ABSTRACT
This chapter examines folklore sources concerning peasant unrest in Estonia. Napoleon and the French are not the only foreign invaders to provoke the expectations of peasants about their liberation from the German lords, according to official records. The Estonian and Latvian peasant revolts are very hard to compare with the great Russian peasant uprisings. The chapter draws on oral narratives concerning the revolts in Rapina, Karula (both in 1784), Vastseliina (1803), Puhajarve (uncertain date) and Kose-Uuemoisa (1805), which were recorded between 1875 and 1939. In 1783-1784, poll tax revolts broke out in as many as sixty-three manors in southern Estonia; and in 1797-1807, a total of sixty-seven revolts took place all over the territory of Estonia. Popular monarchism characterised Estonian and Latvian peasants' views and their unrest relied on the concept of 'bad lords, good monarch'. Another 'achievement of popular imagination', according to James C. Scott, is to negate the existing social order.
