Baltic States Worry About their Russian Populations

  By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

The Baltic provinces of Estland, Livland and Kurland, which correspond to present-day Estonia and Latvia, were incorporated into the Russian Empire during the 18th century.

Along with Lithuania, they gained their independence when tsarist Russia fell apart after the First World War. In 1940 Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin seized them. The Nazis conquered all three in 1941 but Moscow regained them in 1944, and they would remain Soviet republics until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Baltic states found it easy to rejoin the west, and they are members of the European Union and NATO. Today, they are also front-line states bordering the Russian Federation.

But they also contain significant ethnic Russian populations, who settled in these countries while they were under Soviet domination. The national and political loyalties of these communities continues to remain an issue.

This is especially the case with respect to the majority Russian-speaking border cities of Narva in Estonia, split by the Narva River from the Russian city of Ivangorod, and Daugavpils in Latvia, located near Belarus and some 120 kilometres from the Russian border. Should war come, would their inhabitants be a “fifth column?”

Ethnic Russians make up about a fourth of Estonia’s population; around 36 per cent of Narva’s 60,000 residents have Russian passports. Estonia last April banned the display of symbols that have been embraced in Russia as signs of support for the Ukraine invasion, like the letter Z and the ribbon of St. George, an emblem of the Russian military.

As well, Russian nationals in Estonia will have their firearms confiscated by the police if they refuse to hand them over voluntarily under a law announced last September. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas asserted that due to the “current circumstances,” Russians “with weapons in their hands are a threat to the security of Estonia.”

Estonian President Alar Karis has said his government’s approach to television has been key in fighting Russian propaganda in his country. Estonia has increased funding for its own national TV stations, restricted access to Russian-language propaganda outlets, and made some Western TV stations free to the public in recent years. Estonia’s state broadcaster has its own Russian-language service, ETV+, which reflects the government’s position.

Latvia, where about 33 per cent in the country speak Russian, has engaged in similar media efforts, with President Egils Levits citing encouraging poll results of a study by the Riga-based SKDS Public Opinion Research Centre suggesting that a large majority of Russian speakers, though they cherish the Russian culture and language, “feel a sense of belonging in Latvian society.” 

Still, in November Latvia’s Education Ministry announced plans to replace Russian with a European language as the second foreign language taught in schools. In December, Russia’s television channel TV Rain was shut down, accused of showing content that supports Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. It was also fined for displaying a map in which Crimea was shown as part of Russia’s territory.

The Baltic states were part of the USSR for almost half a century, and the Soviet era remained omnipresent. Tanks, statues, and monuments to Red Army soldiers fighting Nazi Germany during the Second World War were everywhere.

The Ukraine war inflamed debates about what to do with USSR-era monuments. Though the Baltic countries decided to remove these reminders of Soviet rule, not all inhabitants agreed-- especially not the Russian-speaking minorities.

Last August, Estonian authorities removed a contentious monument of a Soviet tank outside Narva. This was opposed by the local population, which considered it part of the city’s identity. The monument was moved to the Estonian War Museum, some 200 kilometres north of the capital, Tallinn. Six more Soviet-era monuments were also removed. Prime Minister Kallas explained that “A tank is a murder weapon, it is not a memorial, and those same tanks are killing people on the streets of Ukraine right now.”

In Latvia, many felt that the 80-metre-tall Soviet Victory Memorial in the capital Riga was no longer tolerable, but for large parts of the country’s Russian-speaking population it still bore a great significance. It was built in 1985 to mark the 40th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, but the monument became the subject of long-standing controversy concerning the historical memory of the world war and the legacy of Soviet rule.

Latvian lawmakers in 2021 approved a law ordering the dismantling of all monuments seen as glorifying the Soviet regime by Nov. 15. Some 69 objects fell into this category. Last August the Victory obelisk was demolished.

In Lithuania, there has also been a heated debate around the country’s Soviet-era monuments. In late November, the dismantling of a monument erected in 1984 to commemorate the victory of the Soviet army began. The Antakalnis memorial complex, covering more than two hectares, is Lithuania’s most recognisable memorial to Soviet soldiers. It consists of six soldiers, each standing more than six metres high.

Vilnius authorities had intended to remove the monument by Nov. 1, but the work was temporarily halted at the request of ethnic Russians. It has been the site of a celebration each May 9 to mark the Soviet Union’s victory in the Second World War.

The place of ethnic Russians in the Baltic region remains a touchy subject.