The Baltic population of the Baltic states and the Russians had long-standing, centuries-old, good neighborly contacts, the beginning of which dates back to the very foundation of the Russian state in the 9th century. It is enough to recall the foundation in 1030 by Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise of the Yuryev fortress near Lake Peipsi (now the city of Tartu in Estonia). These lands were vassals of Kievan Rus, then of the Novgorod Republic. The Russian principalities contributed to the cultural development of this region and brought Orthodox Christianity to the Baltic states. However, during the period of feudal fragmentation of the Russian lands, the Baltic states left our sphere of influence.
In 1219, the Danes undertook a crusade and captured the north of Estonia, but already in 1223 the local population rebelled against the Danes and called on the Russian principalities for help. The Russians came to the rescue, but the subsequent defeat of Russian troops by the Mongols on Kalka in 1223 forced us to transfer forces from the Baltic states to defend Russian lands. As a result, by 1227, the troops of Denmark and the Order of the Sword recaptured Estonia. According to the treaty of 1238, Estonia was divided between Denmark and the Order: the Danes got the north, and the Germans got the south of Estonia. The Crusaders engaged in the systematic extermination of Estonians, forcibly converting them to Catholicism and killing those who disagreed. This led to a series of uprisings against German-Danish rule, but without Russian help these uprisings were doomed to failure, and Russia itself was then under the Mongol-Tatar yoke.
According to the treaty of 1346, the Danish king sold his Estonian possessions to the Livonian Order, which since then owned all of Estonia.
The arrival of the Germans in the Baltic states began from the territory of modern Latvia. In 1197 - 1199 German knights undertook a successful campaign, landing their army from the sea at the mouth of the Western Dvina, and conquered part of Livonia. In 1201 they founded the Riga fortress. At that time, the lats were vassals of the Russian principalities and enjoyed their protection, and the fortresses of the Polotsk principality were located in the upper reaches of the Western Dvina. As a result, already in 1207 the first military conflict broke out between the Order of the Sword Bearers and the Principality of Polotsk.
As a result of long wars and raids, German knights established themselves in the lands of Latvia and Estonia, uniting into the Livonian Order. The Order pursued a very cruel and bloody policy towards the local population. Thus, the Baltic people of the Prussians, related to modern Latvians and Lithuanians, were completely exterminated by the German knights. Lat and Estonians were forcibly converted to Catholicism.
The state of the Livonian Order on the territory of Latvia and Estonia existed until the Livonian War, started by the strengthened Russian state under Ivan the Terrible to protect Russian lands from the threat of the crusaders and to protect the local population from German tyranny. In 1561, after military defeats from Russian troops, Grand Master Gotthard Ketler accepted the title of Duke of Courland and recognized himself as a vassal of Poland. As a result of the Livonian War, which ended in 1583, Estonia and the north of Latvia (Livonia) were ceded to Sweden, and the south of Latvia (Courland) became a vassal possession of Poland.
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Russia and Jamois, as this state was fully called, existed from the 13th century to 1795. Nowadays, its territory includes Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. According to the most common version, the Lithuanian state was founded by Prince Mindovg around 1240, who united the Lithuanian tribes and began to progressively annex the fragmented Russian principalities. This policy was continued by the descendants of Mindaugas, especially the great princes Gediminas (1316 - 1341), Olgerd (1345 - 1377) and Vytautas (1392 - 1430). Under them, Lithuania annexed the lands of White, Black and Red Rus', and also conquered the mother of Russian cities - Kyiv - from the Tatars. The official language of the Grand Duchy was Russian (that’s what it was called in documents; Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalists call it “Old Ukrainian” and “Old Belarusian”, respectively).
Since 1385, several unions were concluded between Lithuania and Poland. The Lithuanian gentry began to adopt the Polish language, Polish culture, and move from Orthodoxy to Catholicism. The local population was subjected to oppression on religious grounds. Several centuries earlier than in Muscovite Rus', serfdom was introduced in Lithuania (following the example of the possessions of the Livonian Order): Orthodox Russian peasants became the personal property of the Polonized gentry, who converted to Catholicism. Religious uprisings were raging in Lithuania, and the remaining Orthodox gentry cried out to Russia. In 1558, the Livonian War began.
During the Livonian War, suffering significant defeats from Russian troops, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1569 agreed to sign the Union of Lublin: Ukraine completely seceded from the principality of Poland, and the lands of Lithuania and Belarus that remained within the principality were included with Poland in the confederate Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, subject to Polish foreign policy.
Results of the Livonian War 1558 – 1583 secured the position of the Baltic states for a century and a half before the start of the Northern War of 1700 - 1721.
The annexation of the Baltic states to Russia during the Northern War coincided with the implementation of Peter's reforms. Then Livonia and Estland became part of the Russian Empire. Peter I himself tried to establish relations with the local German nobility, descendants of German knights, in a non-military way. Estonia and Vidzeme were the first to be annexed (following the war in 1721). And only 54 years later, following the results of the third partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia became part of the Russian Empire after Catherine II signed the manifestos of April 15 and December 19, 1795.
At the time of the annexation of Livonia and Estland on the Baltic territory, the majority of the nobility were Germans. This is explained by the fact that order knighthood until the 16th century. regularly replenished with newcomers from Germany. Contrary to fears, no infringement of rights on the part of Peter I and subsequent kings was observed; rather, on the contrary, the economic and judicial systems were gradually regulated. In Estland and Livonia, after inclusion in Russia, the local legislative body was preserved; in the provinces that were previously part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Vilna, Vitebsk, Grodno, Minsk, Mogilev provinces) the validity of the Lithuanian Statute of 1588 was preserved. The Baltic nobility without any or the rights and privileges of the Russian nobility received restrictions. Moreover, the Baltic Germans (mainly descendants of German knights from the Livonia and Courland provinces) were, if not more influential, then, in any case, no less influential than the Russians, a nationality in the Empire: numerous dignitaries of the Empire were of Baltic origin. Catherine II carried out a number of administrative reforms regarding the management of provinces, the rights of cities, where the independence of governors increased, but actual power, in the realities of time, was in the hands of the local, Baltic nobility.
By 1917, the Baltic lands were divided into Estland (center in Reval - now Tallinn), Livonia (center in Riga), Courland (center in Mitau - now Jelgava) and Vilna provinces (center in Vilna - now Vilnius). The provinces were characterized by a highly mixed population: by the beginning of the 20th century. About 4 million people lived in the provinces, about half of them were Lutherans, about a quarter were Catholics, and about 16% were Orthodox. The provinces were inhabited by Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Germans, Russians, Poles; in the Vilna province there was a relatively high proportion of the Jewish population.
It should be noted that in the Empire the population of the Baltic provinces was never subjected to any discrimination. On the contrary, in the Estland and Livonia provinces, serfdom was abolished, for example, much earlier than in the rest of Russia - already in 1819. Provided that the local population knew the Russian language, there were no restrictions on admission to the civil service. The imperial government actively developed local industry. Riga shared with Kiev the right to be the third most important administrative, cultural and industrial center of the Empire after St. Petersburg and Moscow.
The tsarist government treated local customs and legal orders with great respect.
As we see, neither in medieval history nor in the history of the tsarist period there was any tension in relations between the Russian and Baltic peoples. On the contrary, it was in Russia that these peoples found a source of protection from foreign oppression, found support for the development of their culture and the preservation of their identity under the reliable protection of the Empire.
But even the Russian-Baltic history, rich in traditions of good neighborliness, turned out to be powerless in the face of modern problems in relations between countries caused by the period of communist rule.
In 1917 – 1920 The Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) gained independence from Russia. At the same time, many representatives of the Russian nobility, officers, merchants, and intelligentsia, forced to flee Russia after the victory of the Reds in the fratricidal civil war, found refuge in the Baltic states. But, as is known, in 1940, after the conclusion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the inclusion of the Baltic states into the USSR followed, which was accompanied by mass repressions and deportations on social and political grounds in relation to the local population by the Soviet punitive authorities. Communist repressions as in 1940 - 1941, as well as the actual civil war in the Baltic states in the 1940s - 1950s. for returning countries to the path of independent civilized development against the communists, left a deep painful scar in the historical memory of Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians.
In 1990, the Baltic states proclaimed the restoration of state sovereignty. The communists' attempt to retain power by force, throwing tanks and riot police against peaceful demonstrations in Vilnius and Riga, was unsuccessful. Communism has fallen in the Baltic states. Unfortunately, many now equate Russians with communists. On the part of the Balts, this entails spreading to the entire Russian people the guilt of the communist government, from which the Russian people also suffered, which causes Russophobia. On the part of the Russians, this, alas, causes attempts to justify the crimes of the communists, which have no justification. But even with such relations in recent decades, it is worth noting that the population of the Baltic countries, in addition to the official language, still speaks Russian. Economic, cultural, and tourism relations are developing between Russia and the Baltic states. We are connected by family ties, long history and culture. I would like to believe that in the future relations between the Baltic countries and Russia will again become friendly and good neighborly, because history tends to repeat itself not only in something negative...
All Baltic rivers, with the exception of those flowing into internal non-communicating lakes, belong to the Baltic Sea basin, flowing into it directly or indirectly, through a system of lakes and channels. The Pskov and Peipus lakes - the natural eastern border of the northern Baltic states - communicate with the sea through the Narova, receiving the water of some small rivers.
The largest rivers of the territory - the Western Dvina (flow at the mouth of 700 m³/s) and the Neman (678 m³/s) - flow through the Baltic territory completely, the sources of these rivers are located far beyond its borders. Of the local rivers, the lower reaches of the river are navigable. Venta (95.5 m³/s; basin 11800 km²), river. Pregolya (90 m³/s; basin 15,500 km²) and river. Lielupe (63 m³/s; basin 17600 km²). The Gauja River (basin 8900 km²) has only floating value.
Development of civilization in the Baltics
Characterizing the natural prerequisites for the movement of peoples and ethnogenesis, L. N. Gumilyov noted that according to the zero isotherm of January, Europe is “divided by an air border” passing “through the Baltic states, Western Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea.” The climate on both sides is completely different: east of this border, with a negative average January temperature, winter is cold, frosty, often dry; to the west, wet, warm winters predominate. As you move away from the mouth of the Vistula to the right, the coastline begins to change latitude, alternating a general northwestern direction with a purely northern one: nature and climate lose their preference. The population of the territories corresponds to the degree of their agricultural suitability - with progress along the sea coast from the Vistula to the Neva, both indicators decrease. The northern limit of the distribution of Iron Age cultures, important for the history of civilization, is 60°. This is the latitude of modern Oslo, Uppsala and St. Petersburg - that is, the northern border of the historical Baltic states, determined by natural and climatic conditions, coincides at the mouth of the Neva and with the geographical concept of the southern coast of the Baltic states.
History of the settlement of the Baltic states
Archaeologists date the earliest traces of human presence (“sites”) in the Baltic states to the 9th-10th millennium BC. Another 5-6 thousand years pass before tribes appear that demonstrate the commonality of archaeological cultures over large areas. Of those who, in the process of their development, reach the shores of the Baltic, this is the culture of pit-comb ceramics (late 4th - early 2nd millennium BC; from the Volga-Oka interfluve north to Finland and the White Sea). One of its varieties is the Volosovo culture, which includes the proto-Baltic people.
Western variants of the pitted pottery culture are attested throughout Scandinavia (more than a thousand sites in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway). Unlike the eastern ones, they show signs of a transition from forest hunting and gathering to a “productive economy” (agriculture and cattle breeding) and higher technologies (from river and lake fishing to marine fisheries, including seal hunting).
Another group of archaeological cultures is battle axes, or corded ceramics (from the second half of the 3rd millennium BC). It also leads to the Slavic-Baltic-Germanic tribes. The economy of such subtypes as the Zlota culture (2200-1700 BC, near the great bend of the Vistula), Fatyanovskaya (1st half of the 2nd millennium BC, from the Baltic states to the Volga-Kama region) also producing. At the same time, in the Middle Dnieper culture, belonging to the same group, an exchange with the tribes of the Baltic, Volyn and Black Sea regions was noted.
Over time, “ethnic” elements begin to separate out in these cultures, but 1-1.5 thousand years pass before a specific area can be associated with each of them: the tribes live mixed. Only by the middle of the last millennium BC. e. we can talk about division by territory. It runs approximately in the middle of Latvia; to the south the Baltic tribes consolidate, and to the north - Finnish tribes, distinguished by their local characteristics. Intertribal clashes begin: peaceful encampments of fishermen and hunters along the banks of rivers and lakes disappear, and fortifications appear around settlements.
These are not nations yet: “the existence of a people with its identification name begins from the moment this particular name is assigned to this particular people,” which is what, as a rule, representatives of more developed nations do. The earliest recorded names are from Herodotus. The “Father of History” mentions the Neuroi, Androphages, Melanchlens, Budins..., today attributed to the Dnieper-Dvina culture. Pliny the Elder writes about the Wends living southeast of the Vistula, while Ptolemy “settles” the Wends in Sarmatia. Tacitus, in addition to the Wends, names in “Germanica” (end of the 1st century AD) the Fenians and Aestians. Estia, according to Tacitus, lived on the eastern coast of the Suevian (Baltic) Sea, where they grew cereals and collected amber along the seashore. In general, ancient sources are not rich in information that allows one to reliably trace local ethnogenesis. Among the subsequent settlers of these places, three groups of tribes are indicated. This:
- Finno-Ugric peoples (Livonians, Estonians, Vodians)
- Balts (Prussians, Curonians, Samogitians, Semigallians, Selos, Latgalians, Lithuanians and Yatvingians)
- Pskov Krivichi
The Prussians, Curonians, Livonians, Estonians and Vodians are designated as purely coastal on maps of the settlement of the Baltic lands; the rest in this definition are “continental”.
Tribal groups on the territory of present-day Latvia in the 1st-4th centuries AD, although they differed in the characteristics of archaeological cultures, were at approximately the same stage of socio-economic development. Wealth inequality is emerging; the products in which it materializes speak of the growth of production and exchange. Widely used bronze is imported. The main trade route that connected the ancient world through the Baltic tribes with the East Slavic lands went to the sea along the Daugava - the longest of the Baltic rivers, which is confirmed by Roman copper coins (several hundred) found on its banks and a number of other imported metal objects.
“The process of property and social stratification”, the emergence of “the beginnings of class relations” occupies the next 400-500 years of the history of the Baltic states. Until the 10th century AD e. “class society has not yet developed in these tribes,” that is, there is no statehood. There is also no written language that would record in history the names of leaders who were marked by civil strife; The system is still communal, largely primitive. Ancient Rome, whose historians recorded the first names of the Baltic tribes that have come down to us, fell.
But still, the foreign economic interest of the ancient world in the Baltic states was limited. From the shores of the Baltic, with its low level of development of productive forces, Europe received mainly amber and other ornamental stones, flint; perhaps fur. Due to climatic conditions, neither the Baltic states nor the lands of the Slavs lying behind it could become the breadbasket of Europe (like Ptolemaic Egypt. Therefore, unlike the Black Sea region, the Baltic states did not attract ancient colonists. The positive side of this is that in the first centuries of the new era the Baltic tribes avoided clashes with stronger powers, which would be fraught with fatal consequences.
From the Great Migration to the great empires of the Middle Ages
The rhetorical question is why the 2nd century. BC e. Rome, “extending its imperious hand to the northwest,” gained a foothold only on the Rhine and “did not move further to a more convenient natural border along the Baltic, Vistula and Dniester,” asked at one time by Arnold Toynbee, does not have an indisputable answer to this day day. The template of “civilization” versus “barbarians” has become more firmly established, following which Toynbee and other representatives of “Eurocentric” science lay down the facts of European history. In this “coordinate system”, the “barbarians” in the Baltic states, right up to the fall of Ancient Rome, included all the main local ethnic groups - Finno-Ugric, Baltic and Slavic.
The Great Migration of Peoples that accompanied the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century redrew the ethnic map of Europe. By this time, the Slavs were already widely scattered from the Baltic Sea to the northern slopes of the Carpathians, coming into contact with the Germans and Celts in the west, and with the Baltic and Finno-Ugric tribes in the east and northeast.
The Baltic states in the “great migrations” were not a source, but an intermediate point of migration flows that repeatedly crossed it from the opposite Scandinavian Peninsula. In the 1st-2nd centuries AD. e. The Goths, who came from the “island” of Scandza with King Berig, lived there for a while. On his fifth king, the Goths again moved south, where they later created the Ostrogothic and Visigothic kingdoms. The memory of the Goths on the shores of the Baltic remains in the fossil artifacts of the Wielbar culture in Prussia and in the names of the Gaut tribe in Sweden and the island of Gotland.
The tribes that did not leave with the Goths continued their evolutionary path in the Baltic States, the greatest difficulties on which for a long time were only periodic mutual clashes without the participation of outside forces. Stronger “subjects of international relations”, appearing in subsequent centuries of the history of civilization in the Baltics, were formed later. The Danes - a new migration flow from the south of Scandinavia in the 5th-6th centuries - were aimed not at the Baltic States, but at the archipelago (called Danish after them), and at the northern peninsula of Europe, Jutland, which “close” the Baltic Sea from the west. Later, the settlement of Hedeby (Haithabu), built by the Danes in the southeast of Jutland, became one of the most important trading points connecting the Baltic states and northern Russian lands with Western Europe.
With the growth of productive forces in Europe, traffic along the “Amber Road” of ancient Rome is intensifying. One of its routes went to the Baltic through the West Slavic lands and the Vistula (a transit point near present-day Wroclaw). The other went through the lands of the Eastern Slavs, going directly to the Baltic states through the Dvina or Narva. Not only the Romans, but also intermediary tribes have long been involved in this international trade. The trade routes that passed through their lands were also of particular importance for the development of these tribes, as a means of intraregional communication. This additional factor did not guarantee the acceleration of their development, but only created the preconditions for it. In each of these groups, intertribal consolidation and, ultimately, the formation of statehood proceeded in their own way.
Around the 7th century, the future Western Slavs - Polabian and Pomeranian - consolidated into four tribal unions: Serbo-Lusatians, Obodrits (Bodrichi; the right bank of the Laba and along the Baltic Sea), Lutich (Wiltsy) and Pomeranians between Odra and Vistula. The largest unions of the future Eastern Slavs at this time were Kuyavia (Polyane, Severyan, Vyatichi) in the south and Slavia (Chud, Slovene, Merya, Krivichi) in the north, uniting around the future Kyiv and Novgorod.
In the Baltics, exchange from intertribal began to develop into direct trade with individual regions in the second half of the 7th century. But “in the period of the 5th-8th centuries, in general, the social development of the Eastern Baltic region, including the ancient Latvian tribes, lagged behind their East Slavic neighbors. At this time, the Eastern Slavs developed a class society, which united in the 9th century into a single Old Russian state. In the Eastern Baltic, class relations were just emerging during this period.”
The 8th century opens the “Viking Age” - the third and most powerful stream emanating from Scandinavia. If the first two were purely migration, then the indemnity and colonization components play an important role here. They are interdependent: moving from one-time robberies to regular collection of tribute, the Vikings, due to the presence of “competitors” in this matter, first leave “garrisons”. Depending on the circumstances, these squads either provide management and protection services (as in Rus'), or carry out military actions, supporting the colonization of existing countries (England), or, settling in newly created states, form the backbone of their armed forces (Normandy, Sicily ).
Rimbert in his “Life of Ansgar” (second half of the 9th century) recorded such competition. Here the Danes (their raid dates back to 853) and the Sveons, who then came, led by Olaf, compete for the opportunity to make money in a coastal settlement called Seeburg. Here the statement that the Kuri have long been subject to the power of the Sveons means less to historians than the word cori itself - today the oldest mention of the name of the people identified with the Curonians. It is also significant that the twice larger settlement of Apulia (Rimbert’s estimates of the garrisons are 7 and 15 thousand soldiers) - the Vikings did not manage to take it - is not located near the sea, but five days’ journey from it. Bishop Ansgar, the first Christian missionary in the Baltics, who had previously preached in Denmark, Jutland and Sweden, also failed to carry out his plans among the Curonians.
A hundred years later, in the second half of the 10th century, both the west and the east of Europe embraced the general trend of strengthening the administrative (“gathering of lands”) and spiritual (Christianization) prerequisites for the creation of large centralized states. 962 Otto I the Great gathers the Holy Roman Empire. Mieszko I (935-992), with the support of Otto (to whom he takes the oath of feud), begins collecting Polish lands. By 978, under Harald I (930-986), Denmark assumed the scale of the northern empire. In 911, the Old Russian state began to flourish, in which almost all the East Slavic tribes were soon united. Princess Olga (957), Mieszko (965), and Harald (972) accept personal baptism, and Vladimir I Svyatoslavich, having carried out mass baptism in 988, “informs” the West and East that all of Rus' has taken the path of accepting Christianity. At the same time, in the north-west of developed Europe - formally, within the Old Russian state - another major center of power arises. Novgorod - more than Southern Rus', involved in world economic relations - soon gains enough strength to claim the role of the dominant center in the Baltic states adjacent to its lands.
The Baltic states, lying on the border between East and West, remained pagan for a long time. Arable farming became the basis of the economy here from the end of the 1st millennium; winter rye began to be grown from the 11th century. By the 10th century, large settlements appeared, around which territorial associations of ancient tribes formed. Of these, on the lands adjacent to the sea lived the Prussians (Kaliningrad Bay and the mouth of the Pregolya), the Livs (the Gulf of Riga and the mouth of the Dvina), the Estonians (the Tallinn and Narva Bays with the mouth of the Narova) and the Vods (the Gulf of Finland from the Narova to the mouth of the Neva).
Novgorod, with varying degrees of assistance from its Baltic trade partners (“Vikings”), expanded its sphere of influence around the trade routes leading to the Baltic Sea throughout the 10th-11th centuries. Similar processes are developing along the Western Dvina, where the starting point is Polotsk, built in the land of the Krivichi before 800. In the order of mention in Old Scandinavian sources, the “rating” of Russian cities known to the Scandinavians is as follows: Novgorod, Kyiv, Staraya Ladoga, Polotsk. The Daugava is the longest of the Baltic rivers, the last stretch on the way to the sea. At the same time, Polotsk is located halfway along the meridional route from Kyiv to Novgorod and Ladoga. As on other sections of the route “from the Varangians to the Greeks,” outposts appeared and strengthened along the Dvina on the way to the sea, which then turned into the centers of the vassal principalities of Polotsk - Kukeinos and Ersik. On the northern route to the Gulf of Finland, the Polotsk residents founded Izborsk - the most important, along with Polotsk and Smolensk, center of the Krivichi. The lands leading to the Baltic from Novgorod are being developed in a similar way. Pskov stands out here from a number of fortified settlements in ancient times. For Polotsk it is halfway to Narova and the Gulf of Finland. For Novgorod, it is halfway from Polotsk.
The main cathedrals built in each of the three listed key points - Kyiv, Polotsk and Novgorod - were named, as in Constantinople, in the name of St. Sofia. This emphasized the sovereign, “capital” significance of these centers.
The early history of Novgorod took place in constant struggle with Finno-Ugric tribes. The Principality of Polotsk - perhaps in the name of peace on trade routes - turns out to be more tolerant of its pagan neighbors from the Baltic tribes. In the land of the Krivichi, periods of peaceful coexistence, without attacks from outside, promote diffusion and mutual absorption. Being drawn into the pan-European civilizational process, mediated for Rus' by its trade ties through the Baltic states, parallels the formation of the Russian state itself. In the X-XI centuries, Rus' was not yet burdened with the experience of tough interstate struggle, which by that time was unfolding with might and main in Western Europe. Its advancement to the sea is not associated with the need to physically displace local tribes from their acquired places, and therefore, until the end of the 11th century, these processes proceeded rather along an evolutionary path.
Meanwhile, in the western Baltics, events are unfolding according to a different pattern. After the collapse of the empire of Charlemagne, the feudal lords of the East Frankish regions became the main enemy of the Slavs in Pomerania and the Baltic states. At first, the armed struggle between them went on with varying degrees of success, but by the 12th-13th centuries, the Slavic lands of Polabia were absorbed one after another by the Germans and adopted Christianity according to the Roman model. Among the few who managed to preserve, at least partially, the Slavic language and culture were the Lusatians.
Development of Terra Mariana
At the beginning of the 13th century, a critical moment came in the life of the diverse population of the entire southern coast of the Baltic Sea: this area fell into the zone of long-term strategic interests of state entities, moving from the absorption of adjacent territories to the colonization of distant territories.
The capture of the Baltic states is carried out, in historical terms, almost instantly. Over the course of one generation, already at the first stage of the Northern Crusades, in 1201 the crusaders founded Riga; in 1206, Innocent III blesses the crusade against the Prussians; in 1219 the Danes occupied Russian Kolyvan and founded Tallinn. Only on the coast of East Prussia did the crusaders suffer relative failure in those years, but even here, after a third of a century, the Teutons established their strongholds: in 1252 Memel and in 1255 Königsberg.
In the eastern part of the coast, starting from the right bank of the Vistula, Germanization and Christianization unfold according to a different scenario. Knightly orders - Teutonic, Livonian, Swordsmen erect castles in the Baltic states as strongholds of colonization. Pagan tribes are subjected to forced Christianization, but they are not allowed to create their own national state formations. The appanage Western Russian principalities that have already arisen here - for example, Kukeinos - are being liquidated.
In 1185, Maynard von Segeberg arrived in Livonia. Starting with a small chapel on the Daugava in the town of Ikeskola (about 30 km upstream from the mouth), the next year he already invited stonemasons to build a castle. This marked the beginning of the Bishopric of Livonia - the first state formation in Livonia. And although the result of Maynard’s missionary work was small (Henry of Latvia writes about six who “for some reason were baptized” but then refused), for the successes achieved, the Archbishop of Bremen elevated Maynard to the rank of bishop in 1186. In 1199, Albrecht von Buxhoeveden became bishop, and he founded a new stronghold - Riga. His missionary activity was supported by already quite powerful armed forces: together with Albrecht, 1200 knights came on 23 ships. With such support, the bishop, in addition to spiritual, took upon himself secular power, turning into a prince-bishop.
- The Bishopric of Riga settled in Riga in 1201; from 1255 - archbishopric;
- The Bishopric of Dorpat (Dorpat) (N.-German: Bisdom Dorpat) was founded in 1224 by the same Albrecht - immediately after the Order of the Swordsmen captured the city of Yuriev, founded by the Russians, which the Germans immediately renamed Dorpat (Dorpat).
- The Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek (German: Bistum Ösel-Wiek, since 1559 a principality-bishopric) was founded by Albert on October 1, 1228 (the Crusaders took this island in 1227).
- Bishopric of Courland (German: Bistum Kurland founded in 1234.
In 1207-1208 Albrecht liquidated the Kukeinos principality, and in 1215-19 the Yersik principality.
All four bishoprics listed above were included in the Livonian Confederation created in 1435 - an interstate formation in which, under the leadership of the Livonian Order, bishops had territorial sovereignty and full power within their possessions.
Displacement of Rus' from the Baltic states in the 16th century
The appearance of the city of Novgorod on the map of the Old Russian state dates back to 859, and Pskov - to 903. Both of them, more than any of the other cities, were, on the one hand, removed from Kyiv, and then Moscow as the seat of power, the supremacy of which they recognized, and on the other hand, they were close to the exit points of the route from Asia to Europe to the Baltic sea, and to Europe itself. Having provided unique examples of government for Rus', the Pskov and Novgorod Republics for a long time retained other features of life that distinguished them from the appanage principalities of Rus'.
Occasional internecine clashes did not prevent the Pskov and Novgorod residents from uniting among themselves, as well as with the Russian principalities, in opposition to the expansion of Western Europe in the Baltic states. In the 13th century, the Battle of the Ice in 1242, the Battle of Omovzha in 1234 and the Battle of Rakovor in 1268 ended in victory for the Slavs over the knights. In the 14th century, it was possible to contain the onslaught on Izborsk. However, after the defeat of the rebellious Novgorodians in 1471 by Ivan III and the subsequent liquidation of the republic with the annexation of the lands of Veliky Novgorod, the geopolitical positions of Muscovite Rus' in the north-west of the Russian Plain weakened: the displacement of Russians deep into the continent, from the Baltic shores, resumed.
The last such attempt was made by the Livonian Confederation in 1501, in alliance with Lithuania. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania had been at war with Moscow since 1499. Having suffered defeat in the Battle of Vedros in July 1500, Prince Alexander Jagiellon found an ally in the person of the Master of the Livonian Order, Walter von Plettenberg. Preparing at that time for an attack on Pskov, which was not yet dependent on Moscow, the warlike master then tried to convince Pope Alexander VI to declare a crusade against Rus', and an ally in the form of Lithuania came in handy.
As a result of the war of 1501-1503, Ivan III and the Livonian Confederation made peace on the terms of Lat. status quo ante bellum - a return to the state before the start of the war, which was in effect until the Livonian War.
The “Schlitte Affair” (1548, Lubeck) showed Ivan IV that behind the worsening relations with Livonia there were not only “ordinary” claims to lands inhabited by neighbors. We were talking about the policy of the Livonian Confederation, deliberately aimed at preventing not only goods, but also “Western specialists” from entering the growing Russia. All 300 people recruited by Hans Schlitte in Europe at the request of the Russian Tsar were arrested in Livonia, Schlitte himself was put in prison, and a certain artisan Hans, who tried to get into Muscovy at his own peril and risk, was executed by the Hanseatic.
The Livonian Order, meanwhile, was approaching its collapse.
The Livonian War began in January 1558 in a geopolitical situation favorable to Russia. Beginning in the 1520s, internal contradictions between German feudal lords and the local peasantry began to worsen in the Livonian Order. Added to this were religious unrest associated with the Reformation in the eastern Baltic. Having occupied the border Narva and regained control over the previously lost Yuryev, the Russian troops stopped, and in the spring of 1559 they concluded an unfavorable - according to historians - peace: Muscovy received only minimal gains from this campaign (the western shore of Lake Peipus and Pskov to a depth of about 50 km) and the main thing is that it did not reach the shores of the Baltic. Anticipating the inevitable collapse of their state, and fearing a resumption of the Russian offensive, the Livonian feudal lords hastened in the same year to negotiate with the Polish king Sigismund II Augustus on the transfer of the order's lands and the possessions of the Riga archbishop under his protectorate. In the same 1559, Revel went to Sweden, and the Bishop of Ezel-Vik ceded his bishopric and the entire island of Ezel to Duke Magnus, brother of the newly reigned Danish king, for 30 thousand thalers.
In 1560, Russian troops, having defeated the order's army near Ermes, advanced another 50 km, reaching the Marienburg-Fellin line. The renewed peasant uprisings against the German feudal lords in connection with the war forced the latter in northern Estonia to come under the protection of Sweden, into whose citizenship they themselves also passed. The Swedes were not slow in occupying the entire southern coast of the Gulf of Finland, going 40-50 km deeper.
In 1561, the last Landmaster of the Livonian Order, Gottgard Kettler, having converted from Catholicism to Lutheranism, retains Courland and Semigallia under his rule - already as the Duke of these lands and, according to the Union of Vilna, a vassal of the Polish king Sigismund II. From this moment on, Russia enters into confrontation with the three largest countries in the Baltics: the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Sweden. Having taken Polotsk, located on the Dvina, in 1563 - once the capital of one of the ancient Russian principalities - Russian troops are trying to advance not to Riga, but back, along the Ulla River - where they suffered two orders in a row in January and July 1564. The third defeat from the Poles and Lithuanians was suffered in the same year by Russian troops stationed relatively close to Ulla - in the upper reaches of the Dnieper, near Orsha.
At the end of the 1560s, the foreign policy situation of Rus' continued to deteriorate. In January 1569, the general diet of Polish and Lithuanian feudal lords in Lublin adopted a union - a single Polish-Lithuanian state of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was created. In the same year, the Turks set out on a campaign against Astrakhan, and in 1571 Devlet-Girey carried out a devastating raid on Moscow. Campaigns against Livonia were resumed only in 1575, but the policies of Ivan IV were less and less satisfactory to those around him, which ultimately resulted in the oprichnina; the country is falling into ruin.
The critical moment for Russia was the campaign of Stefan Batory in 1579-81. The new Polish king occupies Polotsk, Velikie Luki; in 1581 he besieged Pskov, the capture of which would open the way to Novgorod and Moscow. According to the Yam-Zapolsky 10-year truce (1582), Moscow ceded to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Polotsk and the lands still occupied by that time by the Russians in Livonia. Russia suffered the most painful losses in the Truce of Plus of 1583, losing to the Swedes not only Narva, but also Ivangorod, which stands on the Russian bank, as well as the Russian fortresses of Yam and Koporye, which withstood many sieges of knights in the lands of Vodi and Izhora east of the Luga River.
The return of Russia to the Baltic states in the 18th century
The loss of almost all access to the Baltic Sea in the last quarter of the 16th century turned out to be for Russia only a prologue to a further deterioration of the foreign and domestic political situation, called in history the Time of Troubles (1598-1613). For its main geopolitical rivals in the Baltics - Sweden, and to a lesser extent for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, territorial acquisitions in the east of the Baltic Sea additionally fueled the growth of power, and with it the foreign policy claims of these states.
For their part, due to the persisting ethnic community with Russia, reinforced by the unity of the “Rurik roots,” a certain part of the nobility of the new Polish-Lithuanian state made plans for more than the Swedes - namely, to take power over Russia, establishing themselves on the Moscow throne. These hopes were supported, on the other hand, by the return of sympathy for Poland on the part of some of the Russian merchants and even the nobility, who played a significant role in the sad history of the Novgorod Republic: its bloody defeat at the end of the 15th century was preceded by a growing tendency among the Novgorodians towards an alliance with Poland against Moscow in the name of preserving its Baltic-oriented economic interests.
The last losses of Russian lands in favor of Sweden were recorded by the Treaty of Stolbovo, concluded at the end of the “Time of Troubles”, in 1617: Karelia and Ingermanland (indicated on the map in dark and light green, respectively). Having closed the borders of its possessions in the Neva Bay, Sweden achieved almost complete dominance in the Baltic; only small sections of the coast belonged to Poland, Prussia and Denmark.
Territorial acquisitions under the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 propelled Sweden into the ranks of superpowers; some historians even call the period 1648-1721 the “Swedish Empire” (although the Swedish kings did not change either their title or the status of the state). At the same time, the excellent military-strategic assessments of the Swedish army and navy, weapons reserves, equipment and food remain indisputable. The significant role that Sweden played at that time in relations between European states is also obvious. Thus, the group of states that felt harmed by Swedish expansion and formed the Northern Alliance for the war with Sweden - Denmark, Poland, Saxony and Russia - was confronted by a powerful enemy.
The now textbook words “Here we are destined by nature to open a window to Europe,” which A.S. Pushkin puts into the mouth of Peter I, are just a rhetorically effective phrase. During the diplomatic preparations for the war with Sweden, the Russian Tsar and his ambassadors presented slightly different arguments accepted in diplomacy to Russia’s future comrades in the Northern Alliance. The certificate prepared by the Russian Foreign Ministry for the 300th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava summarizes the following. Peter I formulated the political basis for the need to restore Russia's presence in the Baltic from the standpoint of solving the problem of returning ancient Russian lands, including the Baltic ones. Since ancient times, Russia in the Baltics belonged to Karelia, the part of the Vodskaya Pyatina of Veliky Novgorod adjacent to the Neva (Izhora land, Ingria) and most of the provinces of Livonia and Estland with the cities of Yuryev and Kolyvan. Peter also recognized Riga “with its accessories” as the “heir apparent” of the Russian Tsar.
According to one version of historians, the easy victory won by Charles XII over the Russians in 1700 near Narva made the young king “dizzy with success.” This underestimation of the real potential of the enemy, in their opinion, not only played an almost fatal role in the defeat at Poltava, but was also expressed in Karl’s “indifference” to the successes of the Russians in the Baltic states in the period before Poltava: the capture of Shlisselburg in 1702, the conquest of the mouth of the Neva and the founding of “St. Petersburg” in 1703, and so on.
Opponents counter by pointing to the sufficiency of the combat potential of the contingents left by Charles on the “Baltic Front” and the high class of his military generals. Since childhood, the Swedish king had excellent training in military affairs, and remembered the history of the relatively recently (for him) past Livonian War, in which the significance of the number of fortresses taken by the Russians at the first stage was reduced to zero by subsequent developments. Like the Poles in the Time of Troubles, he took his main aim not at regiments and fortresses, but at Russia itself, its statehood, hoping that if not a change of power, then at least internal unrest in the ruling circles would bring a much greater geopolitical result to the entire campaign. For this purpose, he bet on Mazepa, and delved into Russian borders as much as any European before him.
During the Northern War, which caused a powerful international resonance, in addition to the members of the Northern Alliance, other powers emerged that in one way or another declared their interests in the Baltic states, even to the point of armed demonstrations of force.
After the victory at Poltava, “the Brandenburg government also entered into negotiations directed against the Swedes. Even the Elector of Hanover, who had by that time been declared the heir to the English throne, entered into negotiations with the Russian government, hoping in the future to receive Swedish possessions at the mouth of the Elbe River.”
The military-strategic insignificance - from the point of view of the course of the war - of the individual Baltic territories, over which Russia regained control in 1701-1708, is confirmed by the fact that this did not prevent Riga and even Revel from performing the functions of ports and intermediate supply bases for Charles’s army, which went deep into latitude south of Moscow. Russian troops occupied Riga, Revel, and Vyborg only in 1710. However, “the Swedes, incited by the Western powers, did not agree to sign peace. They still had significant forces at sea and large military garrisons in the Baltic states, Finland, and Northern Germany.” Only when in 1719-1720. Russian troops landed on the Åland Islands, dangerously close to Stockholm, and peace became closer.
For the first time, England demonstrated its anti-Russian interests in the eastern Baltic. Not interested in strengthening Russia, by putting pressure on Prussia and Denmark, she achieved their withdrawal from the Northern Alliance. After the death of Charles XII, the British disrupted the then ongoing Russian-Swedish peace negotiations. Finally, in 1719 and 1721, London undertook a series of military demonstrations against Russia in the Baltic without declaring war. Admiral J. Norris, whom Peter personally solemnly welcomed at Revel back in 1715, and then offered to become the head of the Russian fleet, now “proposed to seize all Russian ships and galleys in the Baltic in the near future,” and only fear of retaliatory measures against the British in Russia this time restrained the “mistress of the seas.” This was the first, but far from the last armed confrontation in the history of relations between England and the new Russian Empire - its birth was solemnly announced by Peter I upon the conclusion of the Peace of Nystadt.
Since Russia’s return to the Baltics, “England has sought to weaken, and not unsuccessfully, Russia’s political positions in the Baltic and in the Northern European countries.” In these difficult conditions, Russia showed maximum restraint, relying on the interest of English merchants in developing trade relations. Therefore, when, after the death of Peter, the English squadrons in 1726-1727. literally frequented the Baltic Sea, St. Petersburg issued a special declaration “on the non-cessation of trade” with England. In it, Russia in particular “strongly reassured” “the entire British people and especially those sending merchants to our Russian Empire”, which was in connection with the arrival of the English military squadron in the Baltic Sea.
As part of the Russian Empire
According to the peace treaty concluded in Nystadt with Sweden, Russia returned the part of Karelia north of Lake Ladoga, Ingermanland (Izhora land) from Narova to Ladoga with the fortresses of Yam and Koporye, part of Estland with Revel, part of Livonia with Riga, as well as the islands lost under the Stolbovo Treaty Ezel and Dago.
Instead of demanding the usual indemnity in these cases (for example, according to the Stolbov Treaty, in addition to territorial concessions, it paid the Swedes 20,000 silver rubles, which was equal to 980 kg of silver), Russia, on the contrary, paid Sweden compensation in the amount of 2 million efimki. Moreover, Sweden not only returned Finland; but from now on the latter also received a benefit for the annual duty-free import of bread from Russia for 50 thousand efimki. Russia has assumed special obligations regarding political guarantees to the population newly accepted into Russian citizenship. All residents were guaranteed freedom of religion. All privileges previously granted by the Swedish government were confirmed to the Baltic nobility; preservation of their self-government, class bodies, etc.
Baltic region
Until 1876, the Baltic region constituted a special administrative unit (governor-general) of the Russian Empire. The main body of noble self-government in the Baltic region was the Landrat Collegium - class collegial bodies, the name of which (German Land land, including as an administrative-territorial unit, and German Rat council) is partly equivalent to the Russian zemstvo. Peter borrowed their very idea long before the Peace of Nystadt, having carefully studied the practice of their work in Reval and Riga, which he had already occupied. Initially, the king planned to make these bodies elective. By decree of January 20, 1714, he ordered: ...landrators should be elected in each city or province by all nobles at their own hands. However, the Senate sabotaged this decree by appointing Landrats in 1715, contrary to the decree, according to the lists submitted by the governors. In 1716, Peter was forced to cancel his unfulfilled decree. Landrat colleges existed only in two Baltic provinces, Estland and Livonia. Catherine II abolished them, Paul I restored them, and they existed until the beginning of the 20th century.
The highest bodies of self-government (“zemstvo economy”) in these same two provinces were the Landtags - congresses of the nobility, convened every three years. In the intervals between congresses, noble committees in Estland and noble conventions in Livonia, convened several times a year, functioned on an ongoing basis. Their composition was elected at the Landtags, the right to convene was granted to the leader of the nobility, or: in Estland - to the Land Marshal, and in Livonia - to the next Landrat.
Baltic states in the 20th century
By the beginning of the First World War in the Baltic states, the largest administrative-territorial entities of Russia were three Baltic provinces:
- Livlyandskaya (47027.7 km²; approx. 1.3 million people in 1897)
- Estlyandskaya (20246.7 km²)
- Kurlyandskaya (29,715 km², about 600 thousand population)
The Vilna province (41,907 km²), of the 1.6 million population of which (1897) 56.1% were Belarusians, 17.6% Lithuanians and 12.7% Jews, as well as the Kovno province were not included in the Baltic region.
On March 30, 1917, the Provisional Government of Russia adopted the regulation “On the Autonomy of Estonia”, according to which the latter ceded 5 of the 9 counties of Livonia (24,178.2 km², or 51.4% of the area, with 546 thousand people, or 42% of the population), and, in addition, part of the Valka district (before the division: more than 6 thousand km² with 120.6 thousand people). After this transfer of land, the territory of Estonia grew 2.5 times, amounting to 44,424.9 km². Although the new border between the Estland and Livonia provinces was not demarcated under the Provisional Government, its line forever divided the district town of Valk along the river, and part of the Petrograd-Riga railway ended up entering the territory of the adjacent province, practically not serving it itself.
By 1915, Germany occupied part of the Livonia province (Kurzeme), but Riga, Valmiera, Wenden and Dvinsk remained part of Russia. Already on March 7, 1917, the first composition of the Council of Workers' Deputies was elected in Riga, and by the end of the month, Soviets arose in all other cities and towns of the unoccupied territory. All posts of provincial and district commissars of the region were occupied by local Social Democrats. Thus, Soviet power in Latvia was established several months before the October Revolution; Its central body was the Iskolat (Executive Committee of the Council of Workers, Soldiers and Landless Deputies of Latvia), created on July 30 (August 12). The Vidzeme Provisional Zemstvo Council, created by the Provisional Government back in March, turned out to be unviable, and in the context of growing conflict with the Provisional Government, General L. G. Kornilov chose on August 21 (September 3) to surrender Riga without a fight to the Germans, “preferring the loss of territory to the loss of the army,” part of which he moved towards Petrograd.
The decision to launch an armed uprising was made in Latvia on October 16 (29), a week before the October Revolution in Petrograd. By November 9th New Year Latvian riflemen established control in Wenden, 2 days later in Valmiera and on November 20 in Valka, from where Soviet power was proclaimed over the entire unoccupied territory of Latvia on November 22.
On December 29-31, 1917, at the request of the 2nd Congress of the Councils of Workers', Soldiers' and Landless Deputies (Valmiera), the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR granted the request of the Executive Committee of the Council of Latgale to separate the "Latgale" counties from the Vitebsk province and to include them in Latvia.
During the peace negotiations in Brest, the German army treacherously resumed its offensive against Russia, and by February 1918, the entire territory of Latvia was occupied by German troops. After the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 3, 1918), the Sejms (Landesrats) in Courland (March 8) and Livonia (April 12) announced the re-establishment of the Duchies of Courland and Livonia. According to the plan of the German command, they were supposed to be united into a buffer “Grand Duchy of Livonia”, united by a personal union with the Prussian crown. In the fall of 1918, the German emperor recognized the independence of the Baltic duchy with its capital in Riga. In October 1918, Reich Chancellor Maximilian of Baden transferred control of the Baltic states from the military to the civilian government. During the duke's absence, the powers of government were to be exercised by the regency council formed in November (4 Germans, 3 Estonians, 3 Latvians), headed by Baron Adolf Adolfovich Pilar von Pilchau.
After the defeat of Germany (November 11, 1918), the German occupation forces, at the direction of the Entente, were left in the Baltic states with the responsibility of maintaining order. Under these conditions, a few days later, on November 18, a government was formed and the independence of Latvia was proclaimed. There were no elections or referendums. On December 7, K. Ulmanis signed an agreement with the German representative on the formation of a joint Baltic Landeswehr, which included both German and former Russian officers, mainly of Latvian origin.
By the end of 1918, the previously elected Soviets, who found themselves underground, created a provisional Soviet government of Latvia from their representatives. On December 17, on behalf of this government (chairman P. Stuchka), the creation of Soviet Latvia was announced, after which the Latvian riflemen again captured Valka, Valmiera and Cesis. On December 22, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR recognized the independence of Soviet Latvia. On January 2-3, 1919, Soviet power was established in Riga, and by the end of January, Soviet power was established everywhere except Liepaja, where the British squadron was stationed.
Having received additional weapons worth over $5 million and £1.3 million, the Landeswehr and Goltz's division launched a counteroffensive. In February they occupied Ventspils and Kuldiga, and by March they occupied most of Kurzeme. At the same time, Estonian troops were advancing from the north, and Polish troops from the south. On May 22, Riga was captured. The Ulmanis government was able to restore full control over Latvia only in January 1920, when the Soviet government of Latvia announced its self-dissolution.
As a result, Latvia found itself in a state of war with the RSFSR. In order to terminate it, when the Treaty of Riga was signed on August 11, 1920, the RSFSR did not reclaim the territories previously transferred by the RSFSR to Soviet Latvia (the northwestern part of the Vitebsk province, including the counties of Dvinsky, Ludza, Rezeknensky and part of Drissky), as well as part of the Ostrovsky district of the Pskov province with the city of Pytalovo - 65.8 thousand km² with 1.6 million inhabitants). The counties transferred by the Provisional Government from Estonia also remained part of Latvia.
In Estland, as well as in Courland, in October 1917 power passed into the hands of the Soviets. In January 1918, a draft constitution was published, according to which Estonia was proclaimed an autonomous republic within the RSFSR. By the end of February, Estonia was completely occupied by German troops. On February 24, 1918, the Salvation Committee, authorized by the Land Council (created under the Provisional Government), proclaimed the independent Estonian Republic. After the defeat of Germany on November 11, 1918, with the assistance of British intelligence services, the pro-Entente Provisional Government of Estonia formed itself, which again proclaimed the creation of a sovereign Estonian state. On November 29, the Estonian Labor Commune was proclaimed in Narva. By a decree of December 7, 1918, the RSFSR recognized the Estonian Soviet Republic, which was transferred from the Petrograd province to the left bank of the Narova region (now Eastern Virumaa district) with the cities of Narva and Ivangorod.
The reaction to the creation of independent states on the territory of the Baltic provinces of Russia in the world was ambiguous. After their recognition by the RSFSR, in August 1920, US Secretary of State B. Colby stated that the State Department “continues to be persistent in its refusal to recognize the Baltic states as states independent of Russia”, since
... the American government ... does not consider any decisions proposed by any international conference to be useful if they involve the recognition as independent states of certain groups having varying degrees of control over territories that were part of the Russian Empire.
It was not until July 1922 that his successor Charles Hughes announced that the United States had “consistently insisted that the disorganized state of Russian affairs cannot serve as a basis for the alienation of Russian territories, and this principle is not considered violated by the recognition at this time of the governments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which were established and supported by the native population,” which opened the possibility of recognition of these governments.
The entry of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into the USSR dates back to the approval of the VII session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of decisions on the admission to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: Lithuanian SSR - August 3, Latvian SSR - August 5 and Estonian SSR - August 6, 1940, based on statements previously received from the highest authorities of the relevant Baltic states.
This event belongs to the general context of the development of international relations in Europe over the previous years, which ultimately led on September 1, 1939 to the outbreak of the Second World War. However, in a retrospective international legal assessment of the three above-mentioned bilateral interstate acts adopted in August 1940, historians and politicians do not have a common opinion. Modern Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania consider the actions of the USSR to be occupation followed by annexation.
The official position of the Russian Foreign Ministry is that the entry of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into the USSR complied with all norms of international law as of 1940, and subsequently received official international recognition. De facto, the integrity of the borders of the USSR on June 22, 1941 was recognized by the states participating in the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, and as of 1975, the European borders were confirmed by the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
For almost 50 years of their stay in the USSR, the Baltic republics - the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian SSR - enjoyed the same rights as the other union republics. On the restoration and development of their economy, see the Baltic economic region and individual articles on the republics.
One of the immediate consequences of perestroika - attempts to reform the political and economic system of the USSR, begun by M. Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s, was the collapse of the Union. On June 3, 1988, “Sąjūdis” was founded in Lithuania, a movement that declared in its documents “support for Perestroika”, but secretly set its goal to secede from the USSR. On the night of March 11, 1990, the Supreme Council of Lithuania, headed by Vytautas Landsbergis, declared the independence of the Republic of Lithuania.
In Estonia, the Popular Front was formed back in April 1988. He also declared support for perestroika, and did not declare Estonia's exit from the USSR as his goal, but became the basis for achieving it. On November 16, 1988, the Supreme Council of the Estonian SSR adopted the “Declaration of the Sovereignty of the Estonian SSR.” The Popular Front of Latvia, also founded in 1988, took a similar position. The independence of Latvia was declared by the Supreme Council of the Latvian SSR on May 4, 1990.
In subsequent years, political relations between the Russian Federation, as the legal successor of the USSR, and the Baltic states developed ambiguously. However, despite their political independence, the economies of these states continue to depend, to varying degrees, on the economic development of the region into which they have been integrated over the past two or three centuries. Having closed many high-tech industries that were previously oriented to the vast Soviet market (electric trains, radio equipment, cars), these states were unable to achieve similar competitive positions in the world market. A significant share of their income continues to be the transit of Russian exports, as well as imports through the Baltic ports. Thus, out of 30.0 million tons of cargo turnover of Latvijas dzelzceļš for 7 months of 2007, oil accounted for 11.1 million tons, coal - 8.2 million tons and mineral fertilizers - 3.5 million tons. Compared to the same period last year, transit to Estonian ports decreased by 14.5% (2.87 million tons).
Economy of the Baltics
Since the 18th century, the former inflationary provinces of the Baltic states received, thanks to their entry into Russia, exceptionally favorable conditions for the development of the local economy. Having worse conditions for fertility and productivity than in neighboring Poland and Prussia, the region received direct access to the largest European sales market, Russian, unencumbered by customs barriers. From transport intermediaries on the path of Russia's relations with Europe, the Baltic provinces gradually became full participants in reproduction processes in the Russian economy. In the Baltic states, unified economic-geographical complexes began to take shape, in which, as capitalism developed, the share of industrial production gradually increased.
In 1818, during the economic zoning of Russia, K. I. Arsenyev identified two “spaces” related to the Baltic states as part of its economic regions: “Baltic” (Baltic Sea provinces) and “Lowland” (including Lithuania). In 1871, P.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, while performing a similar task, divided the Baltic states between the “Baltic region” (three Baltic provinces) and the “Lithuanian region” (gubernias of Kovno, Vilna and Grodno). Later, D.I. Mendeleev, among the 14 economic regions of Russia, identified the “Baltic Region” (three Baltic provinces, as well as Pskov, Novgorod and St. Petersburg) and the “North-Western Region” (Belarus and Lithuania).
Thus, throughout the 19th century, Russian economic geographers made a consistent distinction between the “Baltic Sea” and “Lithuanian-Belarusian” regions of the Baltic states. The underlying differences in economic stereotypes have developed historically; Mendeleev points to the common historical past of the Vilna, Vitebsk, Grodno, Kovno, Minsk and Mogilev provinces - their belonging to the ancient Principality of Lithuania, to which is added the fact that in the complex of the Polish-Lithuanian state, the outlying lands inhabited by Lithuanians did not acquire ports on the Baltic sea, comparable in turnover to Riga in Courland and Revel in Estland. The access of the Vilna province to the Baltic Sea was purely symbolic. The attraction of the Vilna lands towards the Belarusian ones was also reflected in the fact of the creation in 1919 of a state called the Lithuanian-Belarusian SSR.
The Republic of Lithuania did not have its own port at the time of its proclamation. By the beginning of 1923, the population of the Memel region increasingly sought to obtain, similar to Danzig, free status (German: Freistaat Memelland). Having thwarted the referendum that the residents insisted on, on January 10, 1923, with the support of militia invading from Lithuania, more than a thousand armed Lithuanians occupied Memelland and the city of Memel. Due to the inaction of the French army, which guarded the Memel region under the mandate of the League of Nations, it was annexed by Lithuania. But 16 years later, in 1939, Germany re-annexed it again. Only thanks to the victory of the USSR over Germany, the Lithuanian SSR, having received Memel (later renamed Klaipeda) in 1945, acquired a full set of attributes of belonging to the Baltic region in the economic and geographical sense.
The differences accumulated over the previous centuries between the Baltic provinces and Lithuania were significantly smoothed out within the framework of the systematic development of the USSR economy as a single national economic complex (ENHK USSR), in which Lithuania (as well as the Kaliningrad region of the RSFSR) was considered, along with Latvia and Estonia, in the context of a single macro-region - Baltic economic region. The preferential conditions created for it (preferential investments, lower prices) contributed to the fact that the population of this region was among the “richest” in the USSR. Thus, in 1982, with an average per capita deposit in the USSR of 1,143 rubles. in Latvia this figure was 1260, in Estonia 1398, and in Lithuania - 1820 rubles (the maximum among the union republics of the USSR).
Before secession from the Soviet Union, the Baltic republics promoted positive prospects for secession from the USSR Unified Petrochemical Company and reorientation of the economy towards the European Union. “While still part of the USSR, the authorities of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia set the political goal of destroying a significant part of economic relations with Russia, focusing only on increasing transit flows and connections in the banking sector, which were often flawed.”
At the same time, instead of the promised investments in technical re-equipment, the complete or partial dissolution of industrial complexes began (in Latvia - VEF, Radiotekhnika, RAF, Riga Carriage Works, Alpha, Ellar, Dambis; in Estonia - the plant named Kalinina, “Engine”, “Tallex”, etc.). At the insistence of the European Union, the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant was closed in Lithuania, which provided Lithuania with energy independence and foreign exchange earnings from energy exports to its neighbors.
For some time, in terms of GDP growth rates, the Baltic states were even ahead of Western Europe, on the basis of which the media began to position these countries as the “Baltic Tigers.” However, the subsequent global economic crisis changed the situation; economic growth gave way to decline.
In 1998, the administrative-territorial bodies of the Baltic states, including the Kaliningrad region, became part of the Euroregion “Baltic” - one of the regional organizations for cross-border cooperation created in accordance with the guidelines developed by the Council of Europe.
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The Baltic (Baltic) countries include three former Soviet republics that were not part of the CIS - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. All of them are unitary republics. In 2004, all three Baltic countries joined NATO and the European Union.
Baltic countries
Table 38
A special feature of the geographical location of the Baltic countries is their access to the Baltic Sea and their neighboring position with the Russian Federation. In the south, the Baltic countries border on Belarus (Latvia and Lithuania) and Poland (Lithuania). The countries of the region have a very important political-geographical position and an advantageous economic-geographical position.
The countries of the region are very poor in mineral resources. Among the fuel resources, peat is ubiquitous. The “richest” among the Baltic countries is Estonia, which has reserves of oil shale (Kohtla-Jarve) and phosphorites (Maardu). Latvia (Brocene) stands out for its limestone reserves. Famous mineral water springs: in Latvia Baldone and Valmiera, in Lithuania - Druskininkai, Birštonas and Pabiře. in Estonia - Häädemeeste. The main wealth of the Baltic states is fishery and recreational resources.
In terms of population, the Baltic countries are among the small countries of Europe (see table 38). The population is distributed relatively evenly, and only on the coast the population density increases slightly.
In all countries of the region, the modern type of reproduction dominates, and everywhere the mortality rate exceeds the birth rate. The natural population decline is especially high in Latvia (-5%o) and Estonia (-4%o).
The gender composition, as in most European countries, is dominated by women. In terms of the age composition of the population, the Baltic countries can be classified as “aging nations”: in Estonia and Latvia, the share of pensioners exceeds the share of children, and only in Lithuania are these indicators equal.
All Baltic countries have a multinational population, and only in Lithuania do Lithuanians make up the absolute majority of the population - 82%, while in Latvia Latvians account for only 55% of the republic's population. In addition to indigenous peoples, there are many so-called Russian-speaking people living in the Baltic states: Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and in Lithuania, Poles. The largest share of Russians is in Latvia (30%) and Estonia (28%), but it is in these countries that the problem of respecting the rights of the Russian-speaking population is most acute.
Estonians and Latvians are Protestants by religion, while Lithuanians and Poles are Catholics. The majority of the believing Russian-speaking population considers themselves Orthodox.
The Baltic states are characterized by a high level of urbanization: from 67% in Lithuania to 72% in Estonia, but there are no millionaire cities. The largest city in each republic is its capital. Among other cities, it should be noted in Estonia - Tartu, in Latvia - Daugavpils, Jurmala and Liepaja, in Lithuania - Kaunas, Klaipeda and Siauliai.
Employment structure of the population of the Baltic countries
Table 39
The Baltic countries are provided with highly qualified labor resources. The majority of the population of the countries in the region is employed in the non-productive sector (see table 39).
In all the Baltic countries, emigration of the population predominates: the Russian-speaking population goes to Russia, Estonians to Finland, Latvians and Lithuanians to Germany and the USA.
After the collapse of the USSR, the economic structure and specialization of the Baltic countries changed significantly: the predominance of the manufacturing industry was replaced by the predominance of the service sector, and some branches of precision and transport engineering, light industry, in which the Baltic countries specialized, practically disappeared. At the same time, the importance of agriculture and the food industry increased.
Electric power industry is of secondary importance in the region (with 83% of Lithuania’s electricity supplied by the largest in Europe Ignalina
NPP), ferrous metallurgy, represented by the only center of pigment metallurgy in Liepaja (Latvia).
The branches of industrial specialization of the modern Baltic include: Precision engineering, especially the electrical industry - the production of radio equipment in Estonia (Tallinn), Latvia (Riga) and Lithuania (Kaunas), televisions (Šiauliai) and refrigerators (Vilnius) in Lithuania; machine tool building in Lithuania (Vilnius) and ship repair in Latvia (Riga) and Lithuania (Klaipeda). The transport engineering industry developed in Latvia during Soviet times (production of electric trains and minibuses) has practically ceased to exist; Chemical industry: production of mineral fertilizers (Maardu and Kohtla-Jarve in Estonia, Ventspils in Latvia and Jonava in Lithuania), production of chemical fibers (Daugavpils in Latvia and Vilnius in Lithuania), perfume industry (Riga in Latvia) and household chemicals (Tallinn in Estonia and Daugavpils in Latvia); Forestry industry, especially furniture and pulp and paper (Tallinn, Tartu and Narva in Estonia, Riga and Jurmala in Latvia, Vilnius and Klaipeda in Lithuania); Light industry: textile (Tallinn and Narva in Estonia, Riga in Latvia, Kaunas and Panevezys in Lithuania), clothing (Tallinn and Riga), knitwear (Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius) and footwear industry (Vilnius and Siachiuliai in Lithuania); Food industry, in which dairy and fish play a special role (Tallinn, Tartu, Pärnu, Riga, Liepaja, Klaipeda, Vilnius).
The Baltic countries are characterized by the development of intensive agriculture with a predominance of livestock farming, where dairy cattle breeding and pig breeding play a leading role. Almost half of the cultivated area is occupied by fodder crops. Rye, barley, potatoes, vegetables, flax are grown everywhere, and in Latvia and Lithuania - sugar beets. Lithuania stands out among the Baltic countries in terms of agricultural production volume.
The Baltic countries are characterized by a high level of development of the transport system: where road, rail, pipeline and sea modes of transport stand out. The largest seaports in the region are Tallinn and Pärnu - in Estonia; Riga, Ventspils (oil tanker), Liepaja - in Latvia and Klaipeda - in Lithuania. Estonia has a ferry connection with Finland (Tallinn - Helsinki), and Lithuania with Germany (Klaipeda - Mukran).
Among the non-production sectors, recreational services are of particular importance. The main tourist and recreational centers of the Baltic states are Tallinn, Tartu and Pärnu - in Estonia;
Riga, Jurmala, Tukums and Baldone - in Latvia; Vilnius, Kaunas, Palanga, Trakai, Druskininkai and Birštonas are in Lithuania.
The main foreign economic partners of the Baltic states are the countries of Western Europe (especially Finland, Sweden and Germany), as well as Russia, and a reorientation of foreign trade towards Western countries is clearly observed.
The Baltic countries export instruments, radio and electrical equipment, communications, perfumes, household chemicals, forestry, light, dairy and fishing industries.
Imports are dominated by fuel (oil, gas, coal), industrial raw materials (ferrous and non-ferrous metals, apatite, cotton), vehicles, and consumer goods.
Questions and assignments Give an economic and geographical description of the Baltic states. Name the factors that determine the specialization of the economy of the Baltic countries. Describe the problems of regional development. Give the economic and geographical characteristics of Estonia. Give the economic and geographical characteristics of Latvia. Give the economic and geographical characteristics of Lithuania.
Fedorov G.M., Korneevets V.S.
General information
The Baltic states in Russian literature are traditionally understood as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. This territory was inhabited by humans relatively recently, about 10 thousand years ago, after the retreat of the glacier. The ethnicity of the first inhabitants of the region is impossible to determine, but, presumably, by the 3rd millennium BC this territory was occupied by Finno-Ugric peoples of the Altai language family, who came here from the east. At this time, the process of settlement of Indo-European peoples began in Europe, which included the Baltoslavs, who migrated to the territories north of the Carpathians from the general area of settlement of Indo-Europeans in the northern Black Sea region. By the beginning of our era, the Baltic tribes, separated from a single Balto-Slavic community, populated the entire southern Baltic region, including the southeastern coast of the Gulf of Riga, assimilating or pushing the Finno-Ugrians to the north. From the Baltic tribes settled in the Baltic states, the Lithuanian and Latvian nationalities were later consolidated, and then nations; from the Finno-Ugric tribes, the Estonian nationality and later a nation were formed.
National composition of the population of the Baltic states
A significant part of the Baltic population is Russian. They have long inhabited the shores of lakes Peipus and Pskov and the Narva River. In the 17th century, during the religious schism, Old Believers migrated to the Baltic states. But the bulk of the Russians living here moved during the period when the Baltic states were part of the Russian Empire and the USSR. Currently, the size and share of the Russian population is declining in all Baltic countries. By 1996, compared to 1989, the number of Russians decreased in Lithuania by 38 thousand people (by 11%), in Latvia - by 91 thousand (by 10%), in Estonia - by 54 thousand (by 11. 4%). And the outflow of the Russian population continues.
The Baltic states have a number of common features in their economic and geographical location, natural conditions, history, structure and level of economic development. They are located on the southeastern coast of the Baltic Sea, on the adjacent marginal section of the East European (Russian) Plain. For a long time, this territory served as an object of struggle between the powerful powers of Europe and now continues to remain a zone of contact between Western European and Russian civilizations. After leaving the Soviet Union in 1991
During the Soviet period, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, together with the Kaliningrad region, were included by the planning authorities of the USSR in the Baltic economic region. Attempts were made to integrate their national economy into a single complex. Some results of cooperation between individual industries, for example in the fishing industry, in the formation of a unified energy system, etc., have been achieved. However, internal production connections have not become so close and extensive that one can speak of an integral territorial production complex of the Baltic states. We could talk about such common features as the proximity of national economic specialization, the similarity of the role in the all-Union territorial division of labor, the higher standard of living of the population compared to the average Union. That is, there were socio-economic differences between the region and other parts of the country, but not its internal unity.
The Baltic republics differed from other parts of the USSR in ethnocultural terms, but at the same time they had very little in common with each other. For example, unlike most of the Soviet Union, where the alphabet is based on the Cyrillic alphabet, on their territory the autochthonous population uses the Latin alphabet, but it is used for three different languages. Or, for example, believing Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians are most often not Orthodox, like Russians, but they differ in religion and among themselves: Lithuanians are Catholics, and Latvians and Estonians are predominantly Protestants (Lutherans).
After leaving the USSR, the Baltic states are trying to implement economic integration measures. However, their national economic structures are so close that they are more likely competitors in the struggle for foreign markets than partners in economic cooperation. In particular, servicing Russia’s foreign economic relations through the Baltic ports is of great importance for the economies of the three countries (Fig. 6).
The Russian market is extremely important for the sale of food products, light industry products and other consumer goods, the production of which is developed in the Baltic states. At the same time, trade turnover between Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia is insignificant.
The share of the other two Baltic countries in the trade turnover of Lithuania and Estonia in 1995 was 7%, Latvia - 10%. In addition to the similarity of products, its development is hampered by the limited size of the markets of the Baltic states, which are small in territory, population and economic potential (Table 6).
Table 6
General information about the Baltic states
Sources: The Baltic States: Comparative Statistics, 1996. Riga, 1997; http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/lg.html
Lithuania has the largest territory, population and GDP among the three countries, Latvia is in second place, and Estonia is in third place. However, in terms of economic development, as follows from a comparison of GDP and population, Estonia is ahead of the other Baltic countries. Comparative data taking into account purchasing power parity of currencies are given in Table 7.
Table 7
Gross domestic product in the Baltic states,
taking into account the purchasing power of currencies, 1996
Source: http://www.odci.go/cia/publications/factbook/lg.html
Rice. 7. Main trading partners of the Baltic states
The natural conditions of the Baltic states, while generally similar, also have some differences. Taking into account the whole complex of factors, they are most favorable in Lithuania, located to the south, and least favorable in the northernmost republic, Estonia.
The relief of the Baltic states is flat, mostly low-lying. The average surface height above sea level is 50 meters in Estonia, 90 in Latvia, 100 in Lithuania. Only a few hills in Latvia and Estonia slightly exceed a height of 300 m, and in Lithuania they do not even reach it. The surface is composed of glacial deposits, forming numerous deposits of construction minerals - clays, sands, sand-gravel mixtures, etc.
The climate of the Baltic states is moderately warm, moderately humid, belongs to the Atlantic-continental region of the temperate zone, transitional from the maritime climate of Western Europe to the temperate continental climate of Eastern Europe. It is largely determined by the westerly transfer of air masses from the Atlantic Ocean, so that in winter the isotherms take a meridional direction, and the average January temperature for most of the Baltic territory is –5° (from –3 in the western coastal part to –7 in the remote parts of the sea areas). Average July temperatures range from 16-17° in northern Estonia to 17-18° in the southeast of the region. The annual precipitation is 500-800 mm. The duration of the growing season increases from north to south and is 110-120 days in the north of Estonia and 140-150 days in the south of Lithuania.
The soils are predominantly soddy-podzolic, and in Estonia - soddy-carbonate and bog-podzolic. They do not have enough humus and require large amounts of fertilizer and, due to frequent waterlogging, drainage work. For acidic soils, liming is necessary.
The vegetation belongs to the zone of mixed forests with a predominance of pine, spruce, and birch. Latvia and Estonia have the greatest forest cover (45%), the least (30%) is Lithuania, which is the most developed in agricultural terms. The territory of Estonia is heavily swamped: swamps occupy 20% of its surface.
In terms of the degree of economic development of the territory, Lithuania takes first place, Estonia takes last place (Table 8).
Table 8
The degree of economic development of the Baltic states
Compared to European countries located to the south, the level of development of the territory of the Baltic states is less high. Thus, Lithuania, which has the highest population density among the Baltic republics - 55 people. per sq. kilometer, is twice as large as Poland and four times smaller than Germany. At the same time, this is much more than in the Russian Federation (8 people per square kilometer).
From the data in Table 8 we can also conclude that there is an ongoing reduction in cultivated areas in Estonia, and especially Latvia. This is one of the consequences of the changes in the economy that are taking place in the Baltic states after the collapse of the USSR and the beginning of transformation processes of transition from a directive to a market economy. Not all of these changes are positive. Thus, by 1997, none of the Baltic republics had reached the level of production of the gross national product of 1990. Lithuania and Estonia have come closer to it; Latvia is lagging behind the others. But, unlike the other former republics of the USSR, in the Baltic states, since 1994, the gross national product began to grow. The standard of living of the population is also increasing.
More recently, Russia and the Baltic countries were part of one state. Now everyone goes their own historical path. Nevertheless, we are concerned about the economic, political and social realities of neighboring states. Let's figure out which countries are part of the Baltic states, learn about their population, history, and also follow their path to independence.
Baltic countries: list
Some of our fellow citizens have a reasonable question: “What countries are the Baltics?” This question may seem stupid to some, but in fact, not everything is so simple.
When the Baltic countries are mentioned, they primarily mean Latvia with its capital in Riga, Lithuania with its capital in Vilnius and Estonia with its capital in Tallinn. That is, post-Soviet state entities located on the eastern coast of the Baltic. Many other states (Russia, Poland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland) also have access to the Baltic Sea, but they are not included in the Baltic countries. But sometimes the Kaliningrad region of the Russian Federation belongs to this region.
Where is the Baltics located?
Which Baltic countries and their adjacent territories are located on the eastern coast of the Baltic waters. The area of the largest of them, Lithuania, is 65.3 thousand km². Estonia has the smallest territory - 45.2 thousand square meters. km. The area of Latvia is 64.6 thousand km².
All Baltic countries have a land border with the Russian Federation. In addition, Lithuania neighbors Poland and Belarus, which also borders Latvia, and Estonia shares a maritime border with Finland.
The Baltic countries are located from north to south in this order: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. Moreover, Latvia has a border with two other states, but they are not neighbors.
Baltic population
Now let's find out what categories the population of the Baltic countries consists of based on various demographic characteristics.
First of all, let’s find out the number of inhabitants who inhabit the states, the list of which is presented below:
- Lithuania - 2.9 million people;
- Latvia - 2.0 million people;
- Estonia - 1.3 million people.
Thus, we see that Lithuania has the largest population, and Estonia has the smallest.
Using simple mathematical calculations, comparing the area of territory and the number of inhabitants of these countries, we can come to the conclusion that Lithuania has the highest population density, and Latvia and Estonia are approximately equal in this indicator, with a slight advantage for Latvia.
The titular and largest nationalities in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are, respectively, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians. The first two ethnic groups belong to the Baltic group of the Indo-European language family, and Estonians belong to the Baltic-Finnish group of the Finno-Ugric language tree. The largest national minority in Latvia and Estonia are Russians. In Lithuania they occupy the second largest number after the Poles.
History of the Baltics
Since ancient times, the Baltic states were inhabited by various Baltic and Finno-Ugric tribes: Aukstait, Zeimaty, Latgalian, Curonian, Livonian, and Estonian. In the struggle with neighboring countries, only Lithuania managed to formalize its own statehood, which later became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under the terms of a union. The ancestors of modern Latvians and Estonians immediately fell under the rule of the German Livonian Order of Crusader Knights, and then, as a result of the Livonian and Northern War, the territories in which they lived were divided between the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Denmark, Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In addition, from part of the former order lands, a vassal duchy was formed - Courland, which existed until 1795. The ruling class here was the German nobility. By that time, the Baltic states were almost completely part of the Russian Empire.
All lands were divided into Livland, Courland and Estlyad provinces. The Vilna province stood apart, inhabited mainly by Slavs and having no access to the Baltic Sea.
After the death of the Russian Empire, as a result of the February and October uprisings of 1917, the Baltic countries also gained independence. The list of events that preceded this outcome would take a long time to list, and it would be superfluous for our review. The main thing to understand is that during 1918-1920 independent states were organized - the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian republics. They ceased to exist in 1939-1940, when they were annexed to the USSR as Soviet republics as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. This is how the Lithuanian SSR, Latvian SSR and Estonian SSR were formed. Until the beginning of the 90s, these state entities were part of the USSR, but among certain circles of the intelligentsia there was always hope for independence.
Declaration of Independence of Estonia
Now let's talk about a period of history that is closer to us, namely the period of time when the independence of the Baltic countries was proclaimed.
Estonia was the first to take the path of secession from the USSR. Active protests against the Soviet central government began in 1987. Already in November 1988, the Supreme Council of the ESSR issued the first Declaration of Sovereignty among the Soviet republics. This event did not yet mean secession from the USSR, but this act proclaimed the priority of republican laws over all-Union laws. It was Estonia that gave birth to the phenomenon that later became known as the “parade of sovereignties.”
At the end of March 1990, the Law “On the State Status of Estonia” was issued, and on May 8, 1990, its independence was declared, and the country returned to its old name - the Republic of Estonia. Even earlier, similar acts were adopted by Lithuania and Latvia.
In March 1991, a consultative referendum was held in which the majority of citizens voting were in favor of secession from the USSR. But in fact, independence was restored only with the beginning of the August Putsch - August 20, 1991. It was then that the resolution on Estonia's independence was adopted. In September, the government of the USSR officially recognized the secession, and on the 17th of the same month, the Republic of Estonia became a full member of the UN. Thus, the country's independence was completely restored.
Establishment of Lithuania's independence
The initiator of the restoration of Lithuanian independence was the public organization “Sąjūdis”, formed in 1988. On May 26, 1989, the Supreme Council of the Lithuanian SSR proclaimed the act “On the State Sovereignty of Lithuania”. This meant that in the event of a conflict between republican and all-Union legislation, priority was given to the former. Lithuania became the second republic of the USSR to take up the baton from Estonia in the “parade of sovereignties.”
Already in March 1990, an act was adopted to restore the independence of Lithuania, which became the first Soviet republic to declare secession from the Union. From that moment on, it became officially known as the Republic of Lithuania.
Naturally, the central authorities of the Soviet Union recognized this act as invalid and demanded its cancellation. With the help of individual army units, the USSR government tried to regain control over the republic. In its actions, it also relied on citizens who disagreed with the policy of secession within Lithuania itself. An armed confrontation began, during which 15 people died. But the army did not dare to attack the parliament building.
After the August Putsch in September 1991, the USSR fully recognized the independence of Lithuania, and on September 17 it joined the UN.
Independence of Latvia
In the Latvian SSR, the independence movement was initiated by the organization “People's Front of Latvia,” which was created in 1988. On July 29, 1989, the Supreme Council of the Republic, following the parliaments of Estonia and Lithuania, proclaimed the third Declaration of Sovereignty in the USSR.
At the very beginning of May 1990, the Republican Supreme Council adopted the Declaration on the restoration of state independence. That is, in fact, Latvia, following Lithuania, announced its secession from the USSR. But in reality this happened only after a year and a half. On May 3, 1991, a referendum-type survey was conducted, in which the majority of respondents were in favor of the independence of the republic. During the coup of the State Emergency Committee on August 21, 1991, Latvia actually managed to achieve independence. On September 6, 1991, like the rest of the Baltic countries, the Soviet government recognized it as independent.
Period of independence of the Baltic countries
After restoring their state independence, all the Baltic countries chose the Western course of economic and political development. At the same time, the Soviet past in these states was constantly condemned, and relations with the Russian Federation remained quite tense. The Russian population of these countries has limited rights.
In 2004, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were admitted to the European Union and the military-political NATO bloc.
Economy of the Baltic countries
At the moment, the Baltic countries have the highest standard of living of the population among all post-Soviet states. Moreover, this is happening despite the fact that a significant part of the infrastructure remaining after Soviet times was destroyed or ceased to function for other reasons, and after the global economic crisis of 2008, the economy of the Baltic countries is going through far from the best times.
Estonia has the highest standard of living among the Baltic countries, and Latvia has the lowest.
Differences between the Baltic countries
Despite the territorial proximity and common history, we should not forget that the Baltic countries are separate states with their own national characteristics.
For example, in Lithuania, unlike other Baltic states, there is a very large Polish community, which is second in size only to the titular nation, but in Estonia and Latvia, on the contrary, Russians predominate among national minorities. In addition, in Lithuania, citizenship was granted to all persons living on its territory at the time of independence. But in Latvia and Estonia, only the descendants of those people who lived in the republics before joining the USSR had such a right.
In addition, it should be said that Estonia, unlike other Baltic countries, is quite strongly focused on the Scandinavian states.
General conclusions
All those who carefully read this material will no longer ask: “What countries are the Baltics?” These are states that have had a rather complex history, filled with the struggle for independence and national identity. Naturally, this could not but leave its mark on the Baltic peoples themselves. It was this struggle that had a key influence on the current political choice of the Baltic states, as well as on the mentality of the peoples who inhabit them.
