Compatriot Games
Portraits of Baltic Russian-Speakers
Russian-speakers in the Baltic states are not a uniform group and vary greatly by country, by generation and by socio-economic environment. Those born after the fall of the Soviet Union are now in their twenties and are important because they represent the future of Baltic Russian-speakers. Certainly, they are more integrated into Baltic societies and much more likely to perceive themselves as Estonian, Latvian or Lithuanian than their predecessors who had immigrated during the Soviet era.
Members of this generation offer nuanced perspectives on their relationship to Russia. On one hand, this group shuns the idea of Moscow’s protection of Russian compatriots along the model of Crimea and eastern Ukraine. On the other hand, some are open to Russian cultural support or even citizenship and passports. Having spent their entire lives in the independent Baltic states, they do not necessarily identify with the Russian state. However, they do feel some shortcomings in terms of Baltic societal integration and a lack of political representation based on their ethnic identity.
Take, for instance, Darya, who is pursuing a master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies in Riga. Of Russian and Polish descent, she considers herself a Russian-speaker. However, she shies away from the label of “Russian compatriot,” because, as she puts it, “I have never been to Russia, and I don't know much about Russian culture in particular.” Nevertheless, Darya suggests that Latvia’s approach to citizenship and nationality is problematic for the country’s other ethnicities. “Even though Latvia may give citizenship to Russian-speaking people,” she explains, “they can never be called Latvians because Latvia strictly differentiates between citizenship and nationality. My citizenship is Latvian, but my nationality can be only Russian or Polish.” For Darya and other Russian-speakers, the message is clear: “The Latvian country is formed from and for one nation—Latvians, making other ethnic groups ‘citizens’ and not Latvians.’” This distinction “makes Russian-speaking people feel alienated and not wanted in society.”
In addition to the question of language and identity, political leanings also play a role in determining Russian-speakers’ views on the compatriot issue. “I’m a Latvian citizen,” says Artem, a Russian-speaking doctoral student also from Riga, “and I don’t think of myself as somehow involved in Russian nationalism of politics. Besides, I think that Russia is rolling into the darkness these days, and I can’t accept on any level their contemporary aggressive national rhetoric.”
Elena, an Estonian schoolgirl, similarly emphasizes that while her mother tongue is Russian, this does not make her a Russian compatriot. “I was born in Estonia,” she explains. “It is my homeland.” Anton, a 24-year-old student in Tallinn, agrees. “I do not consider myself as a compatriot,” he says, “because apart from the Russian language, nothing ties me to Russia.” He adds that he has “sworn allegiance to Estonia,” and suggests that if other Russian-speakers feel they need protection, Russia is only a short train ride away.
Culture often trumps nationality in forging the identity of this young generation of Russian-speakers, as Natalia, a young professional born to a Russian family in Lithuania, emphasizes. “Russians who were born and grew up in Lithuania differ a lot from Russians in Russia. The majority are culturally and mentally closer to Lithuanians, even though they perceive themselves as Russians.” While she acknowledges some degree of discrimination faced by Russian-speakers, she does not believe protection from Russia is needed. “However some support from Russia, especially in the cultural and educational spheres, would be very useful.”
Finally, many of those who are often simplistically grouped among Lithuania’s Russian-speakers in fact harbor complex identities. Pavel, a graduate student, is a perfect example. From a family of Polish, Ukrainian and Russian ethnic background, Pavel grew up speaking a mix of Russian and Polish at home and in his neighborhood. However, having attended Lithuanian schools and university, he now feels more at ease in the Lithuanian language, and thus would not consider himself a Russian-speaker. However, he acknowledges, “due to the poor teaching of Lithuanian in Russian schools, most graduates face discomfort in the universities and labor market.”
At first glance, the picture of the Baltic Russian-speaker is not one that lends itself so easily to Moscow’s manipulation. None of those interviewed would call for Russian protection, nor do any of them support separatism. However, based on Moscow’s definition of compatriots, most Baltic Russian-speakers would qualify for protection as outlined in Russia’s laws and compatriot policies.
While Russian-speakers in general are ambivalent about Russia’s policies, during times of crisis, many—especially in the older generation—tend to rally behind Moscow. Most Baltic Russian-speakers, whether young or old, tend to follow Russian media and are therefore arguably more receptive to Russian propaganda. For instance, in Tallinn in 2007, following false reports in the Russian media about the destruction of a monument to Soviet soldiers in World War II, young Russian-speakers rioted and protested holding signs with slogans like “USSR Forever.”
Furthermore, as the activities of Russian paramilitary and local supporters in eastern Ukraine have demonstrated, majority support among the Russian-speaking population is not necessary to facilitate territorial takeovers. A small, loyal, organized minority supported by Russian special forces could be sufficient for destabilizing Baltic cities with Russian-speaking populations.
Compatriot Policies and Passport-ization in the Baltics
The Baltic states all possess the key factor that could trigger Russia’s policy of “compatriot protection”: large, concentrated populations of Russian-speakers residing on the Russian border. Estonia and Latvia have particularly large ethnic-Russian minorities, numbering about 24 percent and 27 percent of the general population respectively, while Lithuania’s Russian population falls just under 6 percent.
Percentages of Russian-speakers are even higher, since other minority ethnicities—including Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians and people of mixed ethnic origin, among others—have often adopted Russian as their primary language. Latvia’s Russian-speakers make up nearly 34 percent of the population; Lithuania’s total is 15 percent; and Estonia’s are at least 30 percent, although Tallinn does not report such figures. Clearly, the sheer number of Russian-speakers across the Baltic states provides fertile soil for Moscow to exercise its compatriot policies.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has expended great effort to maintain political, economic and social ties with the Baltic Russians and Russian-speakers. There are numerous organizations and associations in the Baltic states oriented to local ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers—61 in Estonia, 81 in Latvia and 97 in Lithuania—some of which are allegedly funded by the Kremlin. As Vytis Jurkonis, a lecturer in international relations at Vilnius University, notes, “These organizations and their activities are constantly questioning the success of the post-communist transition, seeding mistrust in public institutions and playing with nostalgia for the Soviet past.”
Moreover, the Russian government also tries to promote educational opportunities for Russian-speakers. For instance, the Russian Ministry of Education and Science reserves more than 90 scholarships for graduates of Estonian schools to study in Russian universities. However, compatriot support is not all cultural and linguistic. Baltic Russian-speaking youths are encouraged to participate in Russian militarized camps where they receive military training and psychological preparation. Following these camps, some students have entered Russian military academies.
To get a better sense of the landscape, it would help take a closer look at the relevant policies of each of the three Baltic states.
Estonia
Estonia’s Russian minorities are mainly concentrated in two geographic locations. The capital of Tallinn has a Russian population that numbers more than 150,000 and makes up about 37 percent of the capital’s population. Tallinn’s Russian-speakers are an even larger group, totaling 46 percent of the population.
In recent years, Tallinn has experienced notable ethnic tensions. In 2007, it was rocked by riots of Russian-speakers over the decision by the Estonian government to relocate a Soviet war memorial. From Estonia’s perspective, Moscow was instrumental in inciting unrest by spreading false accounts that the monument has been destroyed or that the graves under the monument had been desecrated. As Ivan Lavrentjev, the coordinator of Russian-speaking NGOs for the Network of Estonian Nonprofit Organizations (NENO), reflects, “When you are told something every day on the news and in the media, you start to believe it even if you do not want to believe. Then it does not matter if there were soldiers buried there or not, since the outcome would have been the same.” The Russian Embassy allegedly took part in organizing the riots, and activists were brought in from Russia to participate in the violence.
The second concentration of Russian-speakers, possibly carrying greater implications for Russian-Estonian relations, is in Ida-Viru County. In this region, located in the east near the border with Russia, Russians number nearly 73 percent of the population. Narva, which is the largest city in the county and the third largest in Estonia, is 88 percent Russian.
However the most significant statistic may be that 36 percent of Narva’s population—about 23,000 people—holds Russian citizenship. The sizable population of Russian citizens is a security concern for Estonia, since Moscow’s policy of protecting Russian citizens is even more explicit than its policy of protecting ethnic Russians or Russian-speakers. Well before annexing Crimea, Russia also pursued a policy of handing out Russian citizenships in the Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and in Moldova’s Transnistria, and then proceeded to effectively make these territories into puppet states.
Estonian academics, politicians and NGO workers, however, generally hold the view that Estonia’s Russian minority is not very receptive to the Kremlin’s manipulative foreign policy, and therefore there is no imminent danger looming over Estonia. According to Vyacheslav Morozov, professor of EU-Russia studies at the University of Tartu, “Although undoubtedly the integration of Russian-speakers has not been without problems, these problems have been grossly exaggerated by Russian propaganda. Hence, it is very unlikely that the territorial integrity of these states will be jeopardized in the near future due to some local separatist movement.”
As Narva’s current mayor, Eduard East, told Bloomberg News, Russia isn’t as alluring for the inhabitants of the city as it might appear. Nowadays, said East, “it’s hard to find anyone that wants to be part of Russia.”
Ultimately, as Lavrentjev notes, “In Estonia people view themselves as European, even though they can like Putin. They also prefer to live in a stable society, with greater economic stability.” Still, it is important not to forget that the Narva city council voted—unsuccessfully—for autonomy in 1993. Furthermore, even if today the vast majority of Estonia’s Russian population is well-integrated and does not welcome Russia’s interference, Russia’s compatriot policies do give reason for concern. It is always possible that a minority of Estonia’s Russian population, particularly those with Russian citizenship and residing on the border, could be exploited by Moscow in times of political tension.
Latvia
In Latvia, the situation concerning Russian minorities is similar to that of Estonia. The Russian population is even more numerous and is also concentrated in two primary locations. In the capital of Riga, ethnic Russian make up 40 percent of the population, while Russian-speakers total nearly 50 percent. Unlike Tallinn, Riga has not experienced recent riots or substantial ethnic tensions. In 2014, a small group of Russian-speakers protested against educational reforms dictating that 60 percent of courses should be taught in the Latvian language in Latvia’s Russian schools, but the issue had clearly lost salience since 2004, when the same issue galvanized thousands of Russian protestors.
Moreover, given the vast number of Russian-speakers in Latvia, it is not very surprising to see that a pro-Russian party named Harmony won the most votes in the parliamentary elections earlier this month. However, it actually underperformed relative to 2011 and lost several seats, and it will not be included in the new government, which consists of a coalition of several different parties.
In addition to Riga, the region of Latgale also has a high concentration of Russians and Russian-speakers. Latgale, located in the eastern part of Latvia, borders Russia, Belarus and Lithuania. Russians number more than 100,000 and make up nearly 39 percent of the region’s population. Russian-speakers are even more numerous at 55 percent. The region’s largest city, Daugavpils, has an even larger concentration of Russians that totals nearly 54 percent of the population, while Russian-speakers make up 79 percent.
Yet unlike in Estonia’s Narva, in both the region of Latgale and the city of Daugavpils the number of Russian citizens is notably small, totaling 2 percent and 4 percent respectively. This reduces the risk of Russian interference in the region. While a small rally took place in April at the Latvian Embassy in Moscow calling for Latgale to become part of Russia, this sentiment can be viewed as an exception rather than the norm among the Russian minority in Latgale and Latvia in general. However, even though historically the Russian-speaking Latvian population has not resulted in major unrest, the large and concentrated numbers of Russian-speakers in Latvia’s eastern border regions suggest that Riga may have reasons for concern regarding Moscow’s compatriot policies.
Lithuania
Lithuania has considerably lower percentages of ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers than Latvia and Estonia. Still, there are three regions with sizable populations. Like Tallinn and Riga, Lithuania’s capital also has a higher proportion of Russian-speakers than the rest of the country. The population of Vilnius is 12 percent Russian, while nearly 27 percent are Russian-speakers. The latter group includes many ethnic Poles, 23 percent of whom report that their native language is Russian. Lithuania’s Poles total under 7 percent of the population, just a bit more than Lithuania’s Russian population of nearly 6 percent.
The city of Klaipeda, which is located close to the Russian territory of Kaliningrad, also has a higher concentration of Russian minorities than the Lithuanian average. Here Russians make up nearly 20 percent of the population, while Russian-speakers total 28 percent. Lithuania’s third concentration of Russian-speakers is found in the small eastern city of Visaginas, where the total population is approximately 20,000. It is the only Lithuanian city with a majority-Russian population, and Russian-speakers number 77 percent of the population.
Although recent media reports suggest that there is no receptiveness among the population of Visaginas to the Crimean annexation model, it is impossible to entirely rule out the probability of instability provoked by Moscow. As Jurkonis argues, “Provocations and attempts are possible—you might recall the events in Tallinn in 2007. As Lithuania is a member of NATO, direct intervention by Russian troops is less likely. However, even that cannot be ruled out completely, because the current decisions of the Kremlin are neither entirely rational nor predictable.”
Politically, the situation in Vilnius and Lithuania is more complex than the relatively small numbers of Russian-speakers suggest. Since the mid-2000s, ethnic tensions concerning Russian-speakers have become overshadowed by the Polish minority question, and particularly by the rise of a political party called Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania (EAPL). In 2008, the Polish party absorbed the main pro-Russian political party, the Russian Alliance, and since then both parties jointly participate in Lithuanian parliamentary, municipal and European Parliamentary elections.
Russian influence is visible in this merger. As Laurynas Kasciunas, the head of policy analysis and research at the Eastern Europe Studies Centre, says, “After Moscow realized that it won’t be able to mobilize Russian-speaking populations alone, it began to couple it with the Polish population, which resulted in the establishment of EAPL.” He adds, “The newly established political party has no links with deeply rooted Polish political or cultural traditions and can be viewed as merely an attempt by Russia to get involved in Lithuanian politics.”
The Polish minority party, led by Valdemar Tomasevski, has been raising issues of minority discrimination, courting Lithuania’s ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers and positioning itself as the voice of all minorities in Lithuania. Tomasevski has also openly supported Russia’s annexation of Crimea and appeared in public wearing St. George’s Ribbon, a Russian national symbol.
Due to the relatively low number of Russian-speakers, Lithuania could be regarded as the least prone to Russia’s compatriot policies out of the three Baltic States. However, as in Latvia, Russian-speakers face some problems in terms of their integration into Lithuanian society. As Vita Petrusauskaite and Vilana Pilinkaite Sotirovic, research fellows at the Institute for Ethnic Studies at the Lithuania Social Research Center, have written, “There has been little political attention spent towards the Lithuanian ethnic minorities’ integration policy. This is apparent because the judicial system has many faults, there is a lack of adequate representation on the institutional level and the inter-institutional cooperation for implementing integrative programs is struggling. This only reflects the dominant political opinion, that Lithuanian ethnical minorities’ questions were ‘solved’ in 1989.”
Lithuania also faces a different problem that does not necessarily originate from its Russian-speakers or Russian population. According to Kasciunas, “The actual issue stems from a significant presence of Lithuanians who embrace a Russian mentality.” That is, among native Lithuanians there are competing opinions regarding the notion of nationality. Kasciunas adds, “Some people believe that the Lithuanian nationality should be pro-Western, others argue that it should be pro-Russian and a third group argues that it should be neither pro-Western nor pro-Russian.” If the Russian government were to embark on policies stirring up and politicizing ethnic tensions, perhaps even via the Polish minority, such an internal division between ethnic Lithuanians could be easily used to benefit Moscow.
Conclusion
The Russian government’s recent annexation of Crimea and efforts to destabilize the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, all under the pretext of protecting Russia’s “compatriots,” have rightly raised concerns among the Baltic states and their allies. All three Baltic states have Russian and Russian-speaking minorities, which tend to be concentrated close to Russia’s borders. However, as this analysis has demonstrated, the Baltic states’ Russian populations appear to be reasonably integrated into their local societies and at least on the surface do not appear to be receptive to Russia’s “protection” policies.
On the other hand, as the unrest in eastern Ukraine has demonstrated, the Kremlin’s tactics only require the support of a minority of the local population to support its separatist aims. The information warfare that has aided Russia’s tactics in Ukraine could arguably have less impact on the Baltic populations. As Lavrentjev notes, the Baltic states are very small—Estonia is smaller than the Donetsk region of Ukraine. Longer term, the population is less likely to believe false reporting because they know what is happening with their neighbors or in their backyards.
Finally, not only the Russian government deserves scrutiny. The Baltic states should also assess their policies toward their Russian—and in the case of Lithuania, Polish—minorities. If the Baltic states are unable to fully integrate their Russian-speaking populations or lose the soft power war with Russia for their loyalty, then it is possible that these territories could become a target of Russia’s pressure or influence. With their high standards of living and democratic values, the Baltic governments offer their populations attractive alternatives to illiberal regimes in the East. Now the task at hand is to win the hearts and minds of their ethnic and linguistic minorities.
Agnia Grigas