Ruhnu

Ruhnu (Runö; Roņu sala) is an Estonian island in the Gulf of Riga in the Baltic Sea. It is administratively part of Saare County but is geographically closer to the Latvian mainland. At , it currently has 150 oficially declared inhabitants Ruhnu Parish has the smallest population of Estonia's 79 municipalities. Before 1944, it was for centuries populated by ethnic Swedes and traditional Swedish law was used. The first archaeological artifacts of human activity in Ruhnu, assumed to be related to seasonal seal hunting, date back to around 5000 BC. The time of arrival of the first ancient Scandinavians in Ruhnu and the beginning of a permanent Swedish-speaking settlement is not known. It probably did not precede the Northern Crusades at the beginning of the 13th century, when the indigenous peoples of all the lands surrounding the Gulf of Riga were converted to Christianity and subjugated to the Teutonic Order. The first documented record of the island of Ruhnu, and of its Swedish population, is a 1341 letter sent by the Bishop of Courland which confirmed the islanders' right to reside and manage their property in accordance with Swedish law. Ruhnu was controlled by the Kingdom of Sweden (1621–1708, formally until 1721) and after that by the Russian Empire until World War I, when it was occupied by Imperial German armed forces (1915–1918). Under the tsarist Russian rule in the 18th–19th century the island had de facto independence in most affairs, though designated as crown land. The island's Lutheran clergyman served as gutsverwalter (estate custodian) in matters of state. In the middle of the 19th century, a majority of the islanders sought to leave Lutheranism and join the Russian Orthodox Church, and formal steps in this direction took place in 1866 with papers exchanged with the Orthodox dean of Saaremaa in anticipation of Orthodox chrismation. But the planned conversion did not proceed. After World War I, despite some local initiatives to rejoin Sweden, and territorial claims by Latvia, the islanders agreed to become part of newly independent Estonia in 1919 (possibly due to the existence of a Swedish minority in Estonia).