Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T23:59:41.222Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Survival against the Odds: The Baltic States at 100

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2019

Andres Kasekamp
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay examines how Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have managed to secure their independence and analyzes how they have dealt with the internal and external challenges to their state-building efforts. It compares the first period of statehood between the two world wars with the current period of independence beginning with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Among the critical external tasks they have faced were deterring former imperial powers, fostering regional cooperation and gaining a voice in international organizations. Internally, consolidating democratic systems and integration of ethnic minorities have been the two most significant challenges.

Type
Critical Discussion Forum: 1918/2018
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 78 , Issue 3 , Fall 2019 , pp. 640 - 647
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Hatlie, Mark R., Riga at War 1914–1919: War and Wartime Experience in a Multi-ethnic Metropolis. Studien zur Ostmitteleuropaforschung 30 (Marburg, 2014), 193–94Google Scholar.

2 Balkelis, Tomas, War, Revolution, and Nation-Making in Lithuania, 1914–1923 (Oxford, 2018), 45–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Liulevicius, Vejas Gabriel, War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity, and German Occupation in World War I (Cambridge, Eng., 2000), 204CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Brüggemann, Karsten, “Yearning for Social Change: The Russian Revolution in the Baltic Provinces,” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 17, no. 3 (December 2017): 358–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Lehti, Marko, A Baltic League as a Construct of the New Europe: Envisioning a Baltic Region and Small State Sovereignty in the Aftermath of the First World War (Frankfurt am Main, 1999)Google Scholar.

5 Medijainen, Eero, “The 1934 Treaty of the Baltic Entente: Perspectives for Understanding,” Ajalooline Ajakiri: The Estonian Historical Journal no. 1/2 (2012): 183–200Google Scholar; Eidintas, Alfonsas and Žalys, Vytautas, eds., Lithuania in European Politics: The Years the First Republic, 1918–1940 (New York, 1997), 156Google Scholar.

6 Richter, Klaus, “‘An Orgy of Licence?’ Democracy and Property Redistribution in Poland and the Baltics in Their International Context, 1918–1926,” Nationalities Papers 46, no. 5 (2018): 791–808CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Smith, David J. and Hiden, John, Ethnic Diversity and the Nation State: National Cultural Autonomy Revisited (London, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Housden, Martyn, “National Minorities as Peacebuilders? How Three Baltic Germans Responded to the First World War,” Peace & Change: A Journal of Peace Research 43, no. 1 (January 2018): 5–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Kasekamp, Andres, “The Rise of the Radical Right, the Demise of Democracy, and the Advent of Authoritarianism in Interwar Estonia,” in Fleishman, Lazar and Weiner, Amir, eds., War, Revolution, and Governance: The Baltic Countries in the Twentieth Century (Boston, 2018), 76–100Google Scholar.

10 Ilmjärv, Magnus, Silent Submission: Formation of Foreign Policy of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania: Period from mid-1920s to Annexation in 1940 (Stockholm, 2004)Google Scholar; Maria Groeneveld, The Role of the State and Society Relationship in the Foreign Policy Making Process (PhD Diss., University of Tartu, 2012).

11 Neiburgs, Uldis, “Latvia, Nazi German Occupation, and the Western Allies, 1941–1945,” in Fleishman, Lazar and Weiner, Amir, eds., War, Revolution, and Governance: The Baltic Countries in the Twentieth Century (Boston, 2018), 162Google Scholar; Piirimäe, Kaarel, Roosevelt, Churchill and the Baltic Question: Allied Relations during the Second World War (New York, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Auers, Daunis, Comparative Politics and Government of the Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the 21st Century (Basingstoke, Eng., 2015), 209CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Kasekamp, Andres, “Estonia: Eager to Set an Example in the EU,” in Baun, Michael J. and Marek, Dan, eds., The New Member States and the European Union: Foreign Policy and Europeanization (London, 2013), 101Google Scholar.

14 Bergman, Annika, “Adjacent Internationalism: The Concept of Solidarity and Post-Cold War Nordic–Baltic Relations,” Cooperation and Conflict 41, no. 1 (March 2006): 73–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Kasekamp, Andres, “Are the Baltic States Next?,” in Dahl, Ann-Sofie, ed., Strategic Challenges in the Baltic Sea Region: Russia, Deterrence, and Reassurance (Washington, DC, 2018), 61Google Scholar.

16 Auers, Comparative Politics and Government of the Baltic States, 148–51.

17 Schulze, Jennie L., Strategic Frames: Europe, Russia and Minority Inclusion in Estonia and Latvia (Pittsburgh, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cheskin, Ammon, Russian Speakers in Post-Soviet Latvia: Discursive Identity Strategies (Edinburgh, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.