Category: Articles in English

The Baltic road to freedom signaled not only a national reawakening, but a democratic uprising as well. Those three small nations – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – wanted to restore their independent states. They had suffered more than most during and after the Second World War, having been the victims of invasion, military occupation and annexation into the USSR, as well as repeated deportations en masse to the Gulag.

The leaders of the independence movements had therefore every reason to expect, that they would be welcomed with open arms back into the familiy of European democracies.

The Baltic road to freedom in the late 80s and early 90s coincided with the endgame of the Cold-War. It signifed both a national reawakening and a democratic uprising. The outside world was impressed by the emergence of powerful grassroots movements, which demonstrated their capacity to mobilize the will of the people – remember the human chain in August 1989? This was democracy in action. The leaders of the independence movements had therefore every reason to expect, that they would be welcomed with open arms back into the family of European democracies.

But they were in for a rude awakening. Instead they were admonished for irresponsibility and even labeled as „spoilers of the peace“. They were told to behave responsibly for the greater good of all. And advised to settle for a compromise with their colonial masters, without any preconditions. Wouldn´t some form of home-rule within the USSR be good enough?

For almost half a century the BALTIC NATIONS were the forgotten nations of Europe. Their lands had been razed from the map; their national identities and distinct cultures had partly gone underground. They had simply disappeared from the political radar screen of the outside world. When discussing the Baltic issue with a distinguished foreign minister of a NATO country, he dismissed the subject with a wafe of his hand and added: „ Haven´t these peoples always belonged to Russia anyway?“

Þessi ræða, https://jbh.is/?p=1363 sem var flutt 19. október, s.l. við Stanford háskóla, birtist í vefriti þeirrar deildar skólans, sem fæst við kennslu og rannsóknir á málefnum, sem tengjast Norðurlöndum og Eystrasaltsþjóðum.

Ræðunni fylgja myndir og umsagnir og ábendingar um tengiliði við áhugavert og skylt efni.

http://upnorth.eu/those-who-dare-icelands-role-in-recognizing-baltic-independence/

For almost half a century the BALTIC NATIONS were the forgotten nations of Europe. Their lands had been razed from the map; their national identities and distinct cultures had partly gone underground. They had simply disappeared from the political radar screen of the outside world. When discussing the Baltic issue with a distinguished foreign minister of a NATO country, he dismissed the subject with a wafe of his hand and added: „ Haven´t these peoples always belonged to Russia anyway?“

Let me at the outset present you with two quotations – just to start us thinking. Here is the first one:

„The dissolution of the Soviet Union is the greatest geo-strategic catastrophy of the 20th century“.

From the point of view of a KGB- officer in occupied Germany, Putin´s lament for the fate of the Soviet Union is understandable. After all, didn´t British, French and Spanish colonialists firmly believe in the civilizing mission of their empires?

Here is another quotation – perhaps a bit more intrigueing:

„I appeal to you – the people of Ukraine – not to succumb to extreme nationalism, but to keep the Soviet Union together – for the sake of peace and stability“.

Who was this firm believer in the peaceful mission of the Soviet Union? Well, he was none other than the president of the United States – the founder of the Bush dynasty – addressing the Verkovna Rada (The Ukrainian parliament) in Kyiv in 1991, a few months before the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

Introduction: Aku Sorainen – a Finn living in Tallinn – is the founder and CEO of the biggest legal service operating in all the Baltic countries and Belarus. June 4th, 2015 Aku and his partners celebrated the 20th anniversary of their highly successful partnership. Aku invited me to give a keynote-speech at the beginning of the conference on the subject: The Baltic Road to Freedom revisited – a quarter century later. The next speaker was Lieutenant General Riho Terras, commander of the Estonian Defence Forces, who dealt with „challenges in Defence and Security“ for the young Estonian Republic. Mart Noorma, founder of the first Estonian student satelite program EST-CUBE, gave an interesting talk entitled: „Who will be on Mars in 2020 and where will we be then?“ Eriks Stendzenieks, president of the Latvian Art Directors´Club in Riga, gave a hilarious talk on how the underdogs (small nations) manage to survive in the animal kingdom. All the proceedings of this remarkable conference can be viewed at http://www.sorainen.com/ .

The following interview by Ilze Nagla of Latvian LTV-1 was broadcast on May 3d, 2015 in a program dedicated to the independence struggle of the Latvian poeple, because a quarter century has passed since the declaration of independence. That declaration of independence was not activated until Iceland took the initiative in giving it diplomatic recognition at a ceremony at Höfdi House in Reykjavík, August 26th, 1991.

Introduction: On April 21st I gave the following speech at a conference held in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. The theme of the conference, as well as of my keynote speech, was to seek answers to the question: What can Ukraine learn from the Baltic post-independence experience? It turned out that there is a lot to be learnt from the Baltic experience. The most important lesson is that right from the beginning the political leadership in the Baltic countries stood united – across the political barricades, left, right and center – to consolidate their fragile independence by joining the EU and to take out an insurance policy against future threats by joining NATO. This unity of purpose gave their domestic politics – despite all the turmoil and social upheaval of the most difficult transition period – the internal descipline needed to push through and stand by difficult and necessary, but unpopular, decisions. This steadfastness of purpose and long term strategy has been sadly missing in Ukraine all the time since independence.