Estonia “has not time”: Existential Politics at the End of Empire

This article is about the Estonian transition from the era of perestroika to the 1990s. It suggests that the Estonian national movement considered the existence of the nation to be threatened. Therefore, it used the window of opportunity presented by perestroika to take control of time and break free of the empire. This essay has the following theoretical premises. First, Estonia was not engaged in “normal politics” but in something that I will conceptualise, following the Copenhagen School, as “existential politics.” Second, the key feature of existential politics is time. I will draw on the distinction, made in the ancient Greek thought, between the gods Chronos and Kairos. By applying these concepts to Estonia, I suggest Kairos presented the opportunity to break the normal flow of time and the decay of Socialism (Chronos) in order to fight for the survival of the Estonian nation. The third starting point is Max Weber’s historical sociology, particularly his notion of “charisma,” developed in Stephen Hanson’s interpretation of the notions of time in Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism. Based on this, I will argue that Estonian elites thought they were living in extraordinary times that required the breaking of the normal flow of time, which was thought to be corroding the basis of the nation’s existence.