Russia’s national identity and perspectives on the Baltic States, 1992-2012

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) were the only former Soviet republics which never joined the Commonwealth of Independent States. In 2004 they became the only former Soviet republics to join NATO and the EU. For most of the period since the Soviet collapse, the Baltic States have been seen in Russia as the countries least friendly to it. The paper examines how the changing spectrum of perceptions inside Russia of its national and state identity influences Russian perspectives on the Baltic States. While most of the Russian political elite believes that Russia should have a sphere of influence in post-Soviet space, opinions are divide over whether this should extend to the Baltic States. Popular ideas of Russia’s Eurasian identity tend to focus on both the Russian Federation and the CIS as a whole as being formed out of the association of Slav-Orthodox and Turkic-Muslim cultures, which excludes the Protestant and Catholic, and non-Slav, Baltic peoples. The substantial ethnic-Russian population remaining in Latvia and Estonia and Lithuania’s importance as the gateway to Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave are among factors which make the Baltic States important for Russia’s identity as a great power