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Электронное приложение к журналу «Международная жизнь»
Author : A. Skachkov
Division Head, Second European Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Can-
didate of Science (Political Science)
THE MOMENT of the Soviet Union's dissolution coincided
with the period of an active search by European democracies
for optimal forms of multicultural development based on the
principles of ethnic tolerance and a provision of broad rights
to national minorities.
However, not all countries that joined the European family
were willing to examine, let alone use the experience of mul-
ticulturalism, opting for a diametrically opposite vector of
state development, i.e., ethnic nationalism. A paradoxical sit-
uation has emerged, where "in conditions of the integrated Europe, different states strived for dif-
ferent policies regarding national minorities and the ideology of multiculturalism."
One of the strictest forms of ethnocratic government and state structure emerged in the Baltic
states. Nationalist groups who came to power after 1991 and consolidated under the ethnic principle
(Latvians, Estonians, and Lithuanians), selected, as a strategic hallmark of their national develop-
ment, not a state nationalism based on the establishment of a unified multi-national community,
but rather ethnic nationalism.
A prevailing view promoted by the Baltic elites that the Soviet period in the history of Latvia, Lithua-
nia and Estonia has to be regarded as the "lost years," which slowed down the Baltic states' devel-
opment, not allowing them to get closer to the Scandinavian states, looks rather disputable.
According to several Baltic researchers, including Latvian lawmaker and historian Nikolai Kabanov,
the period of 1960s-1980s was, on the contrary, a Golden Age of the Latvian history. At that time,
the central authorities strived to turn the Baltic states into a "showcase of socialism" and invested
in the region huge material and labor resources, often to the detriment of other republics, including
Russia.
In Latvia and Estonia, access to government structures for the Russian-speaking population was
blocked by nationalist parties for a long time.
Expert opinions cited above indicate that the national policies of the Baltic ruling circles have
aroused criticism not only on the part of Russia, but also of the West and some open-minded Baltic
researchers. Against the backdrop of a continuous growth of centrist forces in Latvia and Estonia,
this allows to express some hope that with the passage of time there will occur a liberalization of
interethnic policies in the Baltic states.
When political practice based on considering the "Russian issue" exclusively as a rudiment of the
"occupation period" and some kind of a post-imperial syndrome gradually fizzles out, the line on
real social integration within the Baltic states will hopefully prevail. This will ultimately allow national
minorities to stop being outside observers, but rather become full-fledged participants in the political
process in the countries of their birth and permanent residence.
Particularities of National Policies in the Baltic States