ABSTRACT
For more than two centuries before 1917, Russia was an empire rather than a nation-state. The Soviet Union continued this legacy, trying to overcome the problem of genuine integration of its nationalities by ideology and repression, that is, by seeking to create a Soviet man through sblizhenie of its nationalities. During the 1990s, both Germany and Finland intensively engaged in developing their relationships with Russia both on a bilateral basis as well as in a multilateral framework, particularly through the European Union (EU). From a traditional historical-geopolitical perspective, Finland and the three Baltic states constitute a 'physical barrier' for Russian ambitions to have wider access to the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. After World War II, the Soviet Union, as the dominant military power in Europe, not only controlled the southern shores of the Baltic Sea up to the East-West border through Germany, but also managed to extract significant concessions from its northern European neighbours.
