Non-territorial cultural autonomy as a Baltic contribution to Europe between the Wars
ENWhen considering Baltic contributions to the construction of Europe over the past century, it is important to keep in mind the pioneering efforts by the three countries to implement non-territorial cultural autonomy for their national minorities during the period between the two World Wars. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all enshrined the cultural autonomy principle in their founding constitutions, and all went on to implement it in practice to varying degrees during the 1920s. Of the three, however, only Estonia formally drafted a full minorities law on this basis. The Estonian case thus provides the central focus for this article, which examines the origins of Baltic cultural autonomy, its implications for wider European debates on minority rights during the period in question and its possible relevance to post-communist central and eastern Europe. [Extract, p. 211]
