The Power of Concepts: From "Self-management" to "Sovereignty" in Soviet Estonia (1987–88)

The chapter explores how alternative futures were imagined in the late state-socialist system, using Soviet Estonia as a case study during the mid-perestroika period in the Soviet Union. In 1987–88, Estonian reformist intellectuals and experts envisioned Estonia in multiple scenarios like an economically "self-manageable" republic within a renewed Soviet Union, a socialist "sovereign" republic sharing foreign and defence policies with the centre, or an independent republic restored as the interwar state. The chapter explores the Estonian perestroika discourse that opened channels for reform discussions in 1987, especially examining the language and concepts used to produce these futures. It highlights how local reformists innovated economic-political vocabulary, facilitating but simultaneously delimiting the imagination of Estonia’s alternative futures. The chapter demonstrates how the innovations with the perestroika language caused unpredicted scenarios in 1988, as the Estonian Declaration of Sovereignty ignited a series of similar declarations in the union republics in 1989–1990.