Shared events in history are not equal to a common culture - i.e., why Estonia is not actually a Baltic country and shouldn't be taken as one
I deliberately chose a provocative title for this post because I know that the topic I am analyzing is often controversial among many people living in Estonia, as well as for foreigners. I have been gathering information on this topic for a long time and thinking about how to write about it as Estonian-centrically as possible, because after all, regional affiliation should be decided by the majority of the nation, and should not be decided by nations and countries somewhere else. Firstly, let’s see where the term “Baltic” comes from. It is said that the Greek scholar Erastothenes called the northern inland sea of Europe Baltic already in the 3rd century BC, but it did not become a common name for this region until much later. For most of written history-time, the Baltic Sea has been called the East Sea instead of the Baltic Sea (e.g. Ostsee in German, Östersjön in Swedish, Østersøen in Danish, Oostzee in Dutch). This name came from geography, because for the Germanic peoples (w...