Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti or Eesti Vabariik), is a country in Northern Europe. Estonia has land borders to the south with fellow Baltic state Latvia (339 km) and Russia (229 km) to the east. It is separated from Finland in the north by the narrow Gulf of Finland and from Sweden in the west by the Baltic Sea. Estonia has been a member of the European Union since May 1, 2004 and of the NATO since March 29, 2004.---------------By the early 13th century, Estonia was divided into eight large counties — Saaremaa, Läänemaa, Rävala, Harju, Viru, Järva, Sakala, and Ugandi. Annual consultations were held by representatives of several counties and developments took the direction of establishing a state. Estonia until this time retained a pagan religion centered around a deity called Tharapita. -------------------------------------------------------- Estonia was christianised when the German "Livonian Brothers of the Sword" invaded southern Estonia as part of the Northern Crusades in the early 13th century. At the same time, Denmark attempted to take possession of northern Estonia. Estonia was consolidated under the two forces by 1227. Northern Estonia remained a possession of Denmark until 1346. Tallinn (known as Reval at the time) was given its Lübeck Rights in 1248 and joined the Hanseatic League at the end of the 13th century. In 1343, the people of northern Estonia and Saaremaa rebelled against the rule of the Germans in the St. George's Night Uprising, which was put down by 1344. There were unsuccessful Russian invasions in 1481 and 1558. After 1524, during the Protestant Reformation, Estonia converted to Lutheranism. -------------------------------------------- During the Livonian War in 1561, northern Estonia submitted to Swedish control, while southern Estonia briefly came under the control of Poland in the 1580s. In 1625, mainland Estonia came entirely under Swedish rule. Estonia was administratively divided between the provinces of Estonia in the north and Livonia in southern Estonia and northern Latvia, a division which persisted until the early 20th century. -------------------------------------------------- In 1631, the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus forced the nobility to grant the peasantry greater rights, although serfdom was retained. In 1632 a printing press and university were established in the city of Tartu (known as Dorpat at the time). This period is known in Estonian history as the "Good Old Swedish Times." ------------------------------------------------------- Following the Great Northern War, the Swedish empire lost Estonia to Russia (1710 de facto, and 1721 de jure, by the Treaty of Nystad). However, the upper classes and the higher middle class remained primarily Baltic German. The war devastated the population of Estonia, but it recovered quickly. Although the rights of peasants were initially weakened, serfdom was abolished in 1816 in the province of Estonia and in 1818 in Livonia. ---------------------------------------------------- As a result of the abolition of serfdom and the availability of education to the natives, an active Estonian nationalist movement started in the 19th century. It began on a cultural level, resulting in the establishment of Estonian language literature, theater and professional music and the formation of the Estonian national identity. Among the leaders of this movement were Johann Voldemar Jannsen, Jakob Hurt and Carl Robert Jakobson. Significant accomplishments were the publication of the national epic, Kalevipoeg, in 1862, and the organization of the first national song festival in 1869.