ABSTRACT
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 as the result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that launched World War II and led to a temporary partition of Europe between Hider's Germany and Stalin's USSR. The Baltic states share many historical experiences. Their early development was influenced by external elites: Polish in Lithuania and German in Latvia and Estonia. The Baltic republics led the anti-Moscow and antiunion struggle of the late 1980s and achieved independence after the 1991 coup, some months ahead of the other republics. One important factor distinguishes the Baltic states from the other new states formed after Soviet dissolution. Migration to Estonia declined in the late 1980s, in part because of Soviet economic stagnation and in part because of increasingly hostile interactions between Russians and Estonians. The demographic russification of Estonia, coupled with the growing majority of Russians who know no home but Estonia, creates a troublesome citizenship question for both Estonians and Russians.
