CHAPTER NINE
THE BALTICS: A CASE STUDY OF LATVIA
The global economic crisis has affected few states as much as it has Latvia. As the crisis rapidly escalated in 2008 and then deepened into 2009 both the Latvian government and public were faced with a precipitous drop in the standard of living and the general prosperity that had been a hallmark of the Baltic state’s profile since the beginning of the decade. In general terms the three Baltic states’ - Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania - successful pursuit of membership in both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and then the European Union (EU) had paid out handsome dividends resulting in these states being collectively referred to as the “Baltic Tigers”. But annual GDP growth rates of up to eleven percent could not be sustained in the face of the global credit crunch and rising energy costs. By the end of that year Latvia was struggling to cope with rising unemployment, massive budget deficits and subsequent slashings of public sector expenditures, as well as the possibility of defaulting on international economic obligations. Essentially, Latvia was faced with bankruptcy!
The sense of national crisis became more pronounced on 13 January 2009 when a massive anti-government protest led by the political opposition and labor unions resulted in riots in Riga and other towns. Within the space of the next several weeks the prime minister - up to that point Ivar Godmanis - was forced to resign as public confidence in the government plummeted. He was subsequently replaced by the youthful (37 in early 2009) former Finance Minister Valdis Dombrovskis who renewed the coalition government’s commitment to fiscal stringency and following International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and European Union guidelines for loan guarantees. The change in leadership did not repair the social, economic, and political damage and Dombrovskis’ government was forced to cut government programs in education, pensions, and public sector employees’ wages. By the middle of the year economic data was showing a country in crisis with nearly eighteen percent unemployment (up from the previous year’s 6.4%),[1] industrial production down by eighteen percent as well, and the transport sector (with jobs in shipbuilding and rolling stock) off by seventy-seven percent for the year.[2] The country’s population was experiencing a retraction of their living standard not experienced at any time since independence in 1991. Virtually every sector of the economy was affected even to the extent of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs being forced to temporarily suspend its weekly news digest,[3] as well as the government commission assessing the costs of the Soviet occupation.[4]
Such extreme shocks to a system are not without precedent but they do seem markedly in contrast to the tremendous successes enjoyed by the Baltic states over the past several years. In particular the collective inclusion of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania in NATO (2002) and the EU (2004) provided not just an enhanced sense of security never before experienced by this region, but an opportunity to recreate their identities as distinctly European and not Eurasian. Having revived, defended, and solidified their national independence the Baltic states achieved the national goals most important to them as nations.
Successes such as these always imply costs and the achievement of the Baltic states’ goals has required sacrifices. Integration within the European and trans-Atlantic communities has meant leaving behind some of the autonomy for which they had worked so long and suffered so much. They have also been required to open their economies and cultures to European capital and values. Emphasizing the “European idea” has provoked already-existing divisions in society especially with ethnic Russians who in many respects fear the country is drawing irrevocably away from the Russian Federation and its national culture. Nationalistic revivals extolling Latvian and Estonian heritages are bad enough: in 1996 the Latvian parliament - or Saeima - approved a “Declaration of Russian Occupation” which assessed the period of Soviet control - 1940 to 1991 - from the standpoint of a conquered people, and called on the global community to recognize the economic consequences of that occupation.[5] Just a few years later the attainment of NATO and EU membership left many ethnic Russians with the sense that their ethnic identity was being eroding at the very time that Russian power was experiencing a rebirth under Putin.
Whatever the attitudes of ethnic Russians, and the relationship of Latvia with the Russian Federation there was no denying until recently the growth potential for the good life in the Baltics states. Economic development rates exceeded almost every other state in Europe (although not in Eurasia: Latvia’s 10.7 percent GDP growth was greatly outdistanced by Azerbaijan’s thirty-one percent growth in 2007[6]). As well Baltic political institutions were stable amid the usual push and pull of elections. Relations with Russia were for the most part cordial and in some respects accommodating. Territorial integrity was assured and there were no issues of state disintegration such as have plagued Georgia or Ukraine. While not a perfect representation of political, economic, and cultural advantages the Baltic states do present contrasts that stand out in relation to the Russian and Eurasian cases. Focusing on Latvia, the state which seems to be the median of Baltic problems and prospects, provides us with the best point of departure from what was the case in the Soviet Union. And yet, not everything about Latvia or the Baltic states will be found to be so useful.
Breaking Out of the Soviet/Russian Sphere
The Baltics in Profile
As already indicated, the Baltic states are more European than Eurasian, if the latter term is taken to mean a confluence of European and Asian social and cultural values. Throughout a good part of their modern existence and certainly stretching back over several millennia the Baltic regions have had much more in common with the western and northern Baltic Sea littoral countries - Denmark, Finland, Poland, Sweden, and Germany - than they ever had with Russia or its Eurasian neighbors. Moving ever closer to the heartland of European economy and culture through membership in NATO and the European Union, and by means of other commitments to the European identity, the Baltic states continue to provide symbols of the divisions that characterize the Eurasian continent. As Russia will always be the center point of this massive land mass the Baltic states are inevitably part of Russia’s periphery. Undeniably European, their common sharing of borders with Russia does not permit a negating of that country’s influence regardless of how fast they hold to their Baltic character. Thus, despite their obvious “Europeaness”, it also makes considerable sense to continue to feature them in a book that highlights Russia and its environs.
The most notable feature about the Baltic states is their size, both in demographic and geographic terms. In geophysical terms Latvia’s land area is only four-tenths of a percent the size of the Russian Federation and an even smaller portion of the former Soviet space. By themselves such statistics made the Baltic states’ quests for independence, and their subsequent struggles to maintain their viability that much more of an impressive challenge. And while these small nations reclaimed their independence after a four-year long campaign (1988-1991), the quest had actually been a condition of existence that smoldered throughout the long period of Soviet control. It can be argued that the quest began when the Red Army occupied the Baltic states in June 1940.[7] It lasted throughout the terror of the Second World War, through forced deportations during the postwar period, and even prolonged resistance by partisan units hiding out in Baltic forests (in Latvia some units conducted operations until their elimination by the KGB in 1957). As part of the Soviet pacification program approximately 89,874 Latvians were deported to Siberia in 1949 alone,[8] and many more fled to safe havens in the West. For Estonia as a numerically smaller people that the Latvians the deportations, arrests, and executions by both German and Soviet forces were even more jarring: as many as 180,000 people were either killed or “left their homeland forever.”[9] To prevent the fading of these memories the 14th of June - the day when Soviet troops took control of the Baltic states - is officially designated “Commemoration Day” in all three Baltic states to honor those who fell victims to communist rule.[10]
Regionalism, too, is a feature of this small environment. Latvia, for instance, consists of the regions of Vidzeme in the north, Zemgale in the south, Kurzeme to the west, and in the east Latgale. Administratively the country is divided into twenty-six counties (formerly raions). Its capital of Riga is the largest city in the Baltic states with a population in 2008 of 717,371 people[11] (Tallinn, Estonia had 401,372 in 2008;[12]Vilnius, Lithuania had 542,287 as of 2005[13]). For all three states borders are stable but several disputes do exist, the most contentious of these being with Russia. Upon independence Latvia had laid claim to a 1,402 square kilometer area in the northeastern Abrene district, which the Soviet Union incorporated into the Russian Federation in 1944 in violation of the 1920 Latvian-Soviet Russian Peace Treaty (the “Riga Treaty”).[14] All three Baltic states have expressed their willingness to renounce border claims against Russia as the Latvian government reluctantly did in October 1997.[15] In March 2007 Latvia and Russia signed a long-delayed border treaty which for all practical purposes has laid to rest any land claims between them.
Independence has had the positive effect of facilitating the return of parts of the Baltic diasporas. As small nations the Baltic states have come to rely on the capital and skills of peoples of Baltic descent living abroad. To encourage ethnic Estonians, Latvians, or Lithuanians to come back - that is, to repatriate - to the Baltics these states’ governments have included in their citizenship laws the right of return. Article two of the 1994 “Law on Citizenship of the Republic of Latvia” effectively embraces the entire Latvian diaspora by simply declaring as citizens those “persons who were citizens of Latvia on June 17, 1940 and their descendants who have registered according to the procedures established by law.”[16] This policy’s payoff can be measured in part by expatriate Latvians who entered politics upon their return to their homeland. For instance, in the Fifth (1993-1995) Saeima eighteen deputies were returnees.[17] The most prominent example has been that of Vaira Vike-Freiberga, a native Latvian who became a refugee following the Second World War moving from Germany to Morocco and then to Canada where she became a distinguished academician. In 1998 she returned to Latvia to enter politics and within the space of a year she was elected president of the country serving from 1999 until 2007. A similar condition occurred in Lithuania where Valdas Adamkus returned to his native land after having lived in exile in both Germany and the United States from 1944 until 1993. In 1998 he was elected president serving until 2003, and again from 2004 to the present.
Crucially, repatriation of citizens to Latvia is very low. In 2005 237 returned, 174 in 2006, and fifty-six for the first half of 2007.[18] Nevertheless, there are 30,793 former Latvian citizens who have dual citizenship (anyone registering for citizenship after 1995 can only maintain Latvian citizenship status) as granted under the country’s Immigration Law.[19] There is an obvious advantage in having a large diaspora in that they maintain some level of interest in Latvian affairs and most likely either attempt to influence governmental policy in their host country in favor of Latvia, or send money to the homeland. A disadvantage also exists in that this category will become smaller as their population ages. Nevertheless, the fact of their existence speaks to the strong sense of identity held by the peoples of the region.
Reasserting the “Baltic” Identity
The Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian peoples draw their primary identities from their proximity to the Baltic Sea and their long (in the case of the Latvians and Estonians, five thousand years) association with it. None of these peoples are ethnically linked to one another, nor are any of them Slavic by definition. The Latvian (technically termed Lettish) and Lithuanian languages are part of the Baltic language group, which is unrelated to the primary Slavic languages of the region (Russian and Polish). Estonian is a Finno-Ugric language related to the larger Finnish and Hungarian language groups. It is also connected to the obscure Livonian language, which is categorized as an endangered language with perhaps ten native speakers remaining today in Latvia.[20] Ethnic divisions in these societies point to the still-fragmented conditions of their respective political cultures, but which seem, nonetheless, on the way toward becoming dominant political cultures. This is particularly true for Lithuania which is the most ethnically homogeneous of the three. For their parts both Estonia and Latvia still have a long way to go to build full consensus for the “national idea.”
Using the term “Latvian” to characterize all those who reside inside the Latvian state is somewhat misleading. Defining the term more narrowly by distinct ethnicity shows
(Table 9.1 about here)
this group as comprising 59.2 percent of the total
population.[21] Among the Baltic states Latvia has the smallest titular nationality in relation to its entire population while ethnic Estonians make up sixty-eight percent of Estonia’s peoples, and Lithuanians represent eighty-four percent in their country (see Table 9.1). The second largest component within Latvia’s population is that of Slavic peoples generally (39.7 percent) and Russians particularly who account for twenty-eight percent of the national total. The differences in ethnic identity have resulted in sharp contrasts in value orientations among these segments of the population, and a resulting fragmented political culture. While some progress has been made since independence in bridging societal distinctions in both Latvia and Estonia ethnic attachment remains the root of many of these states’ problems in their efforts to build statehood and foster a civic culture.
Cultural determinants are distinct between the Baltic peoples and their Slavic neighbors. Over the centuries and well before the Soviets came on the scene, the Baltic peoples were politically dominated by the Poles, Lithuanians, Swedes, the Russians and Germans. The cumulative experience helped turn the Baltic peoples in a western direction. One of the most important cultural markers, that of religion, established a western emphasis and dominance that has remained to the present day. As mentioned in Chapter Two the majority of the ethnic Estonian religious faithful today are Evangelical Lutheran (although it should also be noted that Estonians rank as the least religious country globally at fourteen percent of the population considering religion to be an important part their lives[22] while the Lithuanians are overwhelmingly (seventy-nine percent[23]) Roman Catholic. Latvian religiosity represents more of a religious fault line within the Baltic region. Prior to the Second World War Evangelical Lutheranism was the predominant faith with a sizeable Roman Catholic minority (primarily residing in the Latgale region). Today Lutheran congregations represent only thirty-four percent of all congregations,[24] and by some indications those who profess this faith make up only about twenty percent of the religious total For their part Catholics are slightly more numerous at twenty-two percent of the total and Orthodox represent fifteen percent).[25] The ethnic Russian population most often associates itself with Russian Orthodoxy and the Moscow Patriarchate. As with the other Baltic states there is also a pagan religion unique to the Latvian people called Dievturi (in Estonia the religion is Taara; in Lithuania it is Romuva). In reaction to how the Soviets had repressed religious belief Latvia adopted a law in 1995 governing the practice and organization of religions which even permits religious instruction in public schools.[26]
Latvia’s total population of approximately 2.26 million people (June 2008)[27] is smaller than that of either Los Angeles or Chicago. Moreover, it is a population that has been in decline for several years with deaths exceeding births, and emigration accounting for the general decline.[28] Lithuania’s population is only slightly bigger at 3.36 million (May 2008),[29] and Estonia’s is the smallest at 1.34 million (January 2008).[30] There is a certain irony in the social statistics of the Baltic states: independence gave them the chance to affirm their sense of identity, but this came at a time when their overall populations were either static or already shrinking. Thus, the issue of national survival was literally one of the population not being able (or willing) to reproduce itself.