In the article, answers are sought to the questions of which aspects of emigration
the press paid most attention to, which sources were used in reporting on emigration, and what the message of the published texts was. The way the press reacted to emigration is examined, as are the way attitudes towards potential and actual emigration took shape, and whether and how the reporting of emigration in the newspapers changed over time.

Emigration from Estonia to the Black Sea coast, which started in the 1880s, took place simultaneously with several other important processes: modernisation and one of its manifestations, urbanisation, weakened people’s ties to the community, while the ideologues of the National Awakening emphasised the nation’s strong ties to its homeland. National ideologues considered the homeland sacred and therefore leaving the homeland was seen as being reprehensible.

The Black Sea coast was not the first emigration destination for Estonians: they had already migrated to Central Russia, Crimea, and North Caucasus starting from the 1860s. Therefore, by the 1880s, when emigration to the Black Sea coast began, the Estonian press had already been familiar with the topic of emigration for several decades. As with earlier waves of migration, the attitude towards the migrants to the Caucasus was negative: they were accused of betraying their homeland, as well as laziness and stupidity. The press used hypertrophic descriptions of the emigration destinations to ridicule emigrants who were insufficiently informed about the natural conditions that awaited them there. The press eagerly recorded the plight of those who had found themselves in serious trouble in the Caucasus due to their lack of knowledge. Dramatic descriptions were published of the return to the homeland of those who could not cope abroad and swindlers, who took advantage of the inexperience and lack of information of emigrants, were exposed. Yet when the settlements along the Black Sea started flourishing, the press could not hide the fact that many settlers had done very well: villages had been built, and agriculture was making good money. The press gradually began publishing letters from settlers reflecting conditions in the settlements in a neutral and fact-based manner. At the beginning of the 20th century, a new, liberal attitude towards emigration emerged in the Estonian press: blaming of emigrants ended, replaced by justification of their decisions. Before the outbreak of the First World War, articles were already published in the Estonian press comparing the Estonian diaspora to the diasporas of other nations. A vibrant diaspora was seen as playing a positive role and understood as contributing to the continuation of the nation on a global level: the nation’s home is in both the historical homeland and the diaspora.

When the First World War broke out, followed by the Bolshevik revolution, the Estonian settlements in Russia were soon cut off from their motherland by the Estonian-Soviet Russian border. The settlements did not receive new residents from Estonia, and the organic connection between the motherland and the diaspora communities was broken.