Vilms' remains are buried in the Pilistvere Andrease church cemetery in Viljandi County. However, due to the unclear circumstances surrounding his death — he was executed in Finland in spring 1918 but there is at least one alternative theory to the official version of events on where and who by — some people have raised questions about whether any remains in Vilms' grave are indeed his.

Speaking to Vikerraadio Wednesday, historian and former director of the Viljandi museum Jaak Pihlak said: "I have said this very clearly, that it is truly a very absurd idea," said Pihlak. "I would venture to say today that we have very clear knowledge that Jüri Vilms was buried in December 1920, at Pilistvere cemetery and that there is absolutely no definitive evidence that anyone else is buried there."

Those pushing exhumation of the remains are conspiracy theorists, he added.

"There are always conspiracy theorists, people who cast doubt on all things. Today I would say there is a group of colleagues who think that perhaps they really aren't there, because in the late 1990s Finnish historian Seppo Zetterberg raised the idea that maybe the execution didn't actually take place in Helsinki," Pihlak went on.

The matter is not one of national importance, he added.

"This is not nationally important to us, and it also does not give us any significant new information on if, for example, we could prove that Jüri Vilms is not buried in Pilistvere cemetery," he said.

Additionally, Vilms has no close relatives or descendants who would have been able to grant the authority to allow the grave to be opened.

"As far as is known, the one person who claims to be a relative is very, very distant, via a long line, and this means that he has no right to say whether the grave could be opened," Pihlak went on.

Heritage society member: Standard practice to exhume remains where needed

Meanwhile archaeologist and chairman of the Estonian heritage society's audit committee Ants Kraut told ERR that exhuming remains is a common practice which provides historical clarity and will not cause any changes to the cemetery.

"Historians, including military historian Jaak Pihlak, should indeed be interested in finding out the truth. And right now we have this opportunity," Kraut said.

Calling the initiators "professional cretins who have fallen into conspiracy theory and are dealing with absurd matters" is not true and is not best practice, Kraut added.

"We are all historians of this generation who know the background of that expression very well and consider that very offensive in this context," he continued.

Kraut said that the circumstances of Vilms's death have never been clear, and this has been pointed out in the Zetterberg book The Death of Jüri Vilms, and also by journalist Pekka Erelt.

"This book and those articles only serve to deepen the need for research, as to whether and how this thing happened there, who executed those Estonian envoys, where and under what burial conditions," Kraut said.

The initiators of the current process are members of the heritage society, while newer tech makes it possible to reach final clarity in the matter, Kraut went on, noting that identifying the remains will not make use of DNA analysis but isotope analysis, which can determine an individual's origin very precisely.

Kraut noted that Vilms grew up in the nearby village of Kurla, meaning from a science perspective ascertaining if the remains were of someone who lived in the area was relatively simple.

Vilms also had "very clearly identifiable personal traits," identifiable from the analysis, Kraut went on.

Alternatively if the remains are of "some Finnish Red Guard fighter" that would come out from the investigation too.

Kraut noted Estonia's first president, Konstantin Päts, an associate of Vilms, and poet Marie Under, who died in 1980, are among those prominent Estonians whose remains have been exhumed in the past, while the relevant legislation allows identification of remains at the request of relatives.

The supporting the exhumation and identification process have donated thousands of euros towards its implementation, too, he added.

Pihlak rejected this course, saying if there were questions whether Vilms' remains are in Finland, that is where any investigation should start.

"Let us go back to the beginning of the matter and then search for the so-called real Jüri Vilms and his three companions in Finland, and not start digging up in Estonia the graves where, according to current knowledge, those four people are buried," Pihlak said.

"Even if theoretically it could turn out that it is not Jüri Vilms who is buried there [in Pilistvere] – that would not give us any new valuable knowledge, and at the same time we still would not know who the person is that was then buried there. I stress that today it is not even possible for us to identify it, because the person who claims to be a relative is from a very distant line, and I am quite convinced that even with DNA it is not possible to establish this," Pihlak continued.

In the early spring of 1918, Vilms along with fellow freedom fighters Arnold Jürgens, Johannes Peistik, and Aleksei Rünk were looking for support primarily from Sweden, at a time when much of Estonia was still under Baltic German occupation in what turned out to be the dying days of World War One. Estonia's War of Independence started at the same time following the February 1918 declaration of independence, which Vilms was a signatory to. Civil war was raging in Finland too, pitting the pro-communist red forces against the more reactionary white forces, with the industrial city of Tampere a particular hotspot for fighting.

The official version of events states Vilms and his companions, on arriving in Helsinki, were captured by German troops, who executed them. Other, more recent research has found Vilms may have been executed by a unit of the Swedish Brigade, fighting for the whites, in Hauho, near Tampere. Another related theory is that remains other than Vilms' were interred at the grave in Pilistvere.

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