The Baltics Nationalities And Other Problems Essays -

"The Baltics: Nationalities and Other Problems" The Baltics area is fraught with cross ethnic mergings, conquerings by different groups, and control by both small groups like the Teutonic and Livonian knights and by larger entities like the nations of Sweden, Poland, and Russia during the roughly eight centuries of Baltic history. There is no ideal way to depict these very diverse groups of people and areas, so this is an attempt to first look at the area as a whole as it developed, in the briefest kind of way, then shoot forward in time to examine each of the three Baltic countries separately prior to World War II and after, and then an examination of the situation as it is today and in the recent past of the past two decades. "Until the twelfth century the marshes and forest-lands along the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea were left in the more or less undisturbed possession of a number of pagan tribes. The Esths and Livs in the northern regions belonged to the Finnish branch of the Ural-Altaic family, while another group farther to the south, subdivided into Letts, Borussians and Lithuanians, ... was of Indo-European stock. The Borussians, who moved southward to what is now East Prussia, were early subdued and assimilated by the Germans, while the Letts tended to push northward into Livonia."(1) The area we now call the Baltics remained sparsely populated and predominantly non-Christian until about the middle of the 13th century, when the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Knights began the first incursions into the region. "The first invaders of these regions were the Danes, who conquered the northern half of Estonia in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. German merchants and missionaries had meanwhile penetrated into Livonia, where a bishopric was established at Riga in 1201. From then onwards the greater part of areas now occupied by the states of Latvia and Estonia gradually fell under the dominion first of the Knights of the Sword, and then of the Order of Teutonic Knights, to whom, in 1346, the Danes sold their share of Estonia. These Orders colonized the territory, converted the inhabitants to Christianity, and made them their serfs." (2) "In Lithuania, on the other hand, the Teutonic Knights were never able to make much headway except in the Memel (Klaipeda) territory, of which the frontier was permenantly fixed after the defeat of the Order by Vytautas - one of a sucession of Lithuanian Grand Dukes who, in the course of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, built up a united and powerful state..." (3) The changes and grouping in the Baltic region began "during the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, and continued to the first centuries after Christ. However, the weaker tribes were gradually absorbed by the stronger and crystallized into larger national units." (4) "Also in answering the ethnic question, one is aided by fragmentary historical sources, which mention the individual Baltic nations and tribes which lived in certain areas, as for example the Aistians(100 AD), Galindians and Sudovians (second centuty, AD), Semigallians (870 AD), Prussians (ninth century AD), Curonians (875 AD), Yatvingians (983 AD), Lithuanians (1009 AD), Galindians (1058 AD), Sambians (1075 AD), Selians (1208 AD), Skalvians (1240 AD), Nadrovians (1250 AD) and others." (5) "Basically, although there is relationship between the Lithuanians and Latvians, there is none whatever between either of these peoples and the Estonians, whose language and culture approximate to those of Finland. As regards religion, the Lithuanians are almost entirely Roman Catholic; the Latvians and Estonians are mainly Protestant. Estonia and Latvia look to the Baltic, and have maritime and fishing interests; Lithuania is almost entirely an inland and agricultural country - her only port (Klaipeda, or Memel) has a preponderant German population." (6) "After the death of Vytautas in 1430, Lithuania rapidly fell into a position of dependence on Poland, with which country she had already been nominally connected under a personal union since 1386." (7) That had been accomplished by the Poles co-opting a Lithuanian Prince, Jogaila, to avoid their kingdom being swallowed by the Teutonic Knights. "Following secret negotiations, Jogaila issued a declaration which is accepted as the Kreva Union Act (August 14, 1385) whereby Jogaila agreed to baptism and to marriage witrh Hedwig (the heir to the Polish throne). Furthermore, he agreed to the baptism of his family and the nobility of Lithuania, in addition to paying 200,000 florins to Prince Wilhelm (of Austria) for breaking the betrothal to Hedwig; also he agreed to the return of all Polish lands taken by the enemies,