#124
Post
by Eric Johnson » 28 Aug 2008, 22:03
Some points made by Nicolai Vakar in a 1943 issue of Slavic Review help to greatly enhance an understanding of the situation in the so-called “Baltic States”
To start, the Latvians and the Estonians were subject peoples from 1158 to 1918. There has been a Russian presence in the Baltic provinces for nearly a thousand years. In 1030, Russians founded in Estland the military outpost Yuriev (Tartu). From the 13th to the 16th century, the German bishops ruling the city paid tribute to the Russians. After Mongol suzerainty was thrown off, the Russians returned to Yuriev in 1559 and held Narva from 1558-81. In 1710, all of Estonia and northern Latvia were acquired by Russia. Lithuania and southern Latvia were acquired during the partition of Poland in 1795.
Nothing in the history of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia was similar, for instance, to the Irish struggle for independence or to the aspirations and national achievements of the Poles, Czechs, and Balkan peoples. Latvia and Estonia had no political annals throughout the seven centuries preceding 1918. For five centuries, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a nation of Russian culture (from the 13th through 17th century) and of Polish culture (17th and 18th centuries), first the Russian and later the Polish being its language of administration and literature.
Throughout imperial Russian rule, neither the Latvians nor the Estonians ever wished to separate from Russia. Their highest claims were for national autonomy within the Empire. Indeed, Latvian national units were formed within the Russian Army in 1915 and fought gallantly against the Germans. After the February Revolution of 1917, no claims for separation were formulated. Their claims had always been limited to national autonomy and federation with Russia on the basis of equality.
None of the Baltic provinces would have been able to separate from Russia by its own means. By the peace of Brest-Litovsk, Germany forced Russia to abandon all claims on Lithuania. Under German pressure, Russia renounced its sovereign rights of Latvia and Estonia in August 1918. Hence, Russia was pushed away from the sea, thrown back into the 17th century. The separation of the Baltic provinces from Russia was an incident of the Russian Revolution and of post-Versailles politics rather than their own national achievement.
Focusing on strategic and economic importance, the Baltic Sea is to Russia what the Gulf of Mexico is to the United States. If Texas, Florida, and Louisiana separated from the United States and established within their borders a political system under foreign influence, the Americans would certainly break the wall erected between their continent and the sea.
Before the Baltic provinces were separated from Russia, one-third of all Russian exports went through the Baltic ports. In Estonia, during the interwar period, Germany and England took most of the export, and provided most of the import. Half of the large industry went into German hands. Rather than adhering to a policy of non-alignment, the Baltic provinces became economic colonies of England and Germany, at the very door of Russia.
Under the USSR constitution the sovereignty of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia was not abolished, but restricted on the basis of equality. Each was granted 25 votes out of 713 in the Council of Nationalities in Moscow, thus having an equal share of sovereignty with the other 13 Union Republics, including the Russian Republic itself.
During the Second World War, no Lithuanian, Latvian, or Estonian government was set up in exile as was the case with Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Holland, Belgium, Norway, and Greece. There was no resistance offered to the restoration of soviet power in 1940. To the contrary, during the war, many thousands of Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian guerrillas fought alongside the Russians. The Estonian Rifle Corps, formed in the Soviet rear in 1942, took part in the battle over Velikie Luki and in the liberation of Estonia. More than 20,000 members of the Estonian Corps were awarded orders and medals, and the title of Hero of the Soviet Union was conferred on 12 Estonian soldiers and officers. Although they knew that the situation in their countries would not return to what existed before 1940, many thousands of Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians still fought gallantly alongside the Russians against a common foe.
