Talk:Estonian Swedes

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A fact from Estonian Swedes appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 16 June 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Swedes have lived in Estonia for more than 700 years, although only a small number are permanently resident there today?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/June.

Wikipedia

Untitled

One very good and informative source can be found at http://www.denandrastranden.com/ --3 Löwi 17:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Estonian Swedes

The page should be moved to Estonian Swedes, where we have a redirect right now. This would be a more traditional title and it has more google hits as well. E.J. 06:40, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Population figures

The number of Swedes residing in Estonia and the Ukraine that have been retrieved from the census data do not differentiate between the historical Estonian Swedes and ethnic Swedes of other origins (primarily Swedish nationals, but also some Finnish citizens). As far as Estonia is concerned, only six individuals belonging to the Estonian Swedish community did not evacuate to Sweden in the 1940s. As of 2010, there were no Swedes left in Estonia who had lived there continuously since the forties. Admittedly, there are some elderly Estonian Swedes who have repatriated to Estonia since 1991, but their number does not exceed a dozen or so. Most of the other people counted in the census were foreign students, business people, diplomatic staff, and foreign spouses from Sweden (and Finland) who have moved temporarily or permanently to Estonia. I believe that this is the case also in Ukraine. Unless someone is able to come up with a reliable source for the present number of Estonian Swedes in these two countries it would be more than misleading to keep the population figures in the info box. --Vihelik (talk) 20:31, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Even though some Swedes in Estonian census aren't probably original Estonian Swedes, they are recognized minority and should be included in article. J.K Nakkila (talk) 12:04, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fair guess, but not true. Most of these Swedes are NOT members of the recognized minority in Estonia. According to Article 1 of the The Law on Cultural Autonomy for National Minorities (modified version of the 1925 law adopted in 1993), the first three criteria that a person has to meet to be considered a member of a national minority in Estonia include: "that person has to be a citizen of Estonia; reside on the territory of Estonia; maintain longstanding, firm and lasting ties with Estonia." Aside from a few individuals, of the Swedes who reside (and thus meet the second requirement of the law) the overwhelming majority are NOT citizens of Estonia, and thus NOT recognized as a minority. Most of them are "foreigners" who do not maintain "longstanding" and "lasting" ties with Estonia, four-year stints at the embassy or as business reps notwithstanding. In this light the figure 300 in the population box is not just misleading, but simply untrue!. Only around a dozen elderly Estonian Swedes have repatriated to Estonia since 1991. Only they qualify as members of the minority, since they hold dual citizenship (Swedish AND Estonian), currently reside in Estonia, and by virtue of having been born in Estonia or being descendants of Swedes who were citizens before the war fulfill the requirement of "longstanding" and "lasting" ties. Ergo: being ethnically Swedish and living in Estonia does not automatically entail that that person is an Estonian Swede. Analogies abound on a global scale. For example, there are hundreds of thousands of Russians (citizens of Russia) currently residing in China, including hundreds who have lived there for twenty or more years. None of them belong to the officially recognized Russian minority in China, currently 15,600 strong. If the number 300 from the census remains in the infobox, then the article should be renamed "Swedes in Estonia", since the term "Estonian Swedes" has a very narrow meaning. --Vihelik (talk) 19:03, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

True, I just checked that source and it states that only 211 Swedes living in Estonia have Estonian citizenship. Maybe we could put "~200" to infobox? J.K Nakkila (talk) 21:07, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds reasonable. If there are indeed 211 resident ethnic Swedes in Estonia who are also Estonian citizens, then it would probably better to use this specific figure without rounding it off. Vihelik (talk) 19:43, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt that figure of 26,000 Estonian Swedes in Sweden is true, there were only ~6,500 Estonian Swedes who fled to Sweden in WW2. J.K Nakkila (talk) 11:58, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The figure was unsourced, so it's ok to get rid of it. However, 26,000 sounds plausible, if descendants (including mixed families) are included. In the US, for example, more than 700,000 people claim Lithuanian ancestry, most of whom are descendants of less than a hundred thousand immigrants around 1900.--Vihelik (talk) 16:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Every source I have seen this far have said that it's too difficult to trying to make estimated numbers of the descendants. However I found this website, with states that in mif 1980s there were ~2500 (assumeably 1st generation) Estonian Swedes in Sweden, though I don't know hor reliable that website is. Should this be mentioned in infobox? J.K Nakkila (talk) 19:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's a source, true, but it almost raises more questions than it answers (as what happened to the other 4,000? or, how are the Swedish-born children classified?). I don't have an opinion, I guess. --Vihelik (talk) 16:12, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]