Baltic states

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Baltic States. The history of the three Baltic States (See Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) followed a very similar pattern during the Second World War. They formed an important part of the broad swathe of eastern Europe where Soviet and German interests overlapped, and which suffered the double tyranny of both Soviet and Nazi invasions. There were three successive periods of occupation: the first Soviet occupation, 1940–1; the Nazi occupation from 1941 to 1944–5; and the second Soviet occupation starting in 1944.

In 1939 the independent sovereign status of the Baltic States had been established and confirmed by international recognition, by membership of the League of Nations, and by treaties signed with the government of the USSR, including a series of bilateral pacts of non-aggression. There was little legal, moral, or political basis for the subsequent Soviet claims which sought to include the Baltic States within a Soviet ‘sphere of influence’ (as recognized by the Nazi–Soviet Pact of 23 August 1939), and which, from June 1940, sought to justify their forcible incorporation into the Soviet Union. Although the western powers never formally acquiesced in the fruits of Stalin's aggression against the Baltic States, the politics of the Grand Alliance barred any effective protest.

The inhabitants of the Baltic States played no part in the political decisions which determined their fate. The national governments which survived until June 1940 had no role in Nazi–Soviet negotiations, and were obliged to accept the resultant ultimatums that were put to them. They had no means to resist the ominous Treaties of Friendship and Co-operation with the USSR, nor the introduction of Soviet garrisons under the terms of those treaties, nor the subsequent political agitation conducted by Soviet agencies. The elections, which accompanied Soviet occupation in July 1940, were stage-managed operations imposed in conditions of nascent mass terror. The demands for annexation to the USSR, consummated in August 1940, were a total sham. The arrival of German forces in June– July 1941 was widely welcomed on the mistaken assumption that the Third Reich might practise policies similar to those of Imperial Germany during the First World War. In reality, Soviet terror was replaced by a Nazi terror directed largely, though not exclusively, at the Jewish population. The Nazis took no steps to restore Baltic independence, leaving all three states under the military government of the Reich Commissariat Ostland. The return of Soviet forces in 1944–5 produced a third wave of terror, with the Stalinist security organs conducting vast purges of collaborators, real or imagined.

The multinational population of the Baltic States—Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, German, Jewish, Polish, and Russian—was radically altered by the war. In 1939 it was still coloured by 19th-century experiences under tsarist rule, when the German minority had commanded considerable social and political power and an important Jewish community held a strong position in such cities as Riga and Wilno. The Polish community was still very influential in large parts of Lithuania. Most pre-war social, ethnic, and cultural patterns were destroyed from 1939 onwards. The purges of the first Soviet occupation of 1940–1 were often directed at the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian intelligentsia, who had served or been educated by the national regimes, and who were decimated by methods bordering on genocide. The Baltic Germans were evacuated under the terms of a Nazi–Soviet agreement, and resettled either in Germany or in territory seized by Germany from Poland. The Nazi occupation resulted in the mass murder of virtually all Baltic Jews (see also Final Solution), the formation of a number of Waffen-SS divisions, and the persecution of Poles and Russians. The second Soviet occupation restarted the earlier purges, while supervising the evacuation of most of the remaining Poles. It also saw the beginning of a mass influx of Russians and of other Soviet immigrants, especially to Estonia and Latvia.

Baltic war losses are not easily calculated, since they have been officially subsumed and concealed within statistics pertaining to the Soviet Union as a whole. It is certain, however, that the victims of political terror and genocide far outnumbered military casualties, also that in percentage terms Baltic losses considerably exceeded the Soviet average.

In 1945, the re-incorporation of the Baltic States into the USSR as the ‘Soviet Republics’ of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania clearly breached international law; but it passed without challenge.

Norman Davies

Baltic States Comprising Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the region may have taken its name from Mare Balticum ‘Baltic Sea’. This was named by the Romans after an island (which did not exist) which they called Baltica. From the middle of the 19th century the people generically became known as Balts, although the Estonians are not Balts and speak an entirely different language, one of the Finno‐Ugric group of languages. The name Balt, however, may be derived from bælt, a Danish word used to describe some of the narrow passages, or belts, between the Danish islands. The Russian name for the area is Pribaltika, meaning ‘adjacent to the Baltic Sea’.

Baltic states the countries of Estonia , Latvia , and Lithuania , bordering on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. Formed in 1918, they remained independent republics until their involuntary incorporation in 1940 into the USSR. They regained their independence in Sept., 1991, and virtually all Russian troops were withdrawn by Aug., 1994. Finland is usually classed with the Scandinavian rather than with the Baltic states. See also Baltic provinces .

Baltic states Countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, on the e coast of the Baltic Sea. Settled by various tribes in the 7th century, it remained mostly under Danish, Russian or Polish rule until the 20th century. Following the Russian Revolution (1917), each state became independent, but were submerged into the Soviet Union in 1940. They regained independence following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.