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Centuries of struggle to retain its identity and achieve independent statehood are the hallmark of Estonia's history. Human habitation in the area dates back to at least 7500 BC, but the first forebears of the present inhabitants were Finno-Ugric hunters who probably arrived between 3000 and 2000 BC.

The region was dragged kicking and screaming into written history by the Drang nach Osten (urge to the east) of Germanic princes, colonists and traders in the 13th century, and Estonia soon fell under foreign rule, a dark period in the country's history that was to span 7 centuries.

The fight to emerge as an independent nation seemed to have been won in 1920 when Soviet Russia signed a peace treaty with the parliamentary republic of Estonia, recognising its independence in perpetuity. But, caught between the ascendant Soviet Union and expansionist Nazi Germany, Estonia soon lapsed from democracy into authoritarianism, and prime minister Konstantin Päts took over as dictator in 1934.

The Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939 secretly placed Estonia under the Soviet sphere of influence and the Soviet authorities began nationalisation and purges that saw up to 60,000 Estonians killed, deported or forced to flee. That's why some Estonians mistakenly saw Adolf Hitler's troops as liberators when they invaded the USSR and occupied the Baltic states in 1941.

Estonia lost around 200,000 people during WWII and lost its independence yet again. The Soviet reoccupation of 1944 ushered in a period of Stalinism highlighted by the collectivisation of agriculture and the killing or deporting of thousands of Estonians.

But throughout the decades of Soviet domination, Estonians still hoped for freedom. In the late 1980s Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev gave substance to their hopes and a mixture of pent-up bitterness and national feelings fuelled mass demands for self-rule. In 1988 huge numbers of people gathered in Estonia to sing previously banned national songs in what became known as the Singing Revolution. An estimated 300,000 attended one song gathering in Tallinn.

In November 1988, Estonia's supreme soviet passed a declaration of sovereignty; in August 1989, 2 million people formed a human chain stretching from Tallinn to the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, many of them calling for secession. In August 1991 Estonia declared full independence, and the following month the country joined the United Nations and began to consolidate its new-found nationhood.