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.
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.
> 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".
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.
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.
> Most of Lithuania was annexed by Russia by 1795
> ...
> That's >120 years of occupation or foreign rule. Especially in the era of colonialism/imperialism.
You are right, but foregin rule does not amount to occupation. Also, none of the "big players" in Europe has perfectly good consciousness with regards to borders, so we generally disregard everything that happened before 20th century. I understand that it's painful for smaller nations, but this is exactly the reason WWI happened, and we don't want that to return.
> 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.
Yep, that's the famous "soviet reshuffling". People were incentivised to move to other regions. That was mostly done with positive things though, e.g. young family could get a free flat if they moved to other SSR. Also, drafts would usually send soldiers far from home, so that they could get to know a new region (and many stayed there after getting out of millitary).
Your explanation "The difference was that almost one third of the old population had been eradicated and replaced by Russians (and other Soviet nationals)." doesn't seem to be supported by facts though. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Estonia we get 992,520 Estonians in 1934 and 892,653 in 1959. The 10% difference could be accounted if you take into account people that died in WWII, those that have emigrated when soviets came, reshuffling that I mentioned and just people claiming to be russians (which was a thing).
If you have other sources or more in-depth research, I would absolutely love to read it.
> 50 years by USSR + ~100 years by Russian Empire[0]
Lithuania in fact was part of Russian Empire. That does not classify it as occupation. There is no mention of occupation in your article, nor it is called an occupation by Lithuanian government. Also, it's a bad idea to revision 19th century Europe, as pretty much every country (that existed at that time in Europe) had done some pretty outrageous things then (by modern standards).
> Mass deportations[1] (5% of the population, most of whom died during severe Siberian winters)
Why are you bringing deportations into conversation about Soviet integration efforts? That obviously was a terrifying thing to do, but was completely irrelevant to russification/integration.
Also, the wiki article that you provide as a source quotes 28,000 that died in exile out of 130,000, that makes your statement about most of them dying in Siberian winters false (not that it has anything to do with this discussion anyway).
> total ban of press and schools in local language[2][3]
As for the press ban link, it's a bit misleading here, because what was actually banned in Russian Empire was Latin alphabet, which of course targeted newly acquired Polish/Lithuanian territories, but you were still allowed to publish books in Lithuanian language in cyrillics (and that was done). So, it was more of a language reform than a total ban of its usage.
In fact, this is pretty similar to how Japan after WWII tried to move from its Kanji hieroglyphical writing (which was associated with communist China) to romaji/latin (which was associated with their new allies - US).
> oppressive state police to prosecute or silently get rid of anybody standing against occupant government
Police in Russian Empire was ready to silently get rid of anybody standing against government, period. That has nothing to do whether that anybody happened to be/live in Vilnius or Moscow. Also, political oppression and scare tactics are pretty much irrelevant to discussion about russification/sovietization/integration efforts.
"Why are you bringing deportations into conversation about Soviet integration efforts?"
Because most of those deported were well educated people -- teachers, doctors, engineers etc. and their families. It was done to get rid of any influential people with authority, that could teach others and later cause problems. It's much easier to control uneducated people, especially when there's nobody around to counter-argument propaganda. Also, deported population was replaced by immigrant Russians. The rest of your comment is nitpicking not worth discussing.
> It was done to get rid of any influential people with authority, that could teach others and later cause problems.
I do not argue, that people were deported for political reasons. However, we were discussing cultural integration/assimilation, so I assume you imply that people were deported to prevent that. That's not the case though. There were three big waves of departations:
1. 1941, Soviets just came and were preparing for war. They didn't want to have near the front line people who might be less-than-patriotic, so they deported policemen, politicians, religious leaders, etc. Sort of how US sent Japanese to camps after Pearl Harbor.
2. 1944, Soviet forces reached Lithuania again and war was still raging, so they deported Lithuanian partisans, remaining Baltic Germans and so on. Again, they did not target teachers, doctors etc specifically.
3. 1948, war is over and Soviets are trying to implement collectivization - distribution of wealth and property, but many wealthy people resist. So, they are deported as well. These were mostly farmers as collectivization was mostly about abolishing private farms and making them comunal. Yet again, people haven't been targeted here for being "too Lithuanian" or refusing to speak Russian.
Soviets targeted teachers too. Well, whoever they presumed would be opposed to occupation and/or pro-independence. Coincidentally, that was most of the educated people. Teachers, doctors, architects, lawyers...
My grandgrandparents were on the list just because they were teachers in a small town. They didn't end up in Siberia just because some of their ex-students ended up in local police and pulled strings to remove them from the list. They were kicked out of their jobs and had to work shitty jobs for the rest if their lives though.
A remote relative was a lawyer. Small time solicitor in small town in the middle of nowhere. Direct ticket to Siberia. Eventually he was allowed to leave Siberia, but not allowed to settle in Lithuania. He did get permission to get back to Lithuania late in life though.
Neither of them actively supported anti-Soviet resistance or Nazis. Not wealthy either, unless you count a small townhouse in province towns as wealth. They got in trouble just because they were educated and seemed to be a threat to Soviet establishment.
You are nitpicking facts again. Neither of your three points explain why artists, especially writers, were deported. Also, deporting might serve more than one purpose, so it might be both to get rid of political dissidents and help russification. Honestly, your comments sound just like classics from troll factory rule book: take some unimportant aspects of an argument and draw an opponent down the spiral discussing minor details to bury the original topic (which, let me remind you, was a) Baltic states are separate nations from Russia and b) were occupied by it).
> a) Baltic states are separate nations from Russia and b) were occupied by it).
I actually agree with both of these points. In fact, these are just basic facts, what's there to discuss?
But if you say "here is fact X and I prove it by Y" where X is true and Y - exagerration or outright falsehood, why is it wrong to challenge Y? I actually find this a form of trolling, because if you continue slipping an untrue with well known facts often enough, then some people might start thinking - that other thing must be true as well.
> Neither of your three points explain why artists, especially writers, were deported.
That's a good point, I don't actually know any Lithuanian artists or writers that have been deported. Could you please name some of them? That would indeed invalidate my argument.
(Btw, this - learning something new - is exactly why I am trying to have a discussion at all, it's nice when people answer with facts, even if these facts change your position, instead of useless rhetorics.)
"That's a good point, I don't actually know any Lithuanian artists or writers that have been deported."
I can't find source in English, but it's a well known fact taught in school in Lithuania. You can find it in on Lithuanian Wikipedia page[0], that states:
"Iš viso sovietų valdžios buvo įkalintas ar deportuotas 81 lietuvių rašytojas."
My translation: "a total of 81 Lithuanian writers were imprisoned or deported by Soviet government".
To name few, well-known writers: Antanas Miškinis, Kazys Boruta, Kazys Jakubėnas. Of course, officially they received some formal accusations. Other writers were forced to write pieces glorifying Lenin, Stalin, Soviet Union and their heroes or be imprisoned/deported too. Some obeyed to avoid ill fate.
> Of course, officially they received some formal accusations.
Well, according to Lithuanian wikipedia, Antanas Miškinis has been a member of partisan movement, which can't really be dismissed as "formal accusation". More interestingly both Kazys Boruta and Kazys Jakubėnas have been imprisoned multiple times during the Lithuanian independence for political reasons. Kazys Boruta even has been exiled for both Lithuania and Latvia! I guess he haven't been sent to Siberia only because neither of Lithuania or Latvia had their own Siberia.
Am I again being nitpicky? Is it only bad when Soviets do it?
Or a Russian living in Latvia and uneasy about all the flames "Ruskies" are getting in their former empire. Probably little point in arguing and even less in accusations of shilling for Putin.
The U.S. and Mexico have a lot in common. Seriously. A lot. A good portion of the U.S. was Mexico. The U.S. Southwest and the Mexican El Norte are in many ways more like each other than the other parts of the U.S. or Mexico.
So you might want to pick a different pair of countries.
For instance, the New York-New Jersey-Pennsylvania portion of the U.S. probably has more in common with Russia than Lithuania has in common with it. There are nearly ten times more ethnic Russians in New York City (600k) than there are in Vilnius (62k).
Saying this is essentially dismissing someone else trying to correct the ignorance that Estonia, Latvia, etc. are the same or have similar cultures. This isn't highlighting differences any more that someone correcting someone else that USA and Mexico are not the same countries because they were both colonialozed by europoean countries.
Where I am people have a centuries past idea that our neighbouring regions are our enemy, we're so different, look hire different it cultures are. Having traveled more widely than is the norm here (an area of the UK) it seems very similar and the supposed differences in culture look like similarities.
It's like people tell me my kids are very similar in appearance, to me they seem very different. The differences in human culture in some areas are like "well they a clog dance wearing bells but we do it with ribbons, see how different we are".
We seem often to look for the differences and use them as a way to "other" people, that is to separate from them. I think we should be guarded towards that, particularly when the differences are things politicians have decided for us to emphasise and express.
I'll bet there are many similarities between people either side of USA borders. However, as you say you are then looking at long-term indigenous populations compared to more recent immigrants (European settlers). The cultural aspects influenced by conquistadors and those from French and British culture will bear some similarity, I'd expect.
Well, Latvia and Lithuania are not Slavic in culture, save the culture pushed on to them via Russian domination. Their languages are related to each other, but are completely different to the Russian (and other Slavic languages) being in a different branch of Indo-European, with almost the same relationship as say, French and Dutch have with each other. Their folk culture has similar roots, but then so does the culture of say, Romania - another Eastern country in Europe that is not Slavic. I know a bunch of Latvians, and they are very different to the Poles, Bulgarians, Czechs and Russians I know, both ethnically and in attitude to life in general.
To be honest, even lumping the Slavic cultures together isn't really satisfactory, because even the Czech/Slovaks I know are culturally quite different to the Poles, and they are from a similar region in Europe and speak languages that are relatively close to each other.
Estonia is even less related. Their language is in a different language family, same as Finnish, and their culture is again very different to Russian.
I'd be uncomfortable with erasing the entire cultures and identities of millions of people against their will and forcing them to only care about boring mammal-level similarities with strangers.
I love diversity. The idea of forcibly eliminating it like that gives me a terrible feeling.
"Humanity needs to focus on what unifies us rather than what separates us."
Sadly, humanity is not a one, big, happy family and you can't dismiss hundreds or thousands years of history to create one. Globalization is the first step towards unified world, but as we can see now, it doesn't work so well. It just doesn't happen overnight. The first thing to a better world should be accepting difference and stop trying to force our values on other people. Invading and occupying neighboring countries does not help to achieve that and divide world even more.
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.
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.
> 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)
> 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).
I'll repeat. For the most part, there are no major cultural and ethnic similarities.
The damage and the marks the Soviet regime has left is undeniable however.
If you have heard Latvian, Lithuanian or Estonian language you'll quickly notice just how different they are and bunching them together with Slavic languages makes absolutely no sense in any shape or form.
They are on a completely separate branch which - for some odd reason - in this particular interpretation is held by a common root. The decision to have an encompassing "Balto-Slavic" group is questionable at best and is often disputed.
Even the Wikipedia source says as much:
"Some linguists, however, have recently suggested that Balto-Slavic should be split into three equidistant groups: Eastern Baltic, Western Baltic and Slavic."
Anecdotal evidence time!
All older ladies I know do not watch Russian television and don't understand Russian language well enough to do so.
Saying that everyone is watching Russian TV is objectively false. There are alternatives entertainment-wise! Latvia is in top10 by average internet speed. 70-80% of the population use the internet fairly regularly. Most households in Latvia do have an internet connection. Even out in the country!
Even if a person doesn't speak English, there still is a huge difference between watching Russian TV and watching downloaded American movies and TV-series over-dubbed in Russian.
Latvian youth almost exclusively consumes media in English.
> Baltic languages are very clearly distinct from Slavic ones
No, they are not and you're picture is not an argument for this claim. There are differences between Baltic and Slavic languages, sure, but grammatically they are very close. Rules of conjugation/declension are similar, word formation works the same, punctuation rules are almost exactly same, capitalization is similar, word order is close enough that it can be used interchangeably. It's easy to see how that could happen, given long shared history. Denying facts because of your political points is just ridiculous.
> All older ladies I know do not watch Russian television and don't understand Russian language well enough to do so.
You're right, I shouldn't have used that hyperbole. Of course not everyone is watching Russian TV, but in Riga most older people definitely do. And by older I mean >40 years, not necessary seniors. If you live in Riga and haven't met any of them, you probably just are very picky about people you communicate with.
You presented the wikipedia article (which contained the image clearly showing two distinct branches) as an argument to begin with. Now it's not good enough anymore?
There are differences between Polish and Russian language. Between Latvian and Russian language - for all intents and purposes - there is nothing common. Oh, but both languages have free-word order!
There is no shared history. Latvia has been part of Germany or Swedish Empire and Polish Livonia far longer than it has ever been under Russian Empire/occupation.
I communicate with people who speak either in Latvian or English.
It seems like you're talking here about the older Russian minority living in Riga. They might be watching Russian TV, who could have thought?
I literally don't know a single Latvian - old or young - who watches Russian TV.
I do know older people (>40) people who don't know English well enough (and are too lazy to learn), so they would occasionally watch downloaded American movies or TV-series over-dubbed in Russian.
I think it's pretty clear by now on whose behalf you are posting here.
I'm done here.
I presented wiki article, which did not consist of single image. There were, you know, words grouped in coherent sentences. If you read them, you'd see that the image you showed is just a visual representation of language taxonomy. Languages are divided in families, branches and groups. Indoeuropean language family has among others balto-slavic language branch which consists of presumably older Baltic and younger Slavic languages.
In the comment I originally responded you claimed that Latvian "language is so different it doesn't even belong to the same branch in the language tree". I pointed you that nope, actually it's the same branch. I understand that it's too much details and nuancé for some, but I presumed this being technical website people here would be accustomed to being precise. My appologies.
> There is no shared history. Latvia has been part of Germany or Swedish Empire and Polish Livonia far longer than it has ever been under Russian Empire/occupation.
Nations can have shared history even if they are ruled by different people. During most of the history there were no borders and people would move freely. Later they started to trade. Sholars and some richer people would travel intentionally to see different places. Government agents had to go where they were told. All this facilitated cultural exchange between different ethnic groups that lived in Baltic region. It's easy to see how this could influence languages, especially while languages were only used for oral communication.
> I communicate with people who speak either in Latvian or English.
At least half of Riga population has Russian as one of their mother languages. This percentage is pretty much the same across different communities, sexes and age groups. It was the same among my peers in schools, universities and workplace. If you truly don't know anyone that speaks Russian, you must really hate diversity.
> It seems like you're talking here about the older Russian minority living in Riga. They might be watching Russian TV, who could have thought?
Nope, it's older Latvian population I'm talking about. On a side note, how often do you access internet from different places? Try clearing your cookies and going to YouTube, it will show you what's trending among people in this area. Wherever you try this, no matter what ISP or accesspoint, there will be about half videos from Russia.
Most of the young Latvians that I know, including those from the countryside, are better versed in Russian comedy than in US/English. Russian Comedy Club and projects related to it are extremely well known. Certain Russian music groups are extremely popular, especially among smarter Latvian kids, for instance Akvarium. Last summer they gave a free consert on Dome Square, which was announced just an hour in advance, - it gathered large and mostly Latvian-speaking crowd. You can ignore all this as "damage that Soviet regime left" all you want, but the truth is that this has nothing to do with USSR and just shows that many people choose their entertainment out of what they find interesting/amusing, not what more suits their political agenda.
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.
I am American, and my father's parents were from Lithuania.
I noticed recently, within the last few years, that several English Wikipedia articles were edited by someone with a Slavic background to promote the idea that Baltic languages are more related to Slavic ones than I have heard anyone claim before. I would imagine this is a controversial claim in the Baltic states.
At any rate Baltic languages are famously more conservative than Slavic ones. They are of course related as all indo-european languages are. The only question is how far back in history you have to go for that to be a relevant matter. I do not think they are close enough that it is relevant.
This hasn't been controversial in Latvia at all, at least in 90-00's (not that scientific theories should be judged by how controversial they are among laymen). The theory that I heard in several Latvian schools, is that lithuanians and latvians had a common language with slavs and they got separated somewhere in bronze age. Lithuanian language supposedly is the most archaic language alive (that is closest to proto-indo-european language by some measures). As far as I undestand there is consensus between linguists working in the field, that Baltic and Slavic languages are very close, the only questionable part is whether there was proto-balto-slavic language or whether these languages acquired similarities over time (also, some suggest that slavic languages separated from existing proto-baltic language).
Given tendency for revisionism and troubled past between Baltic states and Russia, one could see how it seems so alien to some people.
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...
The post I was replying to, specifically mentioned Latvia. I mostly agree with your characterization of Lithuania. Well, I would add corruption and bureaucracy to the things that still make Lithuania look very familiar to many Russians.
Lithuania - corruption index 32/168 [1]
Russia - corruption index 119/168 [2]
Regarding bureaucracy:
You do know that almost everything in Lithuania is done electronically?
I can open a company in a couple of days without leaving my house.
Same with my taxes.
And if I do need to sign something, I usually sign it with my e-signature and just send over the signed PDF.
I haven't seen much bureaucracy here in years.
Now try that in Russia.
Language-wise (another parent, but I'm too lazy to make a 2nd comment):
I speak both - Russian and Lithuanian... and while there are similarities, like next to no word order, structure, punctuation etc.
There are more differences than similarities.
Roots of most words are different.
There are more verb forms in Lithuanian [3] which slavic languages lack.
Lithuanian still preserves a fully functional future tense, unlike say slavic languages that lost the future tense (like english) and have to use a compound future tense.
Lithuanian itself feels much more archaic.
Linguistically the baltic languages are as close to slavic languages as they are close to german languages[4]
As for bureaucracy, no I didn't know that you have functional electronic government, that's really awesome! My comment was based on experiences there in 2006-2009, I guess a lot have changed since then.
> There are more differences than similarities.
I guess, you realize that that's a really pointless statement. Russian speaker can understand meaning of some spoken sentences and some other words are understandable if you read them. Sure, there are differences, - that's why they are considered separate languages! But Russian speaker without prior knowledge wouldn't understand any sentence in German or Norwegian. I hope this makes sense. Also, speakers of one Slavic language do not necessary understand all other Slavic language speakers, so this just isn't what you should expect from linguistically close languages.
By the way, that picture you linked to (in [4]) clearly shows that Polish is relatively closer to Lithuanian (51-70 distance) than Lithuanian is to German (>=71), check out the diagram's legend.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.)
