Everything changed though, when the whole of the (mostly pagan) Balkans were targeted in Pope Innocent III's Northern Crusades.  Denmark, separately, conquered the northern Maarahvas (meaning land people, as they named themselves) in 1219 and the rest of the southern region was soon split between Teutonic Germans & Holy Roman Empire crusaders. What would become Estonia & Latvia, became the Teutonic crusader state🔍 of Terra Mariana, (Latin: Land of Mary) and later Livonia, (Estonian liiv = sand) and starting in the 13c it was under foreign rule continuously for 500 years with the Teutonic Order, Denmark, Poland, Lithuania and Sweden all ruling at least portions of future Estonia until, over course of the 18c, the entire territory was conquered by the Russian Empire.

In the 19c a nationalist movement arose and, after the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1918, the Democratic Republic of Estonia was founded. However, in 1940 it was re-annexation by the now USSR. Soon a gorilla war was being waged against the Soviets that briefly liberated south🔍 Estonia just in time to be occupied by Nazi Germany and then be recaptured by the Russians as Estonia SSR in 1944. Estonia didn't regain independence until the 1987 Soviet perestroika, the Singing Revolution, Sovereignty Declaration of 1988 & the official founding of the 🔎Republic of Estonia in 1991.

† Despite being a Baltic State today, these were not tribes of Balts, like those further south in Lithuania & Latvia.