Rare Breeds of the world by Agnes Buchwald
ESTONIAN HOUND (Gontchaja Estonskaja) – ESTONIA
E
STONIA? First of all, when was Estonia last mentioned in the news, or in a conversation or in any way? If anyone follows the international news one has certainly missed any comments about the country but I am almost sure that we all did because it rarely happens. After Abyssinia, I was searching for another not so much, or better; almost never spoken about country. So I went on a hunting trip to discover (for me - until today) this unique country. Where is it? Who are the people and how do they live, do they have a local dog breed? Well my friends, at the end of this trip I felt like having peeled several layers of paper from a gift package and encountered a precious jewel - Estonia - a marvelous country inhabited with cultured, wonderful people and an indigenous dog. The Republic of Estonia (Eesti Vabariik), is located at the Baltic Region of Northern Europe bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia. The territory covers 45,227 km2 (17,462 sq mi), with a population of 1.29 million. Estonians are related to Finnish people, and the official Estonian language is also related to Finnish. Estonians consider themselves to be a Scandinavian rather than a Baltic people. The country is a democratic parliamentary republic, and its capital and largest city is Tallin. Estonia is listed as a “high-income”, and as an “advanced economy” by the International Monetary Fund. The United Nations classifies Estonia as a very high Human Development Index, and the country is recognized by its press, economic, political, and educational freedom. The first thing have learned about Estonia was the Pulli settlement, located on the right bank of the Parnu River. This is the oldest known human settlement in Estonia. According to radiocarbon dating, Pulli was settled at the beginning of the 9th millennium BC. A dog tooth found at the Pulli settlement is the first evidence for the existence of the domesticated dog in the territory of Estonia. After the ice-age (9000 B.C) Estonian ancestors settled along the Baltic coast. Between 800-1200 A.D. raids and counter-raids by the neighboring Vikings around the Baltic Sea were common, and those hordes included Estonian Viking warriors as well. Those hordes were well known for their cruelty and violence. The Baltic was a rough neighborhood in the mid-Middle ages, not really interesting to the rest of the continent. The written record about Estonia as a part of the Christian Europe began to be noticed, and at the 13th century Estonia was a part of Livonia ruled by Livonian knights. Until the 13th Century Estonia was an independent nation, but from then on it has been subjected to Denmark, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and finally Russian rule, whose victory in 1721 resulted in a “Peace Treaty” which made Russia dominant over Estonia. The country has a long and turbulent history since the Viking 46 Dog News
era, but after all those invasions today’s Estonia emerged as a proud independent country member of the EU and NATO always aiming for progress, and culture. During World War II, between 1939 and 1945, Estonia’s direct human losses reached 180,000 residents (17% of its total population). During the Nazi occupation from 1941 to 1944, 7,800 citizens of the Republic of Estonia were executed in Nazi prison camps. Soviet authorities conducted mass deportations from 1940 through 1956. In total, an estimated 60,000 Estonians were murdered or deported by the Soviet Union. Another 70,000 fled to the West (from Estonia’s History). I must mention a fact that will give us a better picture about the character of this courageous people. It is the Singing Revolution which occurred during the last years of the 1980’s. This was a non-violent act because the singing was used in the protests of the mid-1980’s. In 1947 during the first song festival held after the Soviet occupation the composer Gustav Ernesaks wrote a melody to the lyrics of a century-old national poem “Mu isamaa on minu arm” (“Land of My Fathers, Land That I Love”). This song miraculously slipped by the Continued on page 106