Ethnic Relations in the Baltic Reconsidered

Violeta Davoliūtė is Senior Researcher at the Lithuanian Institute of History and Project Leader of Facing the Past: Public History for a Stronger Europe (Horizon Europe, WIDERA program, 2022–2025).Darius Staliūnas is Chief Researcher at the Lithuanian Institute of History and teaches at Vilnius University.Bradley D. Woodworth is Professor of History at the University of New Haven and Baltic Studies Program Manager at Yale University.

This path-breaking and well-researched collection of essays, by leading experts in the field, seeks to understand the history of the Baltic states—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—through an investigation of the relations between the peoples of this region over the past century and a half. It thus concentrates on the implication for these groups of their relations with the hegemonic imperial power, the Tsarist Empire and then the Soviet Union rather than on the emergence of the modern Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian nations. This provides a novel and innovative way of examining the history of the area, which is compared in the volume to the related, but in some ways dissimilar, developments in the South Caucasus. It is essential reading for all interested in the history of the Tsarist Empire and the Soviet Union, the nature of empire and the development of modern nationalism. . Antony Polonsky, Emeritus Professor of Holocaust Studies, Brandeis University. Chief Historian, Global Education Outreach Project, Museum of Polish Jews in Warsaw This study offers a fascinating new perspective on the dynamics of interethnic collaboration, conflict, and violence in the Baltic region. It sheds new light on the lived experiences of its peoples from the nineteenth century to the present day. . Ulrike von Hirschhausen, Director, German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C. A timely and insightful re-evaluation of ethnic relations across a region notable for its complexity and diversity. Bringing together internationally leading scholars from a range of disciplines, this volume foregrounds the relational and contingent nature of identity, its links to governance, and the impacts it has carried for Baltic societies over the past two centuries. David J Smith, Alec Nove Chair of East European Studies, University of Glasgow.

• Introduction Acknowledgements Identities: Ascribed, Contested, and Situational 1. Varieties of In-Betweenness in the Borderlands of the Baltic Provinces: A History of the Term Poluvertsy (Half-Believers) 2. Negotiating Faith and Ethnicity: Conversions, Social Conflict and the Russian Orthodox Clergy in Estland Province during the 1880s-1900s 3. Voluntary Associations in the Baltic Region: Accelerator or Inhibitor of Inter-Ethnic Relations? 4. Living by the Border: Violence, Nation-Making and “National Indifference” in the Polish-Lithuanian Borderland, 1920-1939 Crisis and Governance 5. Konstantin Päts and Ethnic Minorities: The Political Trajectory of an Estonian Nationalist Authoritarian Leader 6. Economic Nationalism, Minority Policies, and the 1930s in Lithuania and Latvia 7. Nationality in Cadre Policy in Soviet Lithuania, 1944-1953 8. Doing It the “Baltic Way”: Internationalism and the Soviet Roots of the Singing Revolution Legacy of Empire 9. Spring Flowers and Border Guards: Estonian Narratives of the Soviet Military and Border Troops 10. Exiting Empire: Civil Wars in South Caucasia Versus Civil Peace in the Baltic Republics 11. Understanding Hesitancy: The Latvian Russophone Minority and Russia’s Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine Legacy of Violence 12. Anti-Jewish Violence in Interwar Lithuania: Pogroms Without Genocidal Elements as a Precondition of the Holocaust? 13. New Allies – Old Foes: Ethnic Relations on the Pages of Lithuanian Press during the German Occupation, 1941-1944 14. The Habitus of Holocaust Reckoning during the Thaw in Soviet Lithuania State of the Field and Pointing the Way Forward 15. Ethnic Relations in the Baltic Region: Complexity and Coexistence 16. Scholarly Research on Ethnic Relations in Estonia and Latvia: A Retrospective Overview Contributors