ABSTRACT
In the context of early 1920s Europe, the new Baltic states stood out by virtue of the unique constitutional provisions that they made for national minorities. In all three cases, legislation passed during the initial phases of independent statehood not only guaranteed the civil and ethnic rights of individual citizens but also devolved certain cultural functions – most notably administration of education – to representative bodies of organized minority groups. Estonia and Lithuania directly adopted many of the principles previously elaborated by Renner, Bauer and Dubnow. The Latvian approach was somewhat different but is nevertheless usually characterized as a form of collective cultural autonomy. 1
