10 ms·

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were parts of Russia for 300 years with small omissions. It is longer than the time of existence of the United States. So they hav

by oddx 10y ago

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were parts of Russia for 300 years with small omissions. It is longer than the time of existence of the United States. So they have a lot cultural and ethnical similarity with Russia. But yes, they try to ignore it officially.

DominikR 10y ago
I believe Estonia and Latvia didn't even exist as a countries before the fall of the Soviet Union. Not even before the Russian Empire conquered these lands.
- p2t2p 10y ago
  Wrong. Soviet Union was the first country which publicly recognised Latvia's independence back in 1920s. Yep, then they took it back in 1940s.
- kpil 10y ago
  To nitpick, the Estonian and Latvian Nations have existed for almost 1000 years. The Nation-states are not that old, but there are many young nation-states in Europe.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    And, Estonia and Latvia existed as independent nations in 1918-1940 (when they were left to the Soviet sphere of influence when Hitler and Stalin split up their spoils.)
    - hetfeld 10y ago
      Godwin's law in action
kbart 10y ago
I was born and live in Lithuania. No, we don't have much in common with Russia. Sure, being occupied by Russia left some scars, but culturally and ethnically we are totally separate nation. USA and Mexico has about the same in common as we do with Russia. There are big Russian minorities in Estonia and Latvia, smaller in Lithuania, but that's another topic. EDIT: also, the fact that during the >150 years occupation we've managed to stay separate nation (despite huge efforts by Russia to integrate us) and keep our identity strong, says a lot of how different we are.
- nj923f 10y ago
  > EDIT: also, the fact that during the >150 years occupation we've managed to stay separate nation (despite huge efforts by Russia to integrate us) and keep our identity strong, says a lot of how different we are. There was no "150 years of occupation", AFAIK even Lithuania's government officially talks only about 50 years of occupation by USSR. And most of the countries that were part of USSR managed to keep their identities (basically everyone apart from Belarus), so integration efforts haven't really that "huge".
  - kbart 10y ago
    "There was no "150 years of occupation" 50 years by USSR + ~100 years by Russian Empire[0] "integration efforts haven't really that "huge"." Mass deportations[1] (5% of the population, most of whom died during severe Siberian winters), total ban of press and schools in local language[2][3], oppressive state police to prosecute or silently get rid of anybody standing against occupant government[4]. In my dictionary, that amounts to "huge" easily. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lithuania#Under_Imperial_Russia.2C_World_War_I_.281795.E2.80.931918.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lithuania#Under_Imp... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_deportations_from_Lithuania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_deportations_from_Lithu... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_press_ban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_press_ban 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification#Poland_and_Lithuania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification#Poland_and_Lithu... 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    Most of Lithuania was annexed by Russia by 1795, the final step in partition of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. 1800's was a period of Russification, revolts, and crushing of those revolts. Then, in World War I, Lithuania gained independence again in 1918. That's >120 years of occupation or foreign rule. Then Lithuani lost independence again, to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1940, was rolled over twice in the course of WWII, and finally became independent again in 1991. That's another 50 years. In Finland, we have a saying "We're not Swedes, we do not want to become Russians; let us be Finns". Same seems to apply to Baltic states. I haven't followed up the development in Lithuania in particular, but Estonia had roughly the same population in 1959 as it had in 1939. The difference was that almost one third of the old population had been eradicated and replaced by Russians (and other Soviet nationals). This is a fairly huge "integration effort", if we use that euphemism.
lgieron 10y ago
In the same way as an abused prisoner has a lot of similarity to its oppressor prison guard I guess...
type0 10y ago
These countries has been ruled by germans, danes, poles, swedes, etc for many hundreds of years. So what is your point? There is much more german loan words in estonian language than russian ones which would tell you something about which culture had the bigger impact.
k0htlane 10y ago
Just a quick nitpick regarding to cultural/ethnical similarity with Russia: although the Baltic states were part of Russian Empire, the local culture had also strong German influences. Up until end of 19th century the Baltic Germans were the ruling class (although the region was in Russian Empira). So the local culture was mix of German and Russian influences, which makes it somewhat different with rest of USSR states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_governorates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_governorates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans#Russia.27s_Baltic_governorates_.281710.E2.80.931917.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans#Russia.27s_Balt...
rmind 10y ago
It is worth to point out that the Lithuanian statehood started in XIII century. Way way earlier than the US statehood. It was once a largest country in Europe. Also, in XVI-XVIII centuries, together Poland it formed a union state with a progressive political system and the first codified constitution in modern European history. So, I would not underestimate the centuries of cultural identity. This is, perhaps, one of the reasons why the Baltic States are doing so much better than any other countries in the former USSR.
- nj923f 10y ago
  > This is, perhaps, one of the reasons why the Baltic States are doing so much better than any other countries in the former USSR. ... not as important though as their location and size, which made possible for them to get into NATO and EU right after USSR collapse.
stackallocator 10y ago
Territories comprising modern Latvia has also been part of Germany (~300 years), Swedish Empire and Poland (~200 years). The only thing Latvians share with Russia is the border unfortunately. There are no major cultural or ethnic similarities. The language is so different it doesn't even belong to the same branch in the language tree. (compared to family of Slavic languages - Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovak, Polish, Czech, etc) Latvians do not want anything to do with Russia or it's culture or it's politics. The same is true for Estonia and Lithuania.
- nj923f 10y ago
  > There are no major cultural or ethnic similarities. Apart from food, folklore, traditions, musical and literatal traditions, grammar and punctuation? > The language is so different it doesn't even belong to the same branch in the language tree. (compared to family of Slavic languages - Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovak, Polish, Czech, etc) Actually it's common Balto-Slavic branch. I'm not kidding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balto-Slavic_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balto-Slavic_languages > Latvians do not want anything to do with Russia or it's culture or it's politics. Politics - wery true, culture - not much so. Older people might not want to have anything to do with Russian culture, but they don't really have much choice, as there isn't much going on in Latvia and they don't speak English. Thus every old lady in the country knows what's going on between Pugacheva and Kirkorov (old Russian pop-figures) and pretty much everyone is watching Russian TV (because there is no alternatives entertainment-wise).
  - mk3 10y ago
    Are you kidding me Balto-Slavic languages??? 1. Latvian and Estonian belongs to Baltic language family. 2. Estonian language has also nothing to do with slavic language also as it's a branch in Finno-Ugric languages. Also using wikipedia as a source of information is questionable. As the pages related to post-soviet era countries are propoganda war zone for Russia and the countries itself to promote the point of view needed.
  - ldev 10y ago
    Food - yes, a lot. Folklore, traditions, etc - no. The only reason why russian culture was in Lithuania in, lets say, 1980, it's because we were occupied? Mostly nothing left when we regained our independance...
Spooky23 10y ago
They were conquests of an occupying empire. They were no more integrated with Russia than Ireland with the U.K.
StavrosK 10y ago
> Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were parts of Russia for 300 years with small omissions. It is longer than the time of existence of the United States. Probably the only thing this tells us is that the US is a very young nation. 300 years is a blip compared to how long European peoples have been around.
ignasl 10y ago
Lithuania was occupied for ~120 years by Russia empire and ~50 years by communists. Other than that it's different religion, different language, different culture. Similarities of course exist and Russian people are fine people but I would like to emphasis that we don't want people in other countries think that we are the same so current aggressive government of Russia have "rights" to start trouble here again because we belong to their influence zone. F* that. Lithuania and Lithuanians are free and independent. I hope you understand why this kind of innocent "they are similar" is not perceived well here in Baltic. It plays right into Russian propaganda machine (they are very very good at it, divide and conquer experience for hundreds of years). Don't be naive - this trend that resulted in brexit and Trump was a direct result of Russian information war campaign. I think next target will be EU and there is a lot of material to work on for them - France, Italy, Greece on top of current trend and traction of marginal political groups. I think it was easy to initiate such a trend as those aggressive leftist ideologies which had support of political elites basically discredited itself as no sane person can look at some of those people and say - yeah right that is smart and totally make sense. And those people got an alternative to aggressive idiocy.
- achikin 10y ago
  The Empire strikes back!
godzilla82 10y ago
Well, many countries were parts of the British Empire for more than 100 years, including India, China etc. It would be wrong to assume that would cause ethical similariy between Britain and these countries.

by oddx 10y ago

DominikR 10y ago

I believe Estonia and Latvia didn't even exist as a countries before the fall of the Soviet Union. Not even before the Russian Empire conquered these lands.

p2t2p 10y ago
Wrong. Soviet Union was the first country which publicly recognised Latvia's independence back in 1920s. Yep, then they took it back in 1940s.
kpil 10y ago
To nitpick, the Estonian and Latvian Nations have existed for almost 1000 years. The Nation-states are not that old, but there are many young nation-states in Europe.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  And, Estonia and Latvia existed as independent nations in 1918-1940 (when they were left to the Soviet sphere of influence when Hitler and Stalin split up their spoils.)
  - hetfeld 10y ago
    Godwin's law in action

kbart 10y ago

I was born and live in Lithuania. No, we don't have much in common with Russia. Sure, being occupied by Russia left some scars, but culturally and ethnically we are totally separate nation. USA and Mexico has about the same in common as we do with Russia. There are big Russian minorities in Estonia and Latvia, smaller in Lithuania, but that's another topic. EDIT: also, the fact that during the >150 years occupation we've managed to stay separate nation (despite huge efforts by Russia to integrate us) and keep our identity strong, says a lot of how different we are.

nj923f 10y ago
> EDIT: also, the fact that during the >150 years occupation we've managed to stay separate nation (despite huge efforts by Russia to integrate us) and keep our identity strong, says a lot of how different we are. There was no "150 years of occupation", AFAIK even Lithuania's government officially talks only about 50 years of occupation by USSR. And most of the countries that were part of USSR managed to keep their identities (basically everyone apart from Belarus), so integration efforts haven't really that "huge".
- kbart 10y ago
  "There was no "150 years of occupation" 50 years by USSR + ~100 years by Russian Empire[0] "integration efforts haven't really that "huge"." Mass deportations[1] (5% of the population, most of whom died during severe Siberian winters), total ban of press and schools in local language[2][3], oppressive state police to prosecute or silently get rid of anybody standing against occupant government[4]. In my dictionary, that amounts to "huge" easily. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lithuania#Under_Imperial_Russia.2C_World_War_I_.281795.E2.80.931918.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lithuania#Under_Imp... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_deportations_from_Lithuania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_deportations_from_Lithu... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_press_ban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_press_ban 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification#Poland_and_Lithuania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification#Poland_and_Lithu... 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB
- ptaipale 10y ago
  Most of Lithuania was annexed by Russia by 1795, the final step in partition of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. 1800's was a period of Russification, revolts, and crushing of those revolts. Then, in World War I, Lithuania gained independence again in 1918. That's >120 years of occupation or foreign rule. Then Lithuani lost independence again, to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1940, was rolled over twice in the course of WWII, and finally became independent again in 1991. That's another 50 years. In Finland, we have a saying "We're not Swedes, we do not want to become Russians; let us be Finns". Same seems to apply to Baltic states. I haven't followed up the development in Lithuania in particular, but Estonia had roughly the same population in 1959 as it had in 1939. The difference was that almost one third of the old population had been eradicated and replaced by Russians (and other Soviet nationals). This is a fairly huge "integration effort", if we use that euphemism.

lgieron 10y ago

In the same way as an abused prisoner has a lot of similarity to its oppressor prison guard I guess...

type0 10y ago

These countries has been ruled by germans, danes, poles, swedes, etc for many hundreds of years. So what is your point? There is much more german loan words in estonian language than russian ones which would tell you something about which culture had the bigger impact.

k0htlane 10y ago

Just a quick nitpick regarding to cultural/ethnical similarity with Russia: although the Baltic states were part of Russian Empire, the local culture had also strong German influences. Up until end of 19th century the Baltic Germans were the ruling class (although the region was in Russian Empira). So the local culture was mix of German and Russian influences, which makes it somewhat different with rest of USSR states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_governorates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_governorates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans#Russia.27s_Baltic_governorates_.281710.E2.80.931917.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans#Russia.27s_Balt...

rmind 10y ago

It is worth to point out that the Lithuanian statehood started in XIII century. Way way earlier than the US statehood. It was once a largest country in Europe. Also, in XVI-XVIII centuries, together Poland it formed a union state with a progressive political system and the first codified constitution in modern European history. So, I would not underestimate the centuries of cultural identity. This is, perhaps, one of the reasons why the Baltic States are doing so much better than any other countries in the former USSR.

nj923f 10y ago
> This is, perhaps, one of the reasons why the Baltic States are doing so much better than any other countries in the former USSR. ... not as important though as their location and size, which made possible for them to get into NATO and EU right after USSR collapse.

stackallocator 10y ago

Territories comprising modern Latvia has also been part of Germany (~300 years), Swedish Empire and Poland (~200 years). The only thing Latvians share with Russia is the border unfortunately. There are no major cultural or ethnic similarities. The language is so different it doesn't even belong to the same branch in the language tree. (compared to family of Slavic languages - Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovak, Polish, Czech, etc) Latvians do not want anything to do with Russia or it's culture or it's politics. The same is true for Estonia and Lithuania.

nj923f 10y ago
> There are no major cultural or ethnic similarities. Apart from food, folklore, traditions, musical and literatal traditions, grammar and punctuation? > The language is so different it doesn't even belong to the same branch in the language tree. (compared to family of Slavic languages - Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovak, Polish, Czech, etc) Actually it's common Balto-Slavic branch. I'm not kidding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balto-Slavic_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balto-Slavic_languages > Latvians do not want anything to do with Russia or it's culture or it's politics. Politics - wery true, culture - not much so. Older people might not want to have anything to do with Russian culture, but they don't really have much choice, as there isn't much going on in Latvia and they don't speak English. Thus every old lady in the country knows what's going on between Pugacheva and Kirkorov (old Russian pop-figures) and pretty much everyone is watching Russian TV (because there is no alternatives entertainment-wise).
- mk3 10y ago
  Are you kidding me Balto-Slavic languages??? 1. Latvian and Estonian belongs to Baltic language family. 2. Estonian language has also nothing to do with slavic language also as it's a branch in Finno-Ugric languages. Also using wikipedia as a source of information is questionable. As the pages related to post-soviet era countries are propoganda war zone for Russia and the countries itself to promote the point of view needed.
- ldev 10y ago
  Food - yes, a lot. Folklore, traditions, etc - no. The only reason why russian culture was in Lithuania in, lets say, 1980, it's because we were occupied? Mostly nothing left when we regained our independance...

Spooky23 10y ago

They were conquests of an occupying empire. They were no more integrated with Russia than Ireland with the U.K.

StavrosK 10y ago

> Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were parts of Russia for 300 years with small omissions. It is longer than the time of existence of the United States. Probably the only thing this tells us is that the US is a very young nation. 300 years is a blip compared to how long European peoples have been around.

ignasl 10y ago

Lithuania was occupied for ~120 years by Russia empire and ~50 years by communists. Other than that it's different religion, different language, different culture. Similarities of course exist and Russian people are fine people but I would like to emphasis that we don't want people in other countries think that we are the same so current aggressive government of Russia have "rights" to start trouble here again because we belong to their influence zone. F* that. Lithuania and Lithuanians are free and independent. I hope you understand why this kind of innocent "they are similar" is not perceived well here in Baltic. It plays right into Russian propaganda machine (they are very very good at it, divide and conquer experience for hundreds of years). Don't be naive - this trend that resulted in brexit and Trump was a direct result of Russian information war campaign. I think next target will be EU and there is a lot of material to work on for them - France, Italy, Greece on top of current trend and traction of marginal political groups. I think it was easy to initiate such a trend as those aggressive leftist ideologies which had support of political elites basically discredited itself as no sane person can look at some of those people and say - yeah right that is smart and totally make sense. And those people got an alternative to aggressive idiocy.

achikin 10y ago
The Empire strikes back!

godzilla82 10y ago

Well, many countries were parts of the British Empire for more than 100 years, including India, China etc. It would be wrong to assume that would cause ethical similariy between Britain and these countries.