New Law in Estonia Requires Russians There to Learn Native Language

In an unprecedented move to protect its national culture against Russian domination, the Estonian Parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a controversial language law that will require most of the 40% Russian minority living there to learn the native language.

While others among the Soviet Union’s 15 constituent republics state in their constitutions that theirs is the official language, the Estonian law is the first that goes beyond a symbolic declaration to spell out when and by whom the national language must be used.

The new measure is milder than an earlier draft favored by the most militantly nationalistic Estonians, but it nevertheless faces attempts by its ethnic Russian opponents to appeal to Moscow for relief. The Kremlin’s attitude toward the new law was not immediately clear.

Estonians are already required to learn Russian, even though many choose not to speak it. But tens of thousands of ethnic Russians who have migrated to Estonia since it was forcibly annexed in 1940 do not speak Estonian, a Finno-Ugric language that is more related to Hungarian or Finnish than to Russian.

The new law, which was supported by the republic’s Communist Party leadership, effectively requires factory managers, sales clerks, police and anyone else dealing with the Estonian-speaking public to learn Estonian within four years. Most party and government officials would have to become bilingual within two years.

The law also requires that the wording on stamps, signs, proclamations, reports and advertisements intended for the general public be in Estonian. The wording may also appear in Russian, but not in larger letters.

Wednesday’s vote in favor of the bill--Estonian television journalist Andres Raid said it followed a nine-hour, paragraph-by-paragraph debate--was 204 to 50, with 6 abstentions. Ethnic Estonians make up about two-thirds of the republic’s Supreme Soviet, or Parliament, and ethnic Russians make up the rest. Most of the Russians voted against the proposal, Raid said by telephone from Tallinn, Estonia’s capital.

A tiny Soviet minority numbering only about 1 million people, the Estonians have been in the forefront of national groups here moving to assert a greater degree of independence from Moscow. While some militants envision a complete separation from the Soviet Union, more say that realistically they can hope for no more than greater autonomy within the Soviet system.

In an earlier challenge to Moscow’s authority, the Estonian Parliament in November voted itself the right to override Soviet laws. Moscow declared the move unconstitutional, only to have the Estonian Parliament reaffirm the declaration the following month, in slightly less confrontational terms.