ABSTRACT
The situation of 2000 corresponds to neither of these scenarios: while in the years 1992-93, Estonia and Latvia registered a ‘promising’ migration rate in the range of tens of thousands of Russians leaving the country each year, this outflow has turned into a trickle, irrelevant for the overall minority problem (Dunlop 1994). The fact that restrictive minority policies and limited rights have failed to produce a substantial emigration and the fact that no visible progress concerning the integration of Russian-speakers could be achieved has, together with pressure from the West and from Moscow, recently motivated the Baltic states to change their strategy. The counter-scenario, however, also failed to materialize: despite occasional protests and tense relations between the titular nation and the
russophones as well as between the Baltic states and Russia, much to the amazement of indigenous and foreign observers, cases of interethnic violence were very limited indeed. The Russian population’s attitude seems to be one of resignation. Collectively, they neither heed Moscow’s call for ethnic mobilization nor do they strive for integration in the new nation-states. (Smith 1998:7)
Since this unstable equilibrium has consolidated into a lasting situation, the priorities and dilemmas of both minorities policy and ethnic studies have changed. The demographic changes have come to a halt, the legal framework has been generally completed, and any integration policies will produce substantial results only in the long run. In the new reality of this consolidation, neither the classical minority issues nor constructivist topics of identity-building are in the centre of ‘interethnic relations’.
