New Russian migrants in Estonia: performative agency in insecure times

ABSTRACT

The object of this study is a new Russian migrant community in Estonia, a relatively small group of Russian citizens who escaped their home country after the resumption of the mass-scale attack against Ukraine. The author seeks to identify major narratives produced the anti-Putin Russian migrants settled in Estonia and unveil their political meanings. The article discusses how these narratives are communicated, what audiences they appeal to, and how the agency of the new Russian community in this Baltic state is discursively constructed. The author explains how Russia-centric narratives of emigrants are transformed and adjusted to Estonian and - in a broader sense - European political agenda.

KEYWORDS:

• Estonia
• Russian diaspora
• agency
• performativity
• migration
• war in Ukraine

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://activatica.org/

2 https://www.politsei.ee/ru/instruktsii/policiya-rekomenduet-ne-poseshchat-rossiyu

3 https://reforumspaces.io/

4 https://twitter.com/SobolLubov

5 Interview in Tallinn, April 2023.

6 Interview in Tartu, April 2023.

7 Interview in Tallinn, April 2023.

8 Interview in Tallinn, March 2023.

9 Interview in Tartu, March 2023.

10 Interview in Tartu, March 2023.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Estonia.