Reaching distant destinations, newcomers faced an unfamiliar environment. At night, settlers were frightened by the howls of jackals, which they mistook for crying children or laughing soldiers. Meanwhile, families had to bang pots and pans to scare away bears ravaging their cornfields. These everyday trials were just one part of a broader process where Estonians, acting in the empire's interests, began reshaping territories previously belonging to other peoples.

Empire expansion and the beginning of emigration

From the government's perspective, populating the Caucasus with other ethnicities was part of extensive internal colonization. The tsarist state wanted to expand its influence south and east. In official documents, authorities did not speak directly of colonialism. They used the term resettlement as a euphemism to hide colonialism, Jürgenson noted.

The first groups of Estonians migrated to the Volga region as early as the 1850s. In the following decade, peasants headed to Crimea, after which a wave of migration rolled into the North and then South Caucasus as the empire expanded. Settlers did not reach Siberia until the end of the century.

Mass migration was boosted by the passport law that came into force in the early 1860s. Previously, peasants' freedom of movement was restricted by feudal laws that chained them to a specific area or manor. The new document gave them a status that allowed free movement and the ability to change their permanent residence within the empire.

At the same time, a demographic transition began in Estonia. Birth rates remained high, but mortality began to fall thanks to better medicine, hygiene and agricultural development. Due to rapid population growth, a land shortage soon arose in the villages. To ease tensions, tsarist authorities lured residents with free or very cheap leased land.

The extensive migration fever that subsequently broke out among the peasantry left entire villages empty in some places. Impressions of new living conditions were often shared by community members who had already gone abroad. Stories appeared in newspapers at the time about how families planted potatoes in Estonia in the spring but were no longer there to harvest them by autumn, the researcher said.

The domestic public mostly disapproved of the mass exodus from the countryside. The spirit of the national awakening was gaining momentum in Estonia, and intellectuals emphasized the sacredness of the homeland. Although emigrants were not explicitly labeled traitors, they fell out of public favor. Newspapers published cautionary tales of settlers who failed abroad and returned home empty-handed. A significant portion of emigrants did indeed succumb to the foreign environment. About 10 to 20 percent return from every major emigration, which is a global trend.

The myth of empty land and the fate of indigenous peoples

Despite the warnings, stories of virgin nature and free or empty land captivated tens of thousands of emigrants. According to the logic of settler colonialism, emptiness did not necessarily mean that people had not lived there before, but rather that land use was uncivilized in the eyes of the authorities. The land was virgin in the sense that settlers had not plowed it with the European plow. The empire saw this as a valuable resource waiting for the right cultivator.

Estonians established their settlements in territories from which the Russian army had driven out the indigenous population during the long Caucasian War. Armed units forced approximately 1.5 million people to migrate from the coastal areas to Turkey. In the final phase of the war, the heaviest blow fell on the Circassians, whom the state considered particularly dangerous. Tsarist troops drove them from their homes tribe by tribe, leaving behind deserted tracts of land. Modern Georgia officially recognizes the events of that time as genocide.

The peasants who left Estonia may not have known anything about the preceding bloody purges at first. The newcomers were primarily looking for a better life and did not consciously implement the empire's political goals. This is actually globally characteristic of settler colonialism, as people's awareness of what happened earlier varies and depends on the region and the conflict, Jürgenson noted.

Ignorance was deepened by the fact that many families never met the former inhabitants in their new homes. The nearest Abkhazian settlements were dozens of kilometers away from the famous Salme and Sulevi villages. Soldiers had driven the indigenous people away from the surroundings of Sukhumi only a few years before the Estonians arrived.

Struggling with nature through work

Since there were no indigenous people in the area, the surrounding environment became the main opponent for the newcomers. In letters sent to Estonia, settlers directly contrasted their civilizing mission with wild nature.

Jackals and bears, for example, were seen as a nuisance that constantly had to be kept away from the settlements. Settlers were creative in scaring away predators. They banged pots and pans among the cornfields at night, and there are even known cases where people climbed trees with an accordion to frighten the animals with music.

In addition to forest dwellers, unfamiliar soil forced the settlers to change their habits. A heavy Estonian plow was not of much use on rocky clay soil full of roots. Since the old equipment failed, immigrants adopted a large hoe and a plow type characteristic of the region. They also built a more efficient corn seeder, which was praised even in Caucasian newspapers.

According to the researcher, the immigrants toiling in the fields were inspired by a strong Protestant work ethic. To highlight their superiority, Estonians ridiculed the work attitude of their Mingrelian neighbors and considered the neighboring people's villages sloppy. At the same time, settlers constantly praised the cleanliness of their own settlements and the order prevailing there.

Decades later, community members still proudly emphasized in festive speeches how their ancestors cleared thick forests into fertile farmland with great effort. Interestingly, many families justified moving to a distant land with domestic conflicts. The main culprit was often a wicked landlord who cut farm lands and raised rent. The victim narrative helped maintain a noble image in the eyes of their descendants.

Tensions in borderlands

The isolated idyll amidst wild nature did not last long. Over time, Estonians developed contacts with the Abkhazians, whom the tsarist authorities had pushed to the periphery. The village of Estonia, for example, was founded by a border river, on the other bank of which lay the indigenous settlement area. Soon the locals began crossing the rapids at night to steal the settlers' livestock. Georgian archival materials show that Estonians complained the most to the authorities about the thefts.

Animal theft had a multifaceted social background in the Caucasus. First, it was an initiation rite for young men, without which they had no hope of marrying. Second, the indigenous people retaliated in this way against the colonists who occupied their land. Allegedly, Estonians frequently fell victim also because they bred the most expensive and magnificent horses in the region.

School teachers arriving from Estonia stepped in as mediators to ease tensions. Intellectuals mostly worked in the villages for three years at a time, read local literature and communicated with the surrounding elite. The new teachers explained to the settlers what the Abkhazians had been through and helped find common ground. One of the most successful cultural mediators was August Martin, who arrived in Linda just before the First World War.

The Estonian teacher integrated into the local society so well that he even acted as a local member of parliament for a short time. Such people helped significantly ease tensions, Jürgenson said. In general, there has been no hostility toward Estonians among the Abkhazians later, which is largely due to Estonian cultural mediators, he added. Locals have also considered the Estonian community safe due to its small size.

Colonial ambitions in other regions

However, the Caucasus was not the only region where the empire implemented its colonial policy through Estonian hands. Tsarist authorities also invited fishermen from Hiiumaa and Muhu to establish new villages, sending them to the Far East by the Sea of Japan. The state's goal was to use Estonian fishermen to drive away the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese who had previously operated in the fish-rich coastal waters. The settlements established there remained viable throughout the Soviet era.

Hardworking settlers were accompanied by outstanding success in the new conditions. For example, the village of Liivi, founded by islanders, grew over the decades into one of the Soviet Union's three millionaire fishing collective farms. Success spurred political ambitions in Estonian peasants in other regions as well. Estonians most densely populated the Gdov area beyond Lake Peipus, where noticeable influence was achieved in local municipalities before the Bolsheviks came to power.

As their influence expanded, settlers living beyond Lake Peipus sometimes even developed a desire to annex the Gdov areas to Estonia. A theory could be heard from the Estonians there according to which those areas had been populated by Estonians since ancient times. This view was also supported by some scientists of Estonian descent.

Today, the situation in the Estonian villages of the Caucasus has irreversibly changed. Once-large settlements, such as Salme and Sulevi, are now predominantly inhabited by Armenians. Estonians have become a minority. The younger generation is moving to cities, and plots are being sold to newcomers.

Many Estonian families in Abkhazia have, over the decades, become linguistically and culturally integrated with the local population. A good example is the Kaareste family, whose ancestor once organized a national song festival in Sukhumi, while that same ancestor's great‑grandchild recently published a book of fairy tales in the Abkhaz language. "In my view, a community doesn't have to last forever; rather, you have to respect the people among whom you live — and then you are simply an Abkhazian with Estonian roots," Jürgenson added.

Overall, Aivar Jürgenson's research shows that the 19th‑century emigration of Estonians was not merely an escape from pressure by manor owners. The wave of migration fit into a broader pattern of settler colonialism within the empire. Although settlers often saw themselves as bearers of civilization in a wild natural landscape, they established their villages on lands that the tsarist army had previously cleared of Indigenous inhabitants by force. The settlements that are now fading away stand as historical testimony to Estonians' participation in the empire's geopolitical maneuvers, where the roles of victim and colonizer became intertwined.

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