The Fall and Rise and Fall Again of the Baltic States

A recessionary tale from Europe's new basket cases.

BY EDWARD LUCAS | JULY/AUG 2009

Want to Know More?

  • Edward Lucas’s book The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) offers an in-depth look at the Baltics’ neighbor and former colonizer to the East. Lucas also blogs about the region at edwardlucas.blogspot.com.

  • For a comprehensive history of the Baltic States from ancient times through the last century, read Anatol Lieven’s The Baltic Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). The Baltic States: Years of Independence: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, 1917-1940 (Georg von Rauch, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995) and The Baltic States: Years of Dependence, 1940-1990 (Romuald Misiunas and Rein Taagepera, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) together provide an integrated picture of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia’s survival through years of Russian colonialism, language discrimination, and nationalist struggles.

  • For a literary depiction of the region, William Palmer’s The Good Republic (London: Secker & Warburg, 1990) vividly captures the journey of a Baltic emigrant returning with soon-shattered innocence to his homeland. The Captive Mind, by Czeslaw Milosz, poses moral dilemmas from the lives of those living under totalitarian regimes.

N&J CLARK/ROBERT HARDING WORLD IMAGERY/CORBIS
PETER TURNLEY/CORBIS
ILLUSTRATION BY KATHERINE YESTER

 

Edward Lucas is a senior writer at The Economist and author of The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West.

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EMBRACING EMILY

6:16 AM ET

June 24, 2009

Bravo!

As an American writer and journalist, living in the Baltic region (4 years in Estonia and 10 in Latvia), I applaud Edward Lucas for this article. It is, by far, the most objective and balanced piece I have read—to date—written by an outside observer.
I have been chanting almost everything Lucas says, for years. But he also gave me a new perspective on one issue: I believed that the corrupt (beyond belief) politicians knew, full well, they were running Latvia onto the rocks; but wanted to greedily fill their coffers, prior to the great shipwreck. I can now appreciate the possibility that they were busy patting themselves on the backs for the great job they were doing—in absolute denial about the unsustainable 'foundation' of their economy—and thusly were entitled to their kickbacks, bribes and illegal shenanigans.
I also agree with Lucas assessment of Estonia being enviable to others in this part of the world. Things were done out of ignorance in Estonia, that, in hind-sight, I'm sure they regret and are paying the price for; this was to be expected in an emerging capitalism/democracy. But the corruption and apparent lack of common sense that exists in Latvia is almost palpable when you cross the border from Estonia.
I also am impressed with Lucas sensitivity to the continued strained relations between the Baltics and Russia and the reasons behind the alliance between Baltics and Nazis, in an attempt to deter Stalin. This is so often painted as a flat black and white picture rather than the highly complex situation that is was, and continues to be.

 
January/February 2010