The Baltic States and Europeanism in the Interwar Period. The Implementation of a European Model Antagonist to Soviet Structure
摘要
The concept of the Baltic Republic is geographically based but lacks cultural cohesion. Estonia belongs to the Nordic cultural sphere, despite the disruption generated by the Soviet invasion. Its language bears no similarities to Latvian or Lithuanian, and historically it is a primarily agricultural territory with strong connections to the Hanseatic League. Nevertheless, the incorporation to the Russian Empire opened new possibilities to this territory that mostly benefited the German elite living in Estonia. On the other hand, Latvia, the former central territory of Livonia (which included Latvia and Estonia under German domination) has an Indo-European language with certain similarities with Lithuanian, but with great differences in terms of the economic system, concentrating in its time most of the industrial compounds of the area and a relevant German population. Finally, Lithuania, historically confronted with the Germanic expansion in the area, being able to maintain its independence, is a more populated, highly religious country and more related to the area of Polish influence, a country with which it maintained alliances and violent confrontations equally. Despite these differences, the Baltic States opted for a Western European model of society at their independence after WWI. This research focuses on the main pillars of their sociopolitical internal and external organization and the consequence incompatibilities with the Soviet Union model. The common ground for this research is the relation of the Baltic States with their neighbor Russia-Soviet Union and their aspirations to join the Western world for security reasons.