Baltic Russians - History

History

See also: History of Russians in Estonia, History of Russians in Latvia, and History of Russians in Lithuania

Most of the present-day Baltic Russians are migrants from the Soviet era and their descendants, whereas only a relatively small fraction of them can trace their ancestry in the area back to previous centuries.

According to official statistics, in 1920, ethnic Russians (most of them residing there from the times of the Russian Empire) made up 7,82% of the population in independent Latvia, growing to 10,5% in 1935. The share of ethnic Russians in the population of independent Estonia was about 8.2%, of which about half were indigenous Russians living in the areas in and around Pechory and Izborsk which were added to Estonian territory according to the 1920 Estonian-Soviet Peace Treaty of Tartu, but were transferred to the Russian SFSR by the Soviet authorities in 1945. The share of ethnic Russians in independent Lithuania (not including the Vilnius region, then annexed by Poland) was even smaller, about 2.5%.

Following the terms of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union invaded and occupied and subsequently annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as Soviet republics in 1940. Germany invaded and occupied the Baltic states in 1941 a week after the first Soviet-conducted mass deportation. Communist party members who had arrived in the area with the initial annexation in 1940 and the puppet regimes established evacuated to other parts of the Soviet Union; those who fell into German hands were treated harshly or murdered. The Soviet Union reoccupied the Baltic states in 1944-1945 as the war drew to a close.

Immediately after the war, Joseph Stalin carried out a major colonization and de facto Russification campaign of the Baltic states. Many of the Russians, along with a smaller number from other ethnic groups, who migrated from other parts of the USSR to the Baltic republics, arrived to transform the pre-war Baltics' largely agricultural economy to an industrial one. Mostly they were factory and construction workers who settled in major urban areas, as well as military personnel stationed in the region in significant numbers to staff the military bases established owing to the Baltic states now acting as Soviet borderlands facing Europe. Many military retirees chose to stay in the region, which featured higher living standards compared to most of the USSR. This would lead to bitter disputes with Russia regarding the issue of their military pensions after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

After Stalin's death in 1953, the flow of new migrants to the Lithuanian SSR slowed down, owing to different policies on urbanization, economy and other issues than pursued in the Latvian SSR and the Estonian SSR. However, the flow of immigrants did not stop entirely in Lithuania, and there were further waves of Russian workers who came to work on major construction projects, such as power plants.

In Latvia and Estonia, less was done to slow down Russian immigration. By the 1980s Russians made up about third of the population in Estonia, while in Latvia, ethnic Latvians made up only about half of the population. In contrast, in 1989 only 9.4% of Lithuania's population were Russians.

Scholars in international law have noted that "in accordance with Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the settlement of Russians in the Baltic States during the period was illegal under international law" ("The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies"). The convention was adopted in 1949, including by the Soviet Union. However, as the Soviet Union maintained the Baltic States joined the USSR voluntarily, it did not consider the convention applicable to the Baltic states.

Continuing the position of their legations or governments in exile, and based on international law and treaties in effect at the time of initial Soviet occupation, the Baltic states view the Soviet presence in the Baltic states as an illegal occupation for its full duration. This continuity of the Baltic states with their first period of independence has been used to re-adopt pre-WWII laws, constitutions, and treaties and to formulate new policies, including in the areas of citizenship and language.

Some of the Baltic Russians, mainly those who had come to live in the region not long before the three countries regained independence in 1991, remigrated to Russia and other ex-Soviet countries in the early 1990s. Lithuania, which had been colonized the least, granted citizenship automatically. In Latvia and Estonia, those who had no family ties to Latvia prior to WWII did not receive automatic citizenship. Those that failed to request Russian citizenship during the time window it was offered were granted permanent residency "non-citizen" status. (see Citizenship section).