MINORITY-LANGUAGE PUBLISHING IN THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA DURING THE PRE-WAR YEARS ( 1918 – 1940 ) AND NOWADAYS

The article includes an overview about the publishing and book production in minority languages in Estonia during the periods of the independent Republic of Estonia – in 1918–1940 since 1991 with Estonian reestablished as the official language. The treatment is based on the statistical data calculated on the basis of the Estonian National Bibliography database and on the thematic analysis of numerous research works. Russians and Germans were the largest minority groups in Estonia in 1918–1940. They were able to establish and operate publishing houses specializing correspondingly in Russian or German-language production. The German-language book title output was higher than in Russian, which was partly due to the role of German in science at that time. The smaller ethnic groups of Jews and Swedes mainly published periodicals. Only one historical minority – the Russian – survived through World War II and post-war period, making the Russian-language publishing the only enduring minority-language publishing venture in the present-day Estonia.


INTRODUCTION
Throughout history, migrations have influenced the population in the Estonian territories and, consequently, have left their mark on the composition of book production published in Estonia.Actually, Estonianlanguage publications achieved the dominant position only during the last decades of the 19 th century.Thus, for centuries the majority of books were actually published in the minority languages, predominantly in German.
The aim of this article is to explore book production in the minority languages during the periods of independence -the years 1918-1940 and the presenttime Republic of Estonia as of 1991.These are also the periods, when Estonian was/has been the official language of the country.
The article characterises the situation in the minoritylanguage book produc tion during the abovementioned periods concentrating on the following aspects: statistical data on the book title output in the leading minority languages, the main features of its thematic and typological composition as well as the leading publishers.These issues have been studied in the legal, economic and social con text of the period.
The statistical analysis as well as the study of the thematic and typological com position of book production in minority languages is based on the data derived from the Estonian National Bibliography database (http://erb.nlib.ee/).The search function of the database enables to limit the results by languages as well as years and places of publication.The search has been carried out for the years 1918-1939, omitting the year 1940 when Estonia in June was occupied by the Soviet Union.Not all the bibliographic records on the book production in foreign languages have been entered into the database yet.This concerns especially the publications in the German language.However, it is possible to identify the proportions of publica tions in different languages, establish the typology and themes of the books issued in different languages and thus draw the conclusions on the role of various lan guages in the book production of these years.The statistical data on the number of titles includes the publications that are entirely in a certain language as well as books and brochures with parallel texts and publications where part of the text is in the language that is the object of the study.
The bibliographic data on the publications issued in Estonia after the restora tion of the independent Republic of Estonia in 1991 is fully included in the Esto nian National Bibliography database and makes it possible to establish the statis tics of book production in different languages as well as to study its composition.
The research uses various monographs and articles as sources for establishing the features of the social and cultural life of the minorities during the years 1918-1940 and since 1991.The data on various trends and actors of publishing in mi nority languages is obtained from articles issued in paper and online newspapers as well as homepages of institutions and societies.The analysis of textual sources uses thematic analysis 1 that enables to establish the themes or/and subthemes rel evant to the aim of the study.The matrix of themes included different minority languages (German, Russian, Swedish, etc.) as the main categories that were fur ther divided into specific subthemes, for example, education system, publishers, societies or other minority organizations, etc.The textual analysis was combined with the statistical data on book title output.Thus it was possible to characterise the main features of publishing and book production in the minority languages both quantitatively and qualitatively.

LITERATURE REVIEW
The most studied topic of the minority publishing in Estonia is the Russianlanguage book and periodical production in the Republic of Estonia in  1918-1940.This phenomenon has been treated in the works by the book histo rian Mare Lott and the literary scholar Sergei Issakov.Mare Lott studied the main features of Russianlanguage book production and its leading publishers in her Russianlanguage article published in 1999 2 .Sergei Issakov is the author of nu merous works on the Russianlanguage culture of Estonia 3 which include data on the Russian writers and other cultural figures whose works were published in Esto nia or who initiated various publishing ventures.He has also written an overview of the Russianlanguage publishing in Estonia in 1918-1940 for the collection of articles, dedicated to the Year of the Estonian Book 4 .Aurika Meimre and Irina Be lobrovtseva have written numerous works on literary culture of Russian emigrants in Estonia, including a joint article giving an overview of the cultural life of Russian emigrants in many European countries, including Estonia 5 .
The publishing activities of the German community in Estonia in 1918-1940 have been studied by Birgit Fernengel 6 whose article mainly concentrates on the Germanlanguage press, but also mentions the basic facts of book publishing, above all, the role of the firm Kluge & Ströhm.Similar to the treatment of the Rus sianlanguage culture, more research has been done by literature scholars on the literary processes during the years 1918-1940.For example, Liina Lukas 7 has stud ied the works of several BalticGerman authors who had stayed to live in Estonia after 1918, briefly discussing the publishing of these texts.Her other article analy ses the position of the German language in the society and culture of these years 8 .The monograph by Kaido Laurits 9 includes a detailed study on the activities of the German cultural selfgovernment in 1925-1940, that is useful as background in formation for the research of Germanlanguage publishing.
The third largest minority in Estonia in 1918-1940 were the Swedes whose cultural history has been presented in an article written by Stig Örjan Ohlsson 10 as well as in the research works dedicated to the history of Swedishlanguage edu cation in Estonia, for example, the article by Ruth Laidmets 11 .The publications in the Swedish language that have been published in Estonia have been listed in the bibliography compiled by Kaisa Saarts as part of her Bachelor's work 12 .
Research on the publishing activities in minority languages in the Republic of Estonia since 1991 is only beginning.The existing research work concentrates on the activities of the Russian minority.One of the first studies on the Russianlan guage book production is the Bachelor's work by Relika Meriloo, treating the years 1991-1996 13 .The article by Aile Möldre 14 analyzes the composition and publish ers of Russianlanguage books issued in Estonia in 1991-2005.The distribution of Russianlanguage books was studied in the Master's thesis by Triin Raavel 15 , dealing both with the network of bookshops and libraries mediating books in the Russian language.The research on the publishing activities in other minority lan guages is practically missing.

MINORITY LANGUAGES IN THE BOOK PRODUCTION IN 1918-1940
Estonia became an independent state in 1918.During the preWorld War II years, Estonians formed 88.1% of the entire population.The rest was made up mainly of five minority nations, each having over 3000 people.The biggest mi nority groups were the Russians (8.2% or 92 656 people according to the 1934 cen sus), Germans (1.5%, 16 346 people) and Swedes (0.68%, 7641 people), whereas Latvians and Jews made up less than 0.5% 16 .
A significant landmark in the Estonian ethnic policy of that time was the Cul tural Autonomy of Ethnic Minorities Act, passed in 1925.On this basis, the Ger man and Jewish minorities established their cultural selfgovernments, the duties of which included management and supervision of public and private educational institutions of the national minority, issues of culture, sports and guidance for young people.The phenomenon was exceptional in Europe and earned a great deal of international acclaim.The Russians and Swedes were satisfied with protection based on traditions, the Constitution and local governments.The majority of these ethnic groups were peasants and artisans, who were not especially active in politics and social life, so they did not establish their cultural selfgovernments.For the Russian community, the same role was, to a certain extent, played by the Union of Russian Educational and Charitable Societies founded in 1923 17 .The favourable attitude towards the minorities started to change in the second half of the 1930s, which was reflected, for example, in the pressure for wider use of the Estonian language in the minority schools, the compulsion to register a child from a mixed marriage as an Estonian if the father was Estonian, etc 18 .
Book publishing had a successful launch during the first years of independence favoured by the needs of an independent state for a wide range of printed mat ter.The number of publishing houses increased rapidly, reaching 53 publishers in 1924.The world economic crisis of 1929 had a notable negative impact on the whole book industry, leading to the bankruptcies of numerous publishing firms.However, by the middle of the 1930s, the situation had improved and there were already 75 publishing houses in Estonia in 1939.The annual book title production also demonstrates considerable growth, increasing from 658 titles in Estonian in 1920 to 1660 titles in Estonian in 1939.It is noteworthy that the crisis primar ily led to the decline of the print run of books, whereas there was only a minor decrease in the output of titles as the publishers attempted to attract the pub lic with new and diverse content.Estonianlanguage belleslettres was printed in thousands of copies in the beginning of the 1920s, ten years later the print run of original prose decreased to 500-750 and for poetry this number was even smaller.The print run of textbooks was reduced to 1500-2000 copies, whereas the usual edition size had been 4000-5000 copies.Total title output of books in the Esto nian language in 1918-1939 was 23 534 titles 19 .
According to the data of the Estonian National Bibliography database, 1034 ti tles of books and brochures (partly or entirely) in the Russian language were published in Estonia in 1918-1939, whereas the number of titles in the German language is 1655.The production of books in other minority languages remained under one hundred titles.The presence of the Latvian language in the publications published in Estonia is limited to parallel texts in concert programmes, advertising publications and other applied materials.
The Baltic Germans, the former ruling class, had lost its privileges and land.They had turned into a minority, although the most influential minority in the Re public of Estonia.Their role in economy, finance, social life, science and culture was far greater than their proportion in the population.According to the 1934 census, the Germans formed more than one fifth of all the intellectuals of Estonia 20 .
The position of this minority is also reflected in the large number of various publications of applied literature (timetables, programmes, catalogues, instruc tions, advertising materials, etc.) issued with parallel texts in Estonian, German and often also in the Russian language (the socalled three local languages).
The highly organized Germans established numerous societies and other or ganisations.One hundred twenty eight societies belonged to the Union of Ger man Societies (Verband Deutscher Vereine in Estland) in 1939 21 .Most of these bod ies compiled different publications that reflected their activities -statutes, annual reports, albums, programmes of concerts, exhibitions and sports events.
Many German learned societies that had been established already during the 18 th and the 19 th centuries continued their activities in the Republic of Estonia.Among them was, for example, the Livonian Public Welfare and Economic Soci ety (Livländische Gemeinnützige und Ökonomische Sozietät), an agricultural society established in 1792.In 1929, botanist Edmund Spohr founded the Institute of Scholarly Research of Homeland (Institut für Heimatforschung) that operated by the abovementioned society in Tartu 22 .The institute occupied the central place in the scientific activities of the Baltic German scholars between the two world wars and compiled its serial publication "Abhandlungen des Instituts für wissenschaftliche Heimatforschung an der Livländischen Gemeinnützigen und Ökonomischen Sozi etät" (1936-1939).Several societies concentrated on historical research.Among them was the Estonian Literature Society (Ehstländische Literärische Gesellschaft) established in Tallinn in 1842 and known for publishing the serial "Beiträge zur Kunde Ehst, Liv und Kurlands" (1868-1939).The Pärnu Society of Historical Re search (Pernauer Alterthumforschende Gesellschaft) in its turn published the serial "Sitzungsberichte der Pernauer Altertumforschenden Gesellschaft" (1899-1939).
The BalticGerman Naturalists' Society, which had been associated with the University of Tartu since 1878 (Naturforscher-Gesellschaft bei der Universität Dorpat), became the leading centre of research in natural sciences in Estonia, joining both the German and Estonian scholars.Estonian scientists took over the man agement of the society in 1923, but its publications continued to be published in the German language 23 .The situation was similar in the Learned Estonian So ciety (Gelehrte Estnische Gesellschaft) which was managed by the Estonian scholars since the beginning of the 1930s.The proceedings of the society under the title "Ver handlungen der Gelehrten Estnischen Gesellschaft" (1840-1943) were published in the German language 24 .Thus it was not only the Baltic German scientists who wrote their works in German, but also Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian and other scholars, who worked at the University of Tartu or other academic institutions.For example, 32% of the doctoral theses that were maintained by the lecturers of the university had been written in German 25 .German was the prerequisite language for scientists, especially in Central and Eastern Europe at that time and it was a natural choice for the scholars who were willing to distribute their ideas to a wider audience.Consequently this part of the Germanlanguage book production is not, in entirety, connected only with the existence of a Germanlanguage minority, but is due to the fact that the German language had become the lingua franca of the science community.
Scholarly publications form a large proportion of the books published in the German language -312 titles of books and brochures, that is, 19% of the total book title production in German in 1918-1939.It is also worth mentioning that numer ous articles and reports previously published in the scholarly periodicals were issued as offprints.Their large number -626 titles in 1918-1939 -further demonstrates the vigor of the academic life of Estonia and the role of the German language in it.
The main concern of the German cultural selfgovernment was to preserve and develop the Germanlanguage education and this aim was successfully achieved.There were 32 German public and private schools in Estonia in 1939 26 .The For eign Office of Germany started to support these schools already from 1920 by sending books and other learning resources.However, these textbooks did not correspond to the local study programmes.The use of local textbooks was also favoured by the Estonian Ministry of Education 27 .Thus the Education Board (Schulamt) of the German selfgovernment initiated and subsidized the publishing of Germanlanguage textbooks in Estonia.The success of these endeavors, however, was rather limited -according to the national bibliography database, only ten textbooks were issued in 1918-1939.
Publishing of Germanlanguage belleslettres was also rather modest, amount ing to 146 book titles (9% of all the titles in German) in 1918-1939.A notable pro portion of these books -48 titles -were special editions for the Estonianlanguage schools published in the series of literature in foreign languages by the publish ing house Loodus (Nature) in 1924-1939.Loodus was the largest publishing house in prewar Estonia, situated in Tartu.There were also other similar series, for ex ample, "Uuemad Saksa kirjanikud koolidele" (New German Writers for Schools) published in 1921-1936 by three different publishers, mainly by Tallinna Eesti Kirjastus-Ühisus (Estonian Publishing Society in Tallinn) (17 titles).
As a result of the departure of many wellknown German authors to Germany after 1918, the range of the Baltic German writers decreased in Estonia.At the same time, the unitary Baltic German literary field continued to exist, regardless of the emergence of the republics of Estonia and Latvia.It was widespread that the Baltic German writers who lived in Estonia published their works in Riga or the authors who lived in Latvia preferred a publishing house in Tallinn 28 .The au thors who had moved to Germany were also acknowledged as bearers of the Baltic identity 29 .On the other hand, it was the ambition of the Baltic German authors to publish their works in Germany and thus their best creations were often sent there.For example, the collection of poems "Im Wandel der Zeiten" by one of the most wellknown Baltic German poet who lived in Estonia, Christoph Mickwitz, was published in Dresden in 1922 30 .Poetry dominated among the belleslettres published in the German language in Estonia, but the literary level of these publi cations was rather modest.
Among the wide range of different institutions which published some titles of Germanlanguage books there were a couple of publishing houses specializing in the Germanlanguage production in Estonia.Kluge und Ströhm and its affiliate com pany Wassermann were the leading publishers in Tallinn.The firm Kluge & Ströhm had operated under this name since 1848 31 , combining bookselling and publishing.Works on history and culture of the Baltic provinces, textbooks as well as theologi cal books had been the core production of the publishing house for decades.These types also dominated the production in 1918-1939.The majority of books were published under the imprint Wassermann (49 titles), 24 titles were published by Kluge & Ströhm.The new social context widened the publishing activities and led to the publications like, for example, the German literary history for the Estonian secondary schools in three volumes "Kurzgefasste deutsche Literaturgeschichte für estnische Mittelschulen", published by Wassermann in the German language in 1922 (reprints in 1924-1925).
The most productive publisher in Tartu was Krüger's bookshop and publishing house.The firm had been established in 1892 by Johann Krüger.It operated as a private limited company in the prewar Republic of Estonia as of 1926 32 .The firm issued scholarly works and belleslettres, including a shortlived series "Estnische Reihe" (Estonian Series) of the translations of Estonian authors, which consists of only three titles, all translated by Friedrich Schwarz and published in 1935-1936.
The Russian population of Estonia increased after 1918 as the Revolution and civil war in Russia brought about a new wave of immigration, including people from the Judenitch Army and refugees.During the 1920s and 1930s, the Russian community in Estonia tried to maintain their culture and identity.This was made easier by the social composition of the refugees that contained a large number of intellectuals.The majority of Russians, however, lived in the countryside and were relatively poor 33 .
The Russianlanguage publishing, especially publication of periodicals, was flourishing.Nearly 200 titles of various periodicals were published during these 22 years 34 .The Russianlanguage book production included 1034 titles published by 218 publishers.A notable proportion (44%) of title production belongs to ap plied publications by numerous societies, organizations, public institutions and private firms 35 .The number of actual publishing houses which published Russian language books and brochures was 63, whereas many of them only operated for a short period and published one or two titles.The Russianlanguage publishing also stands out with a relatively high proportion of selfpublishers (56 persons or 26% of all the publishers), who mostly published their own works.
Compared to the Germanlanguage publishing, belleslettres occupied a slightly larger proportion of the titles (138 titles, 13%), although the preference of poetry is characteristic of them both.But unlike belleslettres in the German language, there were only a few special publications of the Russian literature for Estonian schools in the Russian language.
There were several special Russianlanguage publishers, for example, Библиофил (Bibliophile, 1921-1923  36 .This body helped Estonians to repatriate from the Soviet Union after the conclusion of the Tartu Peace Treaty in 1920.Org managed to buy manuscripts from many Petrograd writers very cheaply.He published the works by Aleksey Remizov, Fy odor Sologub, Nikolay Gumilyov and others, which aroused attention among the Russian émigré circles outside Estonia 37 .The production of Русская Книга was also largely oriented towards the foreign market.The publishing house was established by Sergei Zarkevich by the eponymous bookshop.The latter was run by his stepfa ther Aleksei Bayov until 1935 (when Bayov died).Bayov was a leader of the White Guards in Estonia and coordinated the activities of many Russian organisations 38 .Zarkevich published both local Russian authors as well as the works by Russian emigrant writers who lived in other European countries (e.g.Mikhail Ossorgin, Antonin Ladinski).This was due to a lower cost of publishing in Estonia 39 .On the other hand, the distribution of the local Russianlanguage publications outside Estonia provided a broader market that was vital to the economic survival of the publishers.The majority of the publishers who published books in the Russian language, however, were more focused on the local readers and often unable to develop a longterm business.
Compared to the Germanlanguage book production published in Estonia, a rather large number of textbooks were published in Russian (67 titles, 6.5%).Russian was used as the language of instruction in nearly one hundred primary schools, in public and private gymnasiums as well as in various courses 40 .The text books published in Soviet Russia were ideologically unsuitable for the schools of a new democratic state.Thus, local textbooks were published on a wide range of subjects, some of them translated from the Estonian language.These books were published by both Russian and Estonianlanguage publishing houses.A signifi cant role belonged to the Central Union of Russian Teachers in Estonia (Русский Центральный Учительский Союз в Эстонии) who regularly published textbooks as well as books on pedagogics (12 titles in all).
The Orthodox Church played an important role in uniting the Russian com munity in Estonia.Its most prominent centres were PskovoPechersky Monastery and Pühtitsa Convent.This was reflected in a large proportion of religious publica tions in the Russianlanguage book production (117 titles, 11%).
Book production in the Swedish language in 1918-1940 was rather small, lim ited to 97 titles according to the national bibliography database 41 .A half (50.5%) of these publications were addressed to tourists and offered information on the sights worth visiting in Estonia.These books and brochures were published by in stitutions like the Central Bureau of Tourism or municipalities.
The Swedish community who lived quite densely on the coastal areas and on the islands was united into a political organisation Det Svenska Folkförbundet (Swedish Popular Union).The political and cultural life concentrated around its magazine "Kustbon" (Coast Dweller, 1918-1940).A very important role belonged to the ed ucational society Svenska Odlingens Vänner (Friends of Swedish Education).There were 20 Swedishlanguage primary schools in Estonia in the 1930s, a private gym nasium in Haapsalu, Agricultural and Public University in Pürksi 42 .Textbooks for these schools were mainly imported from Sweden and Finland 43 .Thus the situation was similar to the usage of Germanlanguage textbooks imported from Germany.However, some of the textbooks published in Stockholm were written specially for Swedishlanguage schools in Estonia.The contribution of Estonian publishers was largely limited to publishing of textbooks for the study of the Estonian language.The first textbook of Estonian for Swedish schools was compiled by Anatol Spuhl and published by M. Tamverk already in 1920.
In addition to book titles, the national bibliography database registers offprints of scholarly texts in the Swedish language (38 titles).The scientific activities of the Swedish community became livelier in the 1930s.Professorship of the Swedish lan guage was created in the University of Tartu in 1930.This position, occupied by Per Wieselgren, was financed by the Swedish state 44 .The EstonianSwedish Academic Society by the University of Tartu (Svensk-estniska samfundet vid Tartu Universitet) was established in 1932 45 .The majority of the articles that were published as off prints were first issued in the yearbook of this society "SvioEstonica".Among the authors of the research works were Swedish (Per Wieselgren, Sten Karling) as well as Estonian (Voldemar Miller, Hendrik Sepp, Erna Ariste, etc) scholars.
The Jewish community, although small in number, was actively involved in the economy, culture and politics of the country.The Jews were rather active socially and established various clubs, societies and associations.There were 32 Jewish organizations in Estonia in 1939 46 .The Jewish Cultural Council was elected and Jewish cultural autonomy declared in 1926 47 .
A language struggle divided the community during the 1920s-1930s when the Jewish Cultural Council and larger Jewish organisations, dominated mostly by He braists, wanted to introduce biblical Hebrew as the language of instruction in the Jewish schools, even though the majority of Estonian Jewish population used Yid dish 48 .Thus, the three Jewish schools that were situated in Valga, Tartu and Tallinn offered tuition mainly in Hebrew 49 .
The publications registered in the national bibliography database are predomi nantly in Yiddish.The publishing activities of the Jewish community concentrated on periodicals.The database includes 26 periodical publications, many of which were issued only for a very short time.The author of the Jewish bibliography Nos son Genss admits that interest in these publications was low 50 .The books and bro chures written entirely or partly in Yiddish (11 titles) or in Hebrew (6) were mostly published by various societies, reflecting the life of the community.
The Academic Society of Jewish History and Literature (Akademischer Verein für Jüdische Geschichte und Literatur) published the history of Jews in Estonia by Kopl Jokton with parallel texts in Estonian and Yiddish in 1927.The academic re search of Jewish topics acquired new perspectives with the opening of the Judaica chair in the University of Tartu in 1933 51 .Professor of this chair Lazar Gulkowitsch wrote his works in the German language.Many of his articles were published in the proceedings of this research unit Acta Seminarii Litterarum Judaearum Universitatis Tartuensis.The Jewish authors published their works in the Russian and Es tonian languages as well.
The publications of belleslettres were limited to a oneact comedy by L. Disent shik published in Hebrew in Tartu in 1924.At the same time the abovementioned bibliography by Nosson Genss includes numerous unpublished texts -manuscript chronicles and diaries, school almanacs as well as periodicals multiplied by hecto graph.Thus, the written heritage of the community exceeded the rather limited number of published material.A wider publishing activity was hindered by the small number of the Jewish community in Estonia, unable to financially sustain regular publication of various periodicals or books.On the other hand, as it was mentioned above, the Jewish authors expressed themselves in other languages than Hebrew or Yiddish.

PUBLISHING IN RUSSIAN AND OTHER MINORITY LANGUAGES SINCE 1991
Similarly to the surge of publishing, after Estonia became an inde pendent state in 1918, there was a rapid increase in the number of publishing bod ies after the restoration of independence in 1991.There were 435 publishers in Estonia in 1992 52 , and during the last decade the number has exceeded 800 53 .The majority of these publishers are various institutions, societies, schools, etc, issu ing only a small number of titles annually.There are about 50 publishing houses issuing the larger part of all the titles.The total annual title production in the 2010s increased from 3716 titles in 2010 to 4460 titles in 2014.The proportion of the Estonianlanguage production amounts to 79% of all the titles 54 .The average printrun has been around 1200 copies during the 2010s 55 .
Similarly to the prewar Republic of Estonia, National Minorities Cultural Au tonomy Act was passed in 1993.The Ingrians and Estonian Swedes have organized themselves according to this Act, which gives ethnic cultural minorities a legal sta tus for direct relationships with the state and also the right to apply for support from the state budget 59 .
As Russians are the largest minority, it is only natural that the largest propor tion of publications published in minority languages is in Russian.Of course, the majority of the Russianlanguage books on sale in Estonian bookshops are import ed from Russia, but books in Russian are also produced in Estonia.The publications in the Russian language have formed about 8% of the annual title production dur ing the years 2010-2014 (ranging from 250 titles in 2010 to 448 titles in 2012).
The Russianlanguage book production is diverse in content and includes all types of literature.Scholarly publications and belleslettres are represented with the largest number of titles.The University of Tartu has long traditions in Slavic philology and issues various scholarly series and doctoral theses as does Tallinn University.Belleslettres has steadily formed about 11-12% of all the Russianlanguage publications since the 1990s.A large proportion of poetry and selfpublished (paper) books was the characteristic feature of the 1990s and 2000s.During the last fourfive years, the trend has changed -younger au thors are moving to the web where special literary portals like Oblaka.ee(Clouds, 2013) have been established.This site also serves as a platform for the publish ing house Kite (established in 2006).Both the publishing house and portal were initiated by the poet and translator Igor Kotjuh.Kite publishes books in Russian and Estonian.According to Kotjuh, there are about 50 Russianspeaking writ ers in Estonia.Kotjuh argues that local Russian authors are also willing to have their works translated into Estonian as the Estonianlanguage readers and crit ics know them even better than the Russianspeaking audience 60 .Besides these translations, the production of Kite also includes the translations of Estonian authors to the Russian language.
A special focus on publishing of the translations of Estonian literature has also been placed by the established Russianlanguage publishing houses Aleksandra and KPD as well as the cultural centre Vene Entsüklopeedia (Russian Encyclopaedia) which have been active since the 1990s.The translations of Estonian literature formed 29% of all the publications of Russianlanguage belleslettres issued in 2010-2014.In children's literature their percentage is even larger, reaching 68%.Thus, all these publishers have taken steps to foster cultural dialogue and integration.The publishers argue that publishing of books in the Russian language is a mis sion rather than business and refer to financial issues 61 .Indeed, all publishers com pete for grants from the Ministry of Culture and Cultural Endowment of Estonia on similar conditions.The grants to the Russianlanguage publishers often support translations of Estonian literature to Russian.For example, the publishing house KPD has annually received grants for translation and publication of 5-7 titles of Estonian literature from the Cultural Endowment of Estonia in 2011-2015 62 .Sup port for publishing cultural magazines in Russian and for translating Estonian children's and youth literature into Russian has been allocated from special pro grammes.For example, the support of the programme "Advancement of common sphere of information through cultural activities, translation of literature into foreign languages" (2008-2013) was used for translating and publishing Estonian children's books as ebooks that can be freely downloaded 63 .
A notable proportion of publications (20-25% of all the titles in Russian in 2010-2014) are textbooks for Russianlanguage schools.Publishing of textbooks has been influenced by the transition to the Estonianlanguage instruction that started in 2007.As elementary schools continue to use the Russian language as the first language of instruction, the upper secondary schools have moved to the model of 60% of instruction in Estonian and 40% in Russian since 2012 and pri marily use Estonianlanguage textbooks and linguistically adapted teaching mate rials.Thus textbooks in Russian are now mainly published for elementary schools.
Compared to Estonians, the Russianlanguage population had been more active in reading and bookbuying in the beginning of the 2000s 64 .Research carried out in 2011 demonstrated that by this time the reading activity of both groups had decreased and reached the same level (for example, 24-25% read belleslettres regularly) 65 .However, according to the observations of booksellers, the Russianspeaking buyers are still more interested in belleslettres, especially fantasy and detective stories 67 .At the same time, the percentage of people who do not buy books has increased notably among Russianspeaking population (from 15% in 2002-2003 to 49% in 2014) 68 .This is due to several factors, including high prices of books and a relatively weak purchasing power of the local Russianspeaking population.Re search demonstrates that Russianlanguage readers are more receptive to ebooks than Estonians (8% of frequent users compared to 2% of Estonians in 2011) 69 .The Russian web offers a wide range of literature, both for sale and for free.Rus sianlanguage ebook production started in Estonia in 2011, with publications of numerous classical works of Russian belleslettres published by the aggregator of ebooks Estonian Digital Book Centre and has continued with the epublications of modern authors.
The Estonian Government has supported the nonRussian ethnic groups in preserving their ethnic peculiarities, bearing in mind, first of all, Russianspeaking ethnic minorities of Estonia -Ukrainians and Belarusians -who were largely Rus sified during the Soviet time.There are numerous cultural societies organized by these ethnic groups in Estonia at present.However, for many nonRussian NGOs, Russian remains the widely used working language 70 .It was quite widespread dur ing the Soviet period that many nonRussians did not speak the language of the ethnic group they were affiliated with 71 .According to the census of 2011, only 36% of Ukrainians living in Estonia considered Ukrainian their mother tongue and among Belarusians the corresponding percentage was 13% 72 .These indicators have decreased since the census of 2000.Research on this issue has suggested a policy failure in preserving ethnic peculiarities of nonRussian minorities and brings out their projectbased support mechanism as one of its causes 73 .
In this situation it is to be expected that only a few books in Ukrainian and Belarusian languages have been published in Estonia (respectively 8 and 4 titles in 1991-2014).Over the years, there have been some authors who have chosen to publish their poems or stories as paper books in Estonia.Among them is, for example, the Belarusian author Aliaksei Nareika who has published his fantasy novels in Belarusian, Ukrainian, Russian and other languages.
More books have been recently published in Finnish, approximately 33 titles annually during the last five years.Finns residing in Estonia can be divided into two groups -Ingrian Finns who migrated to Estonia during the Soviet period and the Finns who have moved here during the last two decades.The existence of these two groups is reflected in the print production which includes, on the one hand, collections published by the Ingrian societies and, on the other hand, publications by the Society of the Tartu Finnish Medical Students.These kinds of publica tions, however, form only a small part of Finnishlanguage publications.Scholarly publications as well as books for tourists represent the largest proportion of the Finnishlanguage production.With regard to publishing of Estonian belleslettres in the Finnish language, the publishing house NyNorden stands out.As its name suggests, the programme of the publishing house is to bring Nordic literature to Estonian readers and modern Estonian literature to Nordic readers.The company aims at a high standard of translations and tasteful design.
According to the national bibliography database, the Swedish language was represented in the book production of 2010-2014 with 59 titles, among which 23 titles included only Swedish and the rest were publications with parallel texts or partly in Swedish, addressed mainly to tourists or for studying the Swedish lan guage.Among the Swedishlanguage publications there are scholarly works as well as books by the international multilingual publishing house United Press Global having roots in Finland and headquarters in Tallinn.There are only a few publica tions that have been prepared and issued by the local Swedish community.Among these are a couple of books on history by the Swedish St Michael's Church.
Nowadays it is only natural that current information on the activities, news and events of cultural societies is published on the web.Apart from the webpages of different societies and organizations, information on and for minorities is ag gregated to the portal Etnoweb, established in 2010 with the support from the Ministry of Culture.It is based on the concept of citizen journalism; members of more than 300 organisations post to the portal sharing information.

Conclusions
The Estonian minority policy has created a favourable legal and po litical context for the preservation of the culture and identity of different ethnic minorities who have lived and live in Estonia.The National Minorities Cultural Au tonomy Act has enabled the minorities to establish the cultural selfgovernment during the first period of independence in 1918-1940 as well as after the restora tion of independence in 1991.
The scope and range of the cultural activity of different ethnic minorities de pended, firstly, on their size, but also on the social composition and economic con ditions of the ethnic groups.The largest minority groups in Estonia in 1918-1940, Russians and Germans, thus had a certain basis for the development of publishing, including the existence of special publishing houses, although the small market led to a tight budget of these firms.The ability and willingness of the titular states to support the education system and cultural life also had an impact on the success of the cultural endeavours of different minorities.The concrete forms of such sup port influenced the composition of book production in Estonia.For example, The German and Swedish schools in Estonia received textbooks from Germany and Sweden, limiting the publishing of textbooks in these languages in 1918-1940.
The situation was similar in Latvia, where Russians formed 12% of the popula tion (233 366 people) in 1930 74 and the number of Germans in 1925 was 70 964 people 75 , exceeding the corresponding minority groups in Estonia several times.Still, the Russianlanguage book production of Latvia of that period was 865 titles (or 1200 titles according to other estimates) 76 , that is comparable to the volume of Russianlanguage book production in Estonia, suggesting the vigour and activ ity of the minority organizations and publishers who acted here.The varied book production reflecting and fostering the political, cultural, scholarly and religious activities of the Russian and German communities contributed to the preservation of their national identity.In comparison to Estonia, the Jewish community was much larger in Latvia, where it numbered 95 675 people or 5.2% of the total popu lation in 1925 77 , enabling a much wider production of Yiddish and Hebrew publi cations, including books.In Estonia, the Jewish publishing was mainly limited to periodicals that also characterized the situation in the publishing activities of the Swedish community.At that time, periodicals were irreplaceable for informing the members of an ethnic minority about the issues relevant to their life and activities, about the news and events of the community.
In today's world people from ethnic minorities can easily access information in their mother tongue via the Internet.A creative person searching for a channel to express one's ideas or to publish one's creation has no obstacles.Authors can publish their works on the web, have their books published either on paper or as ebooks in the country of their origin.
; 15 titles) and later Русская Книга (Russian Book, 1934-1939; 20 titles) in Tallinn.Both of them published notable Russian authors.Библиофил was established by Albert Org, who had graduated from the St. Pe tersburg Polytechnic Institute.He acted as the chairman of the Petrograd Repa triation Control Board until his own repatriation in the summer of 1921