Arnold Rüütel, 1928-2024

Arnold Rüütel died in Tallinn on the last day of 2024. He was President of Estonia from 2001 to 2006.

Before the Soviet Union broke up, he held a number of official positions in the government of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic: head of several agricultural schools in the university system, rector of the Estonian Academy of Agriculture, and the last chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR. (Wikipedia)

In that last position, he was involved in talks with Moscow relating to Estonia’s legislative moves toward independence. In at least one of his trips to Moscow, it was not at all clear that he would not be detained and thrown in prison. He stood up for Estonia’s independence.

During his time as President, Estonia joined both NATO and the EU.

Rüütel served both in the Soviet Republic of Estonia and in the free Estonian Republic. I have never read a biographical explanation of what appears to have been a change of heart. Paul Goble, who was in the United States State Department during the breakup of the Soviet Union, considers Rüütel the George Washington of Estonia.

Many Estonians, especially in the emigration, could never forgive him for statements issued in his name attacking them and defending the Soviet Union; while many others, never forgave him for his role in ending the occupation of Estonia and leading his country into NATO and the European Union.

That divide has prevented many from seeing him as a man in full.  But that is changing and I believe will continue to change.  Almost a decade ago, I was asked to write a comment about his life for a book Peeter Ernits put together (Viimane Rüütel (Tallinn, 2017). I entitled my submission “A Washington for Estonia.”

In it, I pointed out that it typically takes three kinds of people to make a successful national revolution, the philosophers who explain why it is necessary, the firebrands who lead the people to make it possible, and the members of the ancien regime who recognize the justice of the pursuit of revolutionary goals and make their institutionalization possible.

It’s easy to be cynical and argue that Rüütel was an opportunist, but those trips to Moscow to argue for the actions of his government in Estonia required more than opportunism.

I’ve found the stories of how people dealt with the change from rule by the Soviet Union to a free nation fascinating. I interviewed Rüütel and others in the early 2000s in hopes of writing a book, but that didn’t work out for a number of reasons. He gave me the Estonian version of the book pictured above. It’s basically a campaign biography, as you might infer from the cover photo. A large photo gallery is in the Russian edition of Postimees.

How people deal with an authoritarian regime and what they can contribute to a succeeding regime is likely to be a conversation we’ll have in the US after Trump. It’s worth thinking about now.

Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner