Estonia's struggles for independence during the twentieth century are in large part a reaction to nearly seven hundred years of foreign rule.

Before 1200 the Estonians lived largely as free peasants loosely organized into parishes (kihelkonnad), which in turn were grouped into counties (maakonnad).

In the early 1200s, the Estonians and the Latvians had come under assault from German crusaders seeking to impose Christianity on them.

Although the Estonians' resistance to the Teutonic Knights lasted some twenty years, the lack of a centralized political organization as well as inferior weaponry eventually brought down the Estonians in 1227.

The Germans, moving from the south, were abetted by Danish forces that invaded from the north and captured Tallinn.

Together with present-day Latvia, the region becomes known as Livonia; the Germans and Danes settle down as nobility, and the Estonians are progressively subordinated as serfs.

During 1343-45 an Estonian peasant uprising against the German and Danish nobility prompts the Danes to relinquish their control of northern Estonia to the Germans.

After this resistance is crushed, the area will remain generally peaceful for two centuries.