Estonians

The Estonians are a Finnic people of the eastern Baltic, speaking a language closely related to Finnish, who form the majority of the population of Estonia. Organised in independent parishes and counties until the Northern Crusades, they were conquered by German crusaders and Denmark between 1208 and 1227 and lived for centuries under Baltic German landowners within Danish, Swedish and Russian states. A national awakening in the 19th century led to independence in 1918, lost in 1940 and regained in 1991.