I’m almost done reading through the thread and seen Estonia mentioned a couple of times. I figured I’d share some of my theories on the matter. They are not strictly „Silent World communities“ but this thread seems the most suitable for writing them down.
I do not think that western Estonian islands would stand ANY chance against the illness, contrary to what someone suggested 40 pages ago or so. Hiiumaa and Oesel/Saaremaa are very well connected to the mainland, with regular ferries carrying passengers over the sea. Kaali meteor lake and Kuressaare castle are popular tourist locations. At some winters you can drive a car there across the ice. There’s also a sizeable population of boars, foxes and elks living there, who’ll all be suspectible to the illness. All of that together creates an area with NO natural barriers, LOTS of international traffic for the illness to get there before day 0 and LOTS of boar-beasts as well as anything that feels like swimming/walking over from the mainland for a snack.
At best I can imagine a family of immune survivors hanging on for a year or so, living on birds, mushrooms, burgundy snails, fish, apples and so forth before pooling into a raft and trying their luck at reaching Sweden.
However it is confirmed that estonian language has not gone extinct yet. According to page 66 the finnish population is about 10500 in total. Comparing the leaf sizes of Finland and Estonia on page 196 I’d say that the amount of living estonian-speakers on Y90 is 500 AT BEST, but likely much less (200? 150? 100!?).
I reckon that most of said estonians would be the descendants of estonian-finnish immigrants living in Helsinki, but I could be wrong in that thought. It is relatively easy to get from Estonia to Finland with a ship or a boat so I can imagine refugees from Tallinn and other coastal areas flooding northwards. Now where are those estonians by year 90?
Someone a couple dozen pages ago raised a pretty valid point, pointing out that the island of Gogland in the Gulf of Finland has been cleansed if one zooms in on the map hard enough. I agree with them in that Gogland would be a great confender for an estonian residence, but I doubt that they’d have lived there since Y0. Instead I propose that the surviving estonian populations have taken residence on one or more of the islands of Saimaa. The area is sparsely populated enough for a group of survivors to band together and retain their culture through the following generations, yet civilized enough for trading, gaining aid and intermarrying with finns. In fact I reckon all the surviving estonian-speakers are at least a half-finnish by now. It might be more accurate to call them „estofinns“.
It’s certain that Gogland was ravaged by The Rash and since there’s no sign of it’s russian population (about 50 people) it’s safe to assume that they were wiped out by the illness. However, someone went all the way out there to cleanse the place. Who? It is not directly on any shipping routes. Nobody should have any interest in it.
Except estofinns, due to Gogland's proximity to Estonia.
If any estonian nationalism has survived, then I reckon that they are either craving to get some place to „call their own“ or attempting to establish a foothold for attempts to retake parts of their old country. How many people do you need to cleanse a 20 square kilometer island? I suppose it could be done with the help of finns or swedes (though how to get them to lend their aid?). Afterwards I imagine that they could establish a little fishing village there – the place is too far from the mainland for most mammal beasts to swim there and if most/all of the island’s inhabitants are immune the place would be...pleasantly safe, barring the occasional seal-beast (no whales in Gulf of Finland).
Some thoughts on their religion and magic...
On their own estonians would not turn back to their „old religions“. Firstly, because estonian paganism was repressed by christianity for centuries – a lot about the old beliefs is lost and that which remains is scattered at best. Secondly, because Estonia is amongst the least religios countries in the world (then again, so is Norway I think?). However that does not equal to all estonians being skeptics. I might be overgeneralizing due to my own experiences, but there’s still quite a bit of belief in
genius loci, nature spirits and new-age concepts such as distant healing, and the flow of energies. It’s not that different from some american sees-ghosts-and-cures-with-prayer people, except that ours are more willing to self-identify as „witches“ (nõid, pl. nõiad). Depending on who the surviving community has been made up of I could imagine them taking a few of such concepts and mixing them into finnish magic.
As I said, on their own estonians would not turn back to their old religions. But they would NOT be on their own – the’d be surrounded by finns on all sides, reverting to their pre-christian deities for help. I imagine any surviving estonian communities taking up worshipping finnish gods, but with a bit of regional variety.
I could imagine them digging up stories of Taara, Uku, Kalevipoeg and Suur Tõll (Tõll the Great). The latter two would be fairytales told to children to make them sleep – tales of benevolent giants who protected their old homeland, creating landmarks wherever they roamed. The first two...Uku or „Taevataat“ would just be a regional names for Ukko, the finnish god of sky and thunder. However I can imagine Taara gaining a sort of „patron god of estonians“ reputation, because he is both the only „old god“ most estonians are bound to know the name of and the only one not to have a direct counterpart in finnish mythology (according to wikipedia the finnish tribe of Tavastia worshipped Taara, but it’s pretty safe to say that the estonian refugees would not know that). They would have to reinvent the mythology around Taara, because there’s not much known about WHO he was or WHAT he did – if we’re very lucky some of the survivors might remember from school that there was something about Taara falling from the sky, flying to Oesel or being a meteorite, but that’s all.
So all-in-all, my theory is that the estonian language survives in a few villages in Saimaa and Gogland, the latter of which estofinns helped to clean. They are magically, religiosly, genetically and culturally very similar to finns, being set apart mainly by their language, history and Taara-worship.
As for how believable it would be to retake Estonia – that depends on how safe bogs and mires would be. The country may be flat and forested, but
one fifth of it is basically wetlands. IF estonian culture survives another 50 years or so I could imagine them (with some help) retaking
Lahemaa bog and some other national parks, building wooden fortresses on bog islands like they did in the pagan times. You can get materials for weapons and bullets from refining bog iron, as well as raise a bit of crops and do hunter-gathering for birds, amphibians, berries or edible plants. At winter when the bogs ice over you could have scouts on skiis scanning the swamp for beasts.
I reckon there would’ve been a lot of attempts to survive on bog islands when The Rash broke out – running for the swamps is sort of a historical defence tactic it would seem, but I do not think any of them would’ve made it to year 90, because modern estonians are not used to living in isolated wilderness like that. The Y90 estofinns stand a better chance because they’ve been living in Saimaa for generations and can take care of themselves (as well as having a far larger percentage of immunes).
Poll
