Doctoral defence: Toivo Kikkas "Motivation of Estonian soldiers in the National Army of Estonia and in the Estonian national units of the Red Army 1918–1920"

On 21 January at 16:15 Toivo Kikkas will defend his doctoral thesis "Motivation of Estonian soldiers in the National Army of Estonia and in the Estonian national units of the Red Army 1918–1920".

Supervisors:
Professor Aigi Rahi-Tamm, University of Tartu
Associate Professor Ago Pajur, University of Tartu

Opponent:
Senior Researcher Peeter Kaasik, Estonian Institute of Historical Memory

Summary
Anyone who has read or heard anything about the War of Independence will have an idea of the struggle of Estonians to gain independence from both Russian and German influence. The phrase 'the spirit of the War of Independence' is widely used, and although the meaning behind this phrase can be understood as an unprecedented unity and surge of patriotism among Estonians, the motives of those who took part in the struggle have so far received little attention. In my doctoral thesis, I set out to offer further interpretations of the motives of the soldiers and the factors that influenced them, by comparing Estonians who served in the Red Army with the soldiers of the National Army. I focused on institutional, group and individual motives. In the run-up to the War of Independence, the Russian Empire used a combination of military censorship and surveillance to exercise extensive political control. It also tried to shape the motivation of the soldiers through propaganda and penal policies. In my work, I wanted to find out how these factors changed the attitude of soldiers in the Soviet Russian Red Army and the Estonian National Army between 1918 and 1920. I came to the conclusion that the possibilities to influence or shape the motivation of soldiers through institutional motives were limited in wartime conditions. When examining the activities of the field courts martial that implemented penal policy in Estonia, it became clear that coercion by the state was not the main factor in motivating soldiers to fight. The decisive factor in the motivation of soldiers to join the National Army or the Red Army and to participate in combat was the understanding of the aims of combat, which was more clearly expressed in individual and group-based motives. Nationalism, the fight for the homeland and the hope of resolving the land question, as well as the defence of the homeland with the desire to avenge the Bolsheviks, motivated the nearly 75 000 fighters in the National Army. Examples of school student fighters and volunteer units also showed that they were motivated by social networking, a widespread phenomenon. Economic hardship had a demotivating effect. The up to 10 000 Estonians who fought in the ranks of the Red Army were mainly motivated by Bolshivism. To sum up, although the majority of Estonian men were in a forced situation due to the mobilisation of the National Army, they were inspired by the environment with a native langugage and a native spirit, in whose ranks the Estonian soldiers did not suffer heavy losses, and where there were numerous volunteers.