicism: A Very Brief Introduction]
No full textThis introduction to Lev Pumpyansky’s (1891—1940) idea of Classicism focuses on the following problems: what is the meaning of the idea of Classicism in Pumpiansky’s terms? How did Pumpyansky apply this idea to the analysis of Russian poetry? What is the cultural background of Pumpyansky’s idea of Classicism? The article stresses the fact that Pumpyansky’s theory has several sources, e. g. the critical output of Vyacheslav Ivanov and Tadeusz Zieliński
Preface [Eessõna]
No full text 2014 marks ten years since Estonia’s accession to NATO and the European Union. The Estonian War Museum – General Laidoner Museum celebrated these events a year earlier with the international conference ‘Inventing the National Defence 1990–2004’, which was held on the 25th & 26th of April 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia. The first and most substantial peer-reviewed part of this yearbook comprises papers written on the basis of the presentations delivered at the conference.
Accidental or Deliberate Failure? The Story of Estonia’s Defence Concept of 1993
No full textOne of my more important duties as the first post-war constitutional defence minister of Estonia, was to develop a national defence concept.1 We prepared this together with Colonel Ants Laaneots, who was then Chief of Staff of Estonian Defence Forces. Once the initial framework was established, a couple of officials of the Ministry of Defence became involved; ultimately a large number of external experts from the Academy of Sciences to the Estonian Maritime Administration contributed to the concept. The result of this broad and creative co-operation, the first defence concept, was strongly influenced by Finnish and Swedish total defence thinking. It was proposed to the Riigikogu and debated in pleno in March 1993. Surprisingly, given a strong government coalition majority, the concept was rejected. The reasons for this most unusual parliamentary outcome may be found in domestic politics. Was the failure accidental? Or may it have been deliberate? As we know, three years later, in 1996, the next Riigikogu approved a concept for the defence policy of Estonia, a document little more than a more verbose development of our concept from 1993.
The Effects of the Saakashvili Era Reforms on Informal Practices in the Republic of Georgia
No full textSince the 2003 Rose Revolution, the Georgian government implemented a number of major institutional reforms which have succeeded in modernising Georgia’s state institutions, reducing corruption and ‘formalising’ the public sector. While the effects of Saakashvili’s reforms on state and institution-building, corruption and the rule of law have been examined by a large and growing body of academic literature, there has been little discussion about the impact of institutional changes on the previously widespread culture of informality in Georgia. This article explores the effects of Georgian institution-building from such aspects of informality as the use of informal networks and connections in exchanges of favours, gift-giving and other types of informal activities. The findings of this study, based on the analysis of recent surveys and in-depth interviews, conclude that the reforms succeeded in undermining the overall importance of informal practices in dealings with state bureaucracy, education system, healthcare, law enforcement, judiciary and some other areas previously dominated by informality. However, the reliance on informality did not disappear, and informal networks are still employed as coping mechanisms and as social safety nets
The Constitution and Interpretation of the Authority Dilemma for the Leadership of the National Defence After Estonia Regained its Independence
No full textAfter the restoration of independence in August 1991, Estonia had no national defence, defence capability or capacity for international defence cooperation. The armed forced had to be ‘invented’. However, this can be regarded as an advantage, since retraining and reorganising an existing system is usually more difficult. The main principles of national defence were established in Chapter 10 of the Constitution, which was approved in a referendum held in June 1992. This chapter, which was influenced by the presidential constitution of 1937/1938, did not answer the question of whether the Commander of the Defence Forces would be placed under the authority of the President, the parliament or the government. Two voluntary national defence organisations, the Defence League and the Home Guard, which competed with each other, already existed in Estonia when the Defence Forces were established. The Ministry of Defence was established even later. There were fears that subordinating the Commander of the Defence Forces to the government may lead to the politicisation of the army and uneven development due to frequent changes of government. These problems were eased by subordinating the commander to the President – however, this caused tension between the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Forces Headquarters. The parliament had the right to appoint and remove the Commander of the Defence Forces, but the proposal had to come from the President. This conflict culminated in summer 2000 when the Commander of the Defence Forces was removed as a result of a vote in the Riigikogu, which the President called an issue of civilian control; the removal, as well as the Defence Minister and government keeping their positions, was decided by one vote, allegedly given by accident…
The Constitution was amended in 2011. The President remains the highest leader of national defence, but executive power in the leadership of national defence has been granted to the government.
Armament of Estonia: Arms Procurements of the Ministry of Defence in the 1990s
No full textAn independent state must have its own army. If we don’t defend ourselves, someone else will come and defend us. The conflicts in the border areas of the collapsing Soviet Union and the Balkans in the 1990s as well as the unstable situation in Estonia and neighbouring countries underlined the need for the quick establishment of Estonia’s own army. At the time the state’s independence was restored, there were no people in Estonia who knew Western weaponry or how to carry out weapons procurements. The only things left behind by the Russian army were old gas masks, helmets, fuel and lubricants, a number of buildings and a polluted environment.
The West did provide military assistance to Estonia from 1993–1996, but no weapons were given to us. Estonia received old equipment, uniforms and vehicles from Germany, Sweden, Finland, the US, Denmark and other countries, which also included things that had belonged to the liquidated East-German army. Estonia received a couple of L-410 jets, some helicopters and ships from the ‘bankruptcy estate’ of the latter. Hand guns, Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition etc. were bought from Romania and China. In 1993, Estonia managed to enter into a contract for purchasing weapons from the Israeli company IMI-TAAS. The defence budget comprised ca 4–5% of the state budget from 1993–2000. In 1996 the Estonian parliament set NATO membership as the state’s goal. Estonia participated actively in partnership programmes. From 1996/1997, Estonia finally started receiving aid with weapons from the West, which in addition to handguns included artillery guns, mortars, ships etc. This aid was important, as the state was poor. The first major procurements for weapons after the Israeli weapons deal were carried out at the start of the 21st century.
Republic of Estonia on the Road Back to the West… Background and Reality of the Israeli Weapons Deal, 1992/1993
No full text In the early 1990s not a single Western government agreed to sell arms to the newly independent Estonia. As the constitutional government of Mart Laar (1992) declared a strong interest in Western collective security, even NATO membership, Soviet weapons became unacceptable and insupportable. In contrast, a plentiful supply of highly vaunted Western arms was considered a guarantee for the Republic’s continued independence and a precondition for future acceptance in Western security policy structures – and ultimately membership in NATO.
Estonian businessman Leonid Apananski had tested the waters for a weapons deal with Israel already in the autumn of 1991. After Mr Laar’s government had taken office in October 1992, our negotiations and contacts with the Israeli partners continued in Tallinn, Israel and Helsinki. The contracts for a secret deal were signed in January 1993 in Tallinn. We purchased armaments for a reinforced light infantry division and they were up to NATO standard. At a cost of 60 million US dollars they turned out more expensive than Chinese or Romanian weapons, but decidedly less expensive than European equivalents. Since Estonia lacked the financial resources for such a purchase at that time, the deal became possible only due to a favourable hire-purchase method, which took into account the expected economic growth of Estonia.
The associated opportunities for increased economic, political and security cooperation with Israel, that the negotiated arms deal may have presented, were lost before they were fully envisaged. The Estonian side leaked details of the contract, thereby violating the agreement. Estonian revanchist ‘former’ politicians, shoddy post-Soviet media and the ill-informed public have mostly attacked the Israeli weapons deal over the last 20 years, even resorting, at times, to antiSemitic comments.
However, this deal was one of the most significant achievements of our first constitutional government. It was a breakthrough in arming the Estonian Defence Forces and sent a strong signal to Western security decision-makers, who were compelled to recognize Estonia as a partner to be taken seriously. I am personally proud to have contributed to landing the deal, which was endorsed by President Lennart Meri in Tallinn and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv. Even today (2014) our Israeli arms are an important element in the arsenal of the Estonian Defence Forces
Kuidas mõõta süntaktilise komplekssuse arengut lastekeeles [How to measure the development of syntactic complexity in child language]
No full textAs language consists of layers with different degrees of complexity, there is a need to take complexity into consideration in child language research. Here, the central aim is to give a critical overview of syntactic complexity theory and the methods that are used to measure this phenomenon in the spontaneous speech of a child acquiring his/her fi rst language. Based on multiple viewpoints (see Kirjandus above), the two main methods and tools are discussed: measuring syntactic complexity in children’s spontaneous speech by MLU (mean length of utterance) and IPSyn (Index of Productive Syntax). Besides critical comparison of the two, the usefulness of these tools―created for a flective language, such as English― in studying other types of languages is examined; e.g. can they also be used with Estonian, an agglutinative type of language. Whatever measuring tools one is planning to use, it is the researcher’s own conscious knowledge of syntactic complexity and the possibilities of measuring it with certain tools that come fi rst. In addition, the role of motherese, i.e. mother’s, father’s or any other caretaker’s child-directed speech has to be taken into account: at the very beginning, the child does not acquire the potential complexity of the whole language, but only of a register similar to his/her caretaker’s speech