Ethnic Conflicts in the Baltic States in Post-soviet Period. Сборник статей

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      A. V. Gaponenko

      This book was published with the financial support of the Foundation for Legal Support of Russians Living Abroad

      © Edited by Doctor of Economics A. V. Gaponenko. Institute for European Studies, Riga, 2013

      Foreword

      The USSR had existed for three quarters of a century. For all that time, the ruling Communist elite conducted a policy of formation of a single political nation out of the extremely ethnically heterogeneous population of the country. This nation was called ‘Soviet people’, which was not a correct term from the point of view of modern science.

      The Soviet nation was built based on the principles of internationalism, i.e. equality of all ethnic groups. To ensure such equality, during the Communist years most of those ethnic groups received their own state education: Soviet and autonomous republics, districts and at some point even regions and townships. As a part of the state education, those so-called main ethnic groups were able to develop their languages and culture freely, open schools and universities, have their own media and publish books, newspapers and magazines in their languages. Many ethnic groups received their written language for the first time. Ethnic groups that were not considered main also were present in the ethnic formation provided by the state. They had a lower social status and considerably less opportunities for their ethnic development.

      Russian was the official language in the USSR. This was determined by a large number of Russian population. Highly ‘sovietised’ Russian culture dominated in the USSR. It was due to a large number of Russian culture organisations and their production of large volumes of high-quality ‘cultural product’. However, the USSR was not the state of Russian people. Russians did not have their own state formation or their own structural division in the ruling Communist Party.

      In the course of building the Soviet nation, the ruling elite did not allow ethnic conflicts. The main tool of the regulation of the relations between individual ethnic groups was the dominating Communist ideology. However, when the ideas of universal equality failed to work, the Communists did not hesitate to use force. The elites involved in the ethnic conflicts lost their social status and were separated from their public. In extreme cases, mass relocation of conflicting ethnic groups to completely new places of settlement and liquidation of their state entities took place. Russians were not an exception in this respect.

      In the last years of the USSR, the Communists stopped to use force for settlement of both social and ethnic conflicts. Then they loosened their control over the public consciousness, including the sphere of interethnic relations. As a result of that, during the democratic transformations that took place after 1986, in all Soviet and most of the Autonomous Republics national-communists came to power. They started redistributing the resources in their own favour and in favour of their native ethnic groups. The ideas of internationalism were abandoned completely.

      All this led to immediate manifestation of the ethnic conflicts that had been smoothed over by the Communists. Actual ethnic wars started between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, between Moldavia and Pridnestrovie (Transnistria). Ethnic civil wars broke out in Kirghizia and Tajikistan. Ethnic conflict between Uzbekistan and Kirghizia also saw some use of force. Ethnic clashes erupted in Chechnya, Tatar and Bashkir Autonomous Republics. Under the blows of all those ethnic clashes, the USSR broke down into fifteen independent states.

      Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia gained their independence from the USSR on the wave of peaceful protests of the main ethnic group organised by local national-communists. However, new Baltic elites did not drive the matter to an open confrontation with ethnic minorities living in the republics, first of all, ethnic Russians. There were several reasons for that. Firstly, the ultimate goal of the former national-communists belonging to the main ethnic groups was the appropriation of the public wealth accumulated during the Soviet years and they were not prepared to take any personal risks to achieve that. Secondly, ethnic Russian population was highly ‘sovietised’ and did not have its own leaders, so it was possible to conduct a policy of ‘mild’ ethnic discrimination against it. Thirdly, until 1993 Russian army was stationed in the Baltic states and could come to the defence ethnic Russian population subjected to open violence. Fourthly, overzealousness of the national-radicals in the Baltic states was kept in check by the USA, whose intentions did not include starting the World War III because of the Baltic ethnic Russians.

      It was at the suggestion of the USA that in the ex-USSR countries, ruling ethnocratic regimes started to emerge, under which all power and wealth were concentrated in the hands of the main ethnic elites, and the minorities were doomed to be left at the bottom of the social ladder. At that time, all prerequisites for such regimes were in place: former national-communists knew how to manipulate the main ethnic group effectively, but ethnic Russian population did not have their own leaders and was not mobilised as an ethnic group. To secure long-term existence of such state of things, Latvia and Estonia introduced a concept of non-citizenship, depriving the overwhelming part of ethnic minorities of any possibility to participate in the political processes. Moreover, ethnic minorities were being put under pressure to leave their country, were brutally discriminated, and demoralised. The blow was targeted mainly at Baltic ethnic Russian and ‘Russianised’ ethnic minorities whom the USA saw as a potential pillar of support for the neighbouring geopolitical antagonist, i.e. Russia. It was expected that within a relatively short period, ethnic Russian would be marginalised and then assimilated. Ethnic Poles living in Lithuania were also caught in the works of that ethnocratic press, although, same as ethnic Russians in Lithuania, they were not deprived of their citizenship.

      The establishment of these ethnocratic regimes in the Baltic states led to ethnic discrimination against minor ethnic groups, such as Latgalians, Samogitian and Setos, which to an extent had been there during the Soviet times too.

      However, the ruling Baltic elites and the USA behind it all were proven wrong. By the beginning or 2000s, all three Baltic countries saw the emergence of the leaders that started uniting their ethnic Russian communities. In Lithuania, a strong Polish community started to form. They began defending their right to their independent ethnic existence. After that, ethnic conflict in the Baltic states moved from a hidden to an open form.

      In all three countries, mass protest movements against scrapping education in Russian language were formed. Ethnic Poles in Lithuania started their fight to preserve Polish schools. In Estonia, ethnic Russian population went into a conflict with the authorities caused by vandalisation of their national symbol, the Liberator Monument in Tallinn. In Latvia, a referendum to make Russian the second state language was initiated. After that, a referendum to abolish the concept of non-citizenship was initiated, and when the authorities prohibited it in breach of the law, a mass opposition organisation was established – the Non-Citizens’ Congress. This organisation held the elections to the Parliament of Unrepresented, which de-facto began representing the interests of ethnic Russian community of the country.

      For a while after the collapse of the USSR, Russia provided almost no support to the compatriots abroad, as it was preoccupied with its own internal issues. Since 2000, it has begun to implement its policies for the preservation of Russian language, education and culture and protection of ethnic rights of the compatriots living abroad. Financial support foundations were established, coordination councils were formed at the embassies, assistance was provided in the organisation of national and international conferences. With the support of the embassies, various cultural and educational projects were implemented. Issues of fighting against the mass non-citizenship and discrimination of compatriots in the Baltic states were included in the agenda of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia.

      Since 2000s, the situation of ethnic Polish minority in Lithuania has also been a subject of great attention from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland. Poland passed the decision to introduce a ‘Pole’s Card’ equalising the rights of Poles in Poland and abroad. The government took Polish schools in Lithuania under its wing.

      From the formation of the independent Baltic states, ethnic conflicts there had mainly been a subject of closed studies carried out by Anglo-Saxon scientists for their governments. Their results were unknown to the wide scientific audience. Official Baltic researches chose to ignore the facts of ethnic discrimination against aliens in their countries. Russian authorities