[lg policy] Why Putin won’t attempt to ‘integrate’ Estonia and Latvia into the Russian Federation

Wed Mar 7 15:34:36 UTC 2018

 Why Putin won’t attempt to ‘integrate’ Estonia and Latvia into the Russian
Federation
<http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2018/03/07/why-putin-wont-attempt-to-integrate-estonia-and-latvia-into-the-russian-federation/>

*
<http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2018/03/07/why-putin-wont-attempt-to-integrate-estonia-and-latvia-into-the-russian-federation/#Author>Following
the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, there were fears that Estonia and
Latvia could be dragged into a similar crisis due to the large numbers of
ethnic Russians living in each state. But as **Michele E. Commercio *
<http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2018/03/07/why-putin-wont-attempt-to-integrate-estonia-and-latvia-into-the-russian-federation/#Author>*highlights,
the unique history of Estonia and Latvia has produced a very different
situation to that in Ukraine, with both states now hosting a new generation
of integrated, bilingual ethnic Russians who are content with their lives
in Estonia and Latvia. Any attempt to integrate parts of Estonia or Latvia
into the Russian Federation would likely face fierce resistance from ethnic
Russians on the ground as well as from NATO forces.*

Tallinn, Credit: Visit Estonia
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/visitestonia/33955092105/> (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/>)

Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 generated grave concerns in the
international community regarding Putin’s potential further ambitions,
particularly toward the Baltic States. This apprehension was the foundation
of NATO’s decision to beef up its military presence in Estonia, Latvia, and
Lithuania. Yet Putin has made no effort to ‘integrate’ these states, or
heavily Russified parts of these states, into the Russian Federation. The
most obvious reason for this is the fact that all three Baltic states are
members of NATO; Ukraine, of course, is not a member of NATO.

But there is another seemingly simple but significant reason Putin will not
try to integrate these states into the Russian Federation: he is cognisant
of the fact that such a geopolitical move would be too difficult because
ethnic Russians in Estonia, where they are 25% of the population, and
Latvia, where they are 26% of the population, are content. They have no
desire to join the Russian Federation. Indeed, they would resist an attempt
at integration, and NATO would support the territorial integrity of the
sovereign states in which they reside.

The assertion that ethnic Russians in Estonia and Latvia are satisfied with
the status quo requires further explanation. When Estonia and Latvia became
independent sovereign states in 1991, they embarked on nationalisation
projects designed to strengthen and promote the Estonian and Latvian nation
politically, culturally, demographically, and economically. This is hardly
surprising, given the traumatic history of each nation, which we can
characterise in terms of deportation, occupation, and illegal annexation.

Following the illegal incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet
Union in 1941, Moscow pursued an aggressive Russification policy that
included outsourcing ethnic Russian labour to these states to ensure
political stability, cultural conformity, and economic reliability. The
policy resulted in a demographic imbalance that rendered Estonians and
Latvians a bare majority within their respective union republic. It also
generated asymmetric bilingualism, as Russians were monolingual while out
of necessity Estonians and Latvians were bilingual, mastering Russian for
practical purposes while attempting with difficulty to keep their native
languages alive.

Aggressive Russification also ensured an ethnic Russian or heavily
Russified Estonian/Latvian political leadership that advanced Moscow’s
interests at the expense of local interests. By the end of the 1980s,
Russification policies had spawned a pervasive fear of cultural extinction
among Estonians and Latvians that motivated elites to pursue the most
aggressive nationalisation policies implemented in the post-Soviet states.

Although it has waxed and waned over time, particularly as the European
Union pressures member states to abide by the Framework Convention for the
Protection of National Minorities, Estonian and Latvian nationalisation
included at one time or another, for example, citizenship laws that granted
automatic citizenship only to individuals who were citizens of the
respective interwar republic. Given the massive influx of ethnic Russians
into the Estonian and Latvian Soviet republics after WWII, this meant that
most ethnic Russians residing in independent Estonia and Latvia were not
granted automatic citizenship and had to naturalise if they wanted to
belong to the polity.

Naturalisation policies were linked to cultural preservation attempts, as
they required applicants to pass Estonian/Latvian language tests. Another
example of Estonian and Latvian nationalisation resides in language policy:
Estonian and Latvian are the state languages of Estonia and Latvia
respectively; all other languages, including Russian, are designated
foreign languages. In addition, knowledge of the state language is a
standard requirement for public sector employment.

Estonian and Latvian nationalisation could have generated conflict between
ethnic Russians on the one hand and Estonians in Estonia and Latvians in
Latvia on the other hand. But this has not happened because elites in these
countries have devised what I call a system of partial control, in which
the majority ethnic group controls the political sector but shares control
of the economic sector with minority ethnic groups.

The citizenship and language policies discussed above have, over time,
ensured firm Estonian and Latvian political control over independent
Estonia and Latvia. Consolidation of political control has enabled Estonian
and Latvian elites to permit economic access to the system without
opposition from staunch anti-Russian Estonian and Latvian nationalists.
Working under the assumption that economic prosperity would give ethnic
Russians a stake in the system and thus discourage conflict, Estonian and
Latvian elites opened the private sector to Russians after they had secured
political control.

Excluded from the public sector in the 1990s and early 2000s as a result of
citizenship and/or language policy, ethnic Russians established businesses
in Estonia and Latvia’s flourishing private sectors. Economic stability,
and in some cases prosperity, along with EU and NATO membership,
discouraged Russians from leaving Estonia and Latvia and from protesting
nationalisation policies in these countries. Indeed, it encouraged them to
take advantage of available economic opportunities, naturalise, and raise
their children bilingually. The end result is a new generation of
integrated, bilingual ethnic Russians who are content with their lives in
Estonia and Latvia. Were Putin to unwisely attempt to ‘integrate’ Estonia
and Latvia, he would face fierce resistance from ethnic Russians on the
ground as well as NATO forces there to defend the integrity of these
independent, sovereign states.

*Michele E. Commercio is the author of Russian Minority Politics in
Post-Soviet Latvia and Kyrgyzstan: The Transformative Power of Informal
Networks <http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14723.html>*

*Please read our comments policy before commenting*
<http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/about/comments-policy/>*.*

*Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of
EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics.*

-- 
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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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