Estonian Basic-School History Exam cheat sheet

Distinguish the 1918 declaration from securing independence and recognition.

Interwar independence did not mean an unchanged democratic system.

Soviet 1940, Nazi occupation and renewed Soviet control 1944 are distinct periods.

Repression and everyday experience require specific, disaggregated evidence.

Restoration in 1991 is connected to Estonia earlier independent history.

Dual revolution: French politics and British industry interact; neither explains 1789–1914 alone.

Key German dates: Zollverein 1834, railway 1835, Paulskirche constitution 1849, Gründerkrach 1873.

Bismarck's 1883–89 insurance laws were both welfare and anti-socialist strategy.

The Sonderweg is a contested thesis (Blackbourn/Eley), not a datum.

Compete the theories: Hobson/Lenin, Schumpeter, Cain and Hopkins; don't blend them.

Versailles detail: Article 231, 100,000-man army, 132 bn gold marks under the 1921 London Schedule.

Weimar stabilisation (1924–29) and collapse (after 1929) must be explained separately.

Fischer's war-guilt thesis and the centenary July-crisis debate are positions, not settled facts.

Key distinctions: Fire Decree 28 February 1933; Enabling Act adopted 23 March and promulgated 24 March 1933; Nuremberg Laws 1935; November pogrom 1938.

Wannsee, 20 Jan 1942, coordinates an ongoing genocide; it is not its starting point.

The invasion of the Soviet Union inJune 1941 was followed by a major expansion of systematic mass shootings; shooting was itself a method of murder.

Intentionalism vs. functionalism and Goldhagen vs. Browning must be named as positions.

Bloc dates: Marshall Plan 1947, NATO 1949, Warsaw Pact 1955, Wall 1961.

Ostpolitik chain: Moscow and Warsaw Treaties 1970, Basic Treaty 1972, Helsinki 1975.

Integration chain: ECSC 1951, Rome 1957, SEA 1986, Maastricht 1992.

Wandel durch Annäherung describes change through rapprochement; assess its aims and effects without attributing 1989 to a single policy.

1990–91: Two-Plus-Four, Charter of Paris, Soviet dissolution; a moment of institutionalism.

Srebrenica 1995 and Kosovo 1999 test the tension between human rights and UN-mandate rules.

Enlargement waves 2004/2007 and NATO's 1999/2004 rounds shape later Russian perceptions.

Key dates: 9/11 2001, Iraq 2003, Crimea 2014, Zeitenwende 27 Feb 2022.

Identify provenance, audience, genre and transmission before judging evidentiary value.

A normative text does not by itself establish actual compliance.

Chronological sequence alone does not prove a causal mechanism.

Periodization is an interpretation with explicit criteria.

Different perspectives remain subject to evidence and contextual evaluation.