History as a Tool for Foreign Policy in the Baltic States after Independence

Abstract

In his book The Baltic Revolution, Anatole Lieven noted, ‘dealing with Lithuanian nationalist politicians during the second independence struggle, I was repeatedly made aware that they operate just partly in the present’ (Lieven, 1994, p. 16). As pointed out by Kasekamp, the Baltic states’ claim to independence from Russia during the Cold War was mainly based on historical arguments, while their original struggle for freedom from Russia after the First World War was mainly couched in terms of the right of self-determination (Kasekamp, 2010). History has indeed become a salient issue in relations between Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on the one hand and Russia on the other. When asked what the main issue in the Latvia–Russia relationship was, a senior diplomat from the Latvian prime minister’s office declared in an interview that ‘of course, the first one is the historical question’. One striking example is the annual parade of the veterans of the SS Latvian Legion in Riga, which is systematically used by the Russian government and media as an argument to accuse Latvia of Fascism. On the Latvian side, it is described as a private commemoration of the fight for independence. This example shows to what extent history, or at least historical arguments, are used in modern diplomacy in the Baltic context.