[Das Baltikum: Geschichte einer europäischen Region. Bd. 3, Die Staaten Estland, Lettland und Litauen. Herausgegeben von Karsten Brüggemann, Ralph Tüchtenhagen und Anja Wilhelmi] : recenzija

ENWhat is discussed here is the third and final part of a wider project. Completed between 2018 and 2021, the roughly decade-long undertaking has given German readers a 2,170-page, three-volume work, the most comprehensive German-language survey of the regional history of the three Baltic States to date. The third volume focuses on the ‘short’ 20th century, and continues the story where it left off in the second volume (which covered the period from circa 1550 to 1918). It covers a timeframe when the notion of the Baltikum, comprising Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, gradually began to take root in German culture (first recorded during the First World War), a notion that has not yet entirely displaced the earlier idea that the Baltikum was the Baltic provinces of Imperial Russia (Estliandiia, Liflandiia and Kurlandiia), i.e. an area without Latgale and Lithuania. It is against this background (the attempt to establish a new concept) that this project conceived by German historians should be seen. The subheading of the book ‘A History of the European Region’ gives additional clues to grasp its idea. It is understandable that in trying to develop it, the authors were faced with the challenge of telling the story of a region whose individual parts often had more historical differences than historical similarities. Indeed, the subheading seems to announce that the book will talk about one region of Europe, but the content deals with different regions (countries) and their development, although individual parts of the book or the introduction cover all three (this was also the case with previous volumes). The authors of the introduction even note (on page 18) that highlighting the differences between the three Baltic States was actually one of the aims of this project.Nevertheless, the third volume (compared to the previous ones) covers a period in which not only the concept of the Baltikum gradually took on a new identity, but in which the development of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia also had the most similarities. The authors of the introduction rightly point out that in the ‘short’ 20th century, the dominant, formative historical experience of all three was that of the nation-state: in 1918, the ideas of nation-states began to take shape in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; in 1940, all three were transformed into ‘Soviet socialist republics’ (without, however, forgetting or ignoring the national content of these republics), which, with the exception of the short but deeply ploughed episode of Nazi occupation from 1941 to 1944–1945, remained in the Soviet Union until 1990–1991. Moreover, for most of the 20th century, in the language of the great powers, there was the so-called ‘Baltic question’, with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania being the most frequent reference of it. The third volume is thus essentially a history of 1918 to 1991, although there is a brief overview of the political development of the three states after 1991 at the end of the book. [Extract, p. 238-239]

• Istorija / History
• Politikos mokslai / Political sciences