Political science/10. Regional political processes

Frolov A.

The second year student

The Moscow State University

The Singing Revolution and its influence on Baltic Russians

This year Lithuania and Latvia celebrate the victory over Soviet troops that was 25 years ago. This period of time is quite big and now we are to understand who Russians in the Baltic States are. Rats or not? What is more important: has 25 years of independence changed anything in their life and mind or not?

Nowadays a lot of people in Russia use a collocation “The Near Abroad”. What does it mean? This term is absolutely new, it helps Russian politicians identify post-Soviet countries. There are 12 countries which signed the Alma-Ata protocol on 21 December 1991, with many of them Russia has no border. Norway, the DPRK, Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, China, Estonia are not so close to Russians. That’s a very serious problem because President Putin talks a lot about relationships with the Near Abroad but never about other neighbors. In the case of difficulties Russians faced in the Baltic States it looks like hushing up the problem.

Different ethnical groups have always lived near the Baltic Sea. Their
impact on indigenous nations was different but only two of them have become the objects of hatred: the Germans and the Russians. The Germans have had such reputation for centuries. The Russians got this dubious achievement only after the Second World War.

A huge flow of migrants from Russia threatened Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians. They didn’t want any assimilation with Russians and it led to negative reaction. But 30 years of common life smoothed over a lot of contradictions: the Russians worked and lived as the Russians, the Baltic nations worked and lived as the Baltic nations. They could live absolutely separately, a famous Russian sociologist Simonyan notes that almost all industrial plants in the Baltic states were established on the principle of monoethnicity, districts of new towns were Russian-speaking, districts of old towns were native-language-speaking. It means that, for example, the Latvians could know only their language and be very successful. There were two worlds: Russian and Baltic. They lived independently from each other. Perestroika was a moment when those two worlds united to conquer independence for Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Today in Russian media everyone can very often read that the Russians didn’t want the USSR collapse. It’s a blatant lie. Mr. Putin wants Russian to think that the West has stolen their strong Red Empire’s glory. But this big empire was a quasi-state in the beginning of the 1990s. Lithuania as the richest republic started fighting for sovereignty first. Latvia and Estonia joined later. It wasn’t a war against Russia. It was the battle against the Soviet regime in which Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians and Russians fought side by side. Together they organized the Baltic Way, defended the Radio and Television Committee building in Vilnius. There were some Russians in revolutionary governments, for example, Anatolijs Gorbunovs who was the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia.

As usual, the triumph uncoupled friends: 1992 was the year of Baltic nationalism. Latvia and Estonia banned Russian press, gave absolutely no political rights for the Russians, Lithuanian government was more clever, they just banned Russian part of the Sąjūdis and gave citizenship for all the Russians. Boris Yeltsin and his government didn’t want (or couldn’t) defend their compatriots from discrimination, 10 years later some politicians admitted that it was a betrayal. I can’t prove this statement, but I can agree that Russia did nothing to protect its citizens.

It’s quite difficult to live without faith in the future because you know that nobody wants to help you. The Baltic Russians couldn’t work in the sphere of civil service, had no money to leave their homeland, so their started to earn money doing business. Many plants became their property ten years later. Nowadays thousands of Russians work for Russian employers because these rich men don’t forget to help their nation.

Today the Russian community in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia can be a brilliant object to scientific study. Under normal circumstances, a Russian will never help his or her compatriot, will try to assimilate with culture of country he or she lives in. Also typical post-Soviet men are very conservative, their attitude to capitalism is very negative. But it isn’t about the Baltic Russians. They are leaders of Baltic capitalism, saviors of Russian culture; they will never leave anybody in the lurch. Simonyan called them “Neither Russians nor Europeans”.

What does the future hold for this atypical ethnic group? There are 3 approaches: optimistic, pessimistic, realistic.

Optimists think that the Russian Balts as the most cultural developed Russian group in Europe will become a very important part of European culture. They will be an ambassador of Russian civilization.

Pessimists think that the Russian Balts are not able to be an independent part of Russian culture for a long time. They will cease to be something special thanks to constant contacts with their historical homeland.

In my opinion, both of these ways are wrong. They will never become a reality. The Russian Balts are destined to be strangers for Balts. They can’t become typical Russians because of the memory about their history when Russia forgot them. They can’t change attitude to capitalism because it helps them be a very important part of the society. An English researcher and professor of Cambridge Anatol Lieven writes ”Russians in the Baltic States can’t associate themselves with Russia because many of them have never been in Russia and can’t associate themselves with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia because they are ethnical Russian”.

What does it mean for the World’s culture? It isn’t good or bad, I suppose. We can study this nice example of a new big ethnic group that was formed by geography, unusual historical memory and economy.

Bibliography

1. Anatol Lieven. The Baltic revolution. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence. Yale University Press New Heaven and London. 1993

2. Россия и Балтия: эпоха перемен (1914-1924). М.: ИВИ РАН. 2002

3. Р.Х.Симонян. Россия и страны Балтии. М.:Academia. 2003