History of Estonia (1920–1939)

The history of Estonia from 1918 to 1940 spanned the interwar period from the end of the Estonian War of Independence until the outbreak of World War II. It covers the years of parliamentary democracy, the Great Depression and the period of corporatist authoritarian rule.

The Estonian state as it existed throughout the Interwar period until it was replaced by the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic is sometimes dubbed the First Republic of Estonia, but this terminology is often avoided for two main reasons:

• The Estonian government as well as most Estonian historians prefer to stress legal continuity between the state declared in 1918, the Estonian government-in-exile and the current Estonian state declared in 1991, characterizing the Soviet and German periods as illegal occupations.
• From 1918 to 1940, the Estonian state underwent significant changes, culminating in a 1934 self-coup, leading to the so-called "Era of Silence" and a new constitution, which some historians describe as a Second Republic of Estonia in its own right.