E IS FOR EESTI
Eesti is Estonian for Estonian.
It wasn't always the case. The earliest recorded name the people from this part of the world gave themselves (their endonym) was maarahvas, the people of the land.
Throughout the week, I kept a running tally of things that seemed or were declared to be Estonian as a way to find a kind of Estonian quintessence.
The list included things like the potatoes we got with every meal, the incredible black sweet rye bread from the island of Muhu, saunas, technology, curative mud, swimming in the Baltic, boats, ice roads, the various bits and pieces of handicrafts you find in the Hää Eesti Asi, like the wooden butter knives we all brought home, Lutheranism, deep paranoia about what the Russians are up to, retreats to the forests, retreats to the islands.
That kind of thing.
It all seems hopelessly inadequate.
Although this is the fifth article in the alphabetic sequence, its the final piece I've written - and the hardest - and I'm no closer to defining what is or isn't quintessentially Estonian. A week's intensive immersion followed by two weeks' reflection is still no time at all in the life of a nation.
There's a phrase that got trotted out a lot in the Scottish independence referendum, attributed to our Greatest Living Writer™, Alasdair Gray:
Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.
That's Estonia. This is what Estonians are doing. This is the essence of Estonia in 2019.