Around 80,000 people fled Estonia during the Soviet occupation, finding safe haven in Sweden, the United States, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. Later, after Estonia regained its independence, thousands of Estonians ventured out into the wider world, no longer as refugees but of their own free will. Estonia, meanwhile, has gone from being a country people fled to one where people from elsewhere find refuge from war, repression or natural disasters in their homelands. And it has also become a place people simply want to move to.

People have always migrated and the freedom and opportunity to move somewhere else and live among strangers are perhaps as old as humanity itself. For example, hunter-gatherer communities in Stone Age Eurasia were highly mobile and probably internally diverse as well, including individuals who may have been neither related nor even from the same area.¹

By contrast, restricting and condemning freedom of movement is more characteristic of unfree societies. Consider, for example, the era of serfdom in what is now Estonia or the closed border zones along the coast and on the islands during the Soviet period.

The customs associated with human mobility in different parts of the world also attest to how commonplace it has always been. Among the Indigenous peoples of eastern North America, for example, a shared clan system developed long ago, meaning that a man or woman far from home could find members of the same clan even among another people who would take in the traveling stranger or refugee.² In medieval and early modern European guilds, meanwhile, traveling from place to place and learning from different masters was a common part of training in a craft.³

One sometimes encounters the claim that human mobility leads to a loss of identity, as though being Estonian would somehow disappear if we were open and hospitable. History offers plenty of examples showing why that claim is mistaken as well.

Returning to eastern North America, we can see societies among the region's Indigenous peoples that were highly open to refugees and immigrants.

The Seminoles, for example, whose historical homeland is Florida, gave refuge to many enslaved people who escaped from U.S. plantations.⁴ The fact that Seminole identity, culture and language have survived to this day after several centuries of colonial violence, forced removal and U.S. assimilation policies clearly shows that hospitality did nothing to weaken their identity.

Likewise, the dozens of Estonian Houses around the world show that diaspora Estonians became part of the societies of their new homelands without weakening their Estonian identity.

Is migration and changing one's place of residence, as a natural feature of humanity, equally accepted in Estonian society?

There is probably no single answer. On the one hand, we want tourists to visit Estonia and we are pleased when students here are admitted to universities abroad. Unfortunately, however, it seems that neither a foreigner moving to Estonia nor an Estonian settling permanently abroad is accepted to the same extent. It is as though temporary movement is permitted, but finding a home in a new place is not.

And yet there is nothing wrong with someone finding their dream home, the job they have longed for or love somewhere other than the country where they were born. Nor does one person's decision to move away make another person's decision to stay put any less valuable. After all, there are many good choices one can make in life.

At the same time, it would not be fair to say that Estonia is an unfriendly or inhospitable place. There are many people, organizations and initiatives here whose aim is to make both people who have moved to Estonia and diaspora Estonians visiting their old homeland feel welcome. Still, it seems there could be more of this generosity.

The way we talk about migration also plays an important role. Take, for example, the Estonian terms "mugavuspagulane" ("convenience refugee") and "ränderünne" ("migration attack"). Both have a pleasing ring in Estonian, but their connotations are quite disturbing.

The term "convenience refugee," coined by Tõnis Lukas in 2014, on the one hand devalues the concept of a refugee, which should never refer to voluntary migration, while on the other hand labeling and insulting those who have voluntarily moved elsewhere.

"Migration attack" is a newer term for a new situation and while the inhumane tactics of Russian and Belarusian hybrid warfare do indeed include exploiting people hoping for a better life in order to strain the border services, infrastructure and societies of countries on the European Union's eastern frontier, using such a term risks making us forget the humanity of the migrants who have been deceived into coming to the border. Migrants whose dream of a better life has, for some, already ended in death in the no man's land between two borders.

It is high time that Estonia's collective "we" included both Estonians living elsewhere and people who have moved to Estonia from elsewhere. This is what will save us from disappearing: a generosity that welcomes people here without hidden demands. Without expecting Estonians abroad to return to Estonia, to accomplish something great and important overseas or to speak Estonian in the same way as Estonians living in Estonia do, and without expecting immigrants to work endlessly and constantly prove themselves worthy of our hospitality.

It is high time we accepted that one does not have to be born Estonian, but can become Estonian and that living or being born abroad does not necessarily diminish anyone's Estonian identity. It is generosity, including hospitality, that ensures our continuity, not pressuring women to have more children. And let's be honest: a generous society is also a better place to raise children.

Such a generous Estonia is a bigger Estonia. During the Soviet occupation, diaspora Estonians helped preserve the continuity of Estonian culture and statehood and pressed their countries of residence not to recognize the occupation of the Baltic states.

Estonians living elsewhere also make Estonia bigger by introducing Estonia to others and simply by being good people. If the first and perhaps only Estonian you ever meet is a nice person, that has tremendous diplomatic value. In the same way, people who have moved here from elsewhere make Estonia bigger in the eyes of people in their countries of origin. An Estonia that is known and cared about is more closely connected to the rest of the world and, as a result, safer and better protected.

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