Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-jswmv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T16:13:17.972Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

National Reconstruction and Social Re-stratification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Yelena Helemäe and
Ellu Saar
Yelena Helemäe
Affiliation:
Institute of International and Social Studies, Estonian Academy of Sciences
Ellu Saar
Affiliation:
Institute of International and Social Studies, Estonian Academy of Sciences
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Introduction

In the 1940–50s a totalitarian regime was established and consolidated in Estonia. Socialist society led to a new kind of social stratification and inequality. Stratification under totalitarian, socialist regimes differs from that in Western, capitalist countries. The utopian idea to create an egalitarian society turned into the creation of a hierarchically organized and heavily institutionalized society. Access to political power became the basis for social stratification. Reforms in the early 1990s have led to fundamental changes in the social stratification of Estonian society. The present social situation in Estonia (as in other former socialist countries of Eastern Europe) is characterized by the co-existence of elements of socialist and post-socialist societies, the expected marks of transition. Privatization brings about the emergence of new social strata. Therefore, the new social stratification in Estonia is now in the formation phase, and further changes are still forthcoming.

Information

Type
Part I: Estonia's Path to Identity and Independence
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 1995, pp. 127 - 140
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe and ex-USSR 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Notes

1. The first longitudinal study was carried out in 1966–1979 by the Laboratory of Education of Tartu University and the Department of Youth Sociology of the Estonian Academy of Sciences under the leadership of professor Mikk Titma.Google Scholar

2. M. Titma, and N. Tuma, “Stratification Research in a Changing World,” J. Szmatka, Z. Mach, and J. Mucha, eds., Eastern European Societies on the Threshold of Change (Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992).Google Scholar

3. Karl Ulrich Mayer, and Walter Müller, “The State and the Structure of the Life Course,” A. B. Sorensen, F. E. Weinert, L. R. Sherrod, eds., Human Development and the Life Course: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1986). Karl Ulrich Mayer, and Urs Schöpflin, “The State and the Life Course,” Annual Review of Sociology, 1989, pp. 187–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Alec Nove, The Soviet Economic System, 3rd ed. (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1986); Janos Kornai, Economics of Shortage, (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1980); Janos Kornai, Growth, Shortage and Efficiency, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).Google Scholar

5. Ivan Szelenyi, “The Prospects and Limits of the East European New Class Project: An Auto-critical Reflection on the Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power,” Politics and Society, 1986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Ivan Szelenyi, “The Intelligentsia in the Class Structure of State-Socialist Societies,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 88, 1982, pp. 287–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. W. Wesolowski, and E. Wnuk-Lipinski, Transformation of Social Order and Legitimization of Inequalities (Warsaw, 1991).Google Scholar

8. M. Titma, and N. Tuma, “Stratification Research in a Changing World,” J. Szmatka, Z. Mach, and J. Mucha, eds., Eastern European Societies on the Threshold of Change (Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992).Google Scholar

9. M. Titma, and N. Tuma, “Stratification Research in a Changing World,” J. Szmatka, Z. Mach, and J. Mucha, eds., Eastern European Societies on the Threshold of Change (Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992).Google Scholar

10. M. Titma, and N. Tuma, “Stratification Research in a Changing World,” J. Szmatka, Z. Mach, and J. Mucha, eds., Eastern European Societies on the Threshold of Change (Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992).Google Scholar

11. Lev A. Gordon, and A. K. Nazimova, “Sotsial'no-professional'naia struktura sovremennogo sovetskogo obshchestva: kharakter i napravlenie peremen,” Soviet Sociology 1983, pp. 33–54; Eduard V. Klopov, Rabochii klass SSSR, (Moscow: Mysl, 1985).Google Scholar

12. Iadov, V. A. “The Social Process of Perestroika,” Sociological Research, No.7, 1992, pp. 17–18.Google Scholar

13. Gregory Grossman, “The ‘Second Economy’ of the USSR,” Problems of Communism, 1977, pp. 25–40.Google Scholar

14. Ethnic problems are discussed in detail in the book People and Nationalities in the Transition from Communism: Estonia on the Eve of Independence, prepared to publish in collaboration with USA sociologists. Problem of ethnic segregation in Estonia considered in Chapter 5, “Estonian and Russian Communities: Ethnic Segregation, Association Preferences, and Language,” by B. A. Anderson, B. D. Silver, M. Titma, and E. Ponarin.Google Scholar

15. L. Korel, V. Tapilina, and V. Trofimov, Sotsialno-ekonomicheskoye razvitije regionov i migratsionnye protsessy v RSFSR (Novosibirsk, 1988).Google Scholar

16. Mikk Titma, et al., Ühe pǒlvkonna elutee (The Life Path of One Generation), (Tallinn: Olion, 1990).Google Scholar

17. Eesti statistika aastaraamat, 1990 (Statistical Yearbook of Estonia, 1990 (Tallinn: Statistical Office of Estonia, 1993).Google Scholar

18. We found clear differences in wages between 30-year-old respondents in accordance with their status in the “command hierarchy,” but they were secondary compared to differences by economic branches.Google Scholar

19. M. Titma, and N. Tuma, “Stratification Research in a Changing World,” J. Szmatka, Z. Mach, and J. Mucha, eds., Eastern European Societies on the Threshold of Change (Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992).Google Scholar

20. M. Titma, B. Silver, and B. Anderson, eds., People and Nationalities in the Transition from Communism: Estonia on the Eve of Independence, in press.Google Scholar

21. Tatiana Gourkina, “Social Inequalities in the Period of Systemic Transition,” Formation of the Middle Class in Transition Societies (Tallinn, Estonian Institute of Future Studies, 1993) pp. 33–37.Google Scholar

22. “Tööjǒud ja palk Eesti Vabariigis” (“Labor and Wages in the Republic of Estonia”), Statistikabülletään (The Statistical Bulletin), Vol. 1, 1993, pp. 63–65.Google Scholar

23. R. Andorka, “Half a Century of Trends in Social Mobility in Hungary,” J. Pechar, ed., Social Reproduction in Eastern and Western Europe: Comparative Analysis on Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the Netherlands and Poland (Groningen: University of Groningen, 1990).Google Scholar

24. Eesti Ekspress (Estonian Express), No. 2, 1994.Google Scholar

25. Sirp (Sickle), No. 3, 1994.Google Scholar

26. Alari Purju, “The Impact of the Economic Reform on the Distribution of Income and the Emergence of the Middle Class,” Formation of the Middle Class in Transition Societies (Tallinn: Estonian Institute of Future Studies, 1993), pp. 67–73.Google Scholar

27. “Tööjǒud ja palk Eesti Vabariigis” (“Labor and Wages in the Republic of Estonia”), Statistikabülletään (The Statistical Bulletin), Vol. 1, 1993, p. 59.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., p. 4.Google Scholar

29. Ibid., pp. 63–65.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., pp. 1–29.Google Scholar