The Baltic Front
The Russian invitation to the leaders of East European nations to attend VE Day celebrations in Moscow aroused heated discussions in the Baltic states. At the core of Russo-Baltic tensions was the question of whether the Soviet takeover of the Baltic states, tacitly approved by the Yalta Conference, was or was not an act of occupation.
The answer to that question had serious legal and political repercussions for Russia, as it would affect the status of the Russian minority in Latvia and place on the international agenda not only the issue of Russia's moral responsibility for an act of aggression but also its legal consequences. Potentially, the Russian government faced lawsuits demanding material compensation for the imprisonment, deportation, and death of hundreds of thousands if not millions of citizens of the Baltic states. The Russian political elites took the issue so seriously that they were prepared to soften their demands on the issue of the human rights of Russian speakers in the Baltic states - their main weapon in diplomatic conflicts with the Baltics throughout the 1990s - if Latvia and Estonia would drop their claims for recognition of the Soviet takeover of the Baltic states as an act of occupation. On 3 February 2005 (the eve of the sixtieth anniversary of the Yalta Conference) the Russian side leaked to the press drafts of unsigned joint declarations on Russo-Estonian and Russo-Latvian relations that included a quid pro quo agreement in that regard.9The debate over the participation of the presidents of the Baltic states in the VE Day celebrations in Moscow became especially acute in Latvia, the home of the largest Russian minority in the Baltics. Indeed, it crossed national boundaries and caused an international scandal. The president of Latvia, Dr Vaira Vike-Freiberga - herself a refugee from Soviet rule and a former professor of psychology at the University of Montreal, known in Russian diplomatic circles as a 'Canadian' - has been a strong promoter of the thesis that Soviet rule in her country amounted to an occupation.
She has not been reluctant to express that conviction at home and abroad, and in January 2005, at the ceremony marking the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of the prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp, she presented President Putin with a book promoting that interpretation of the history of Russo-Latvian relations. The Russian response was swift and decisive. The publication of the book, entitled The History of Latvia: The Twentieth Century, was officially condemned by the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, and when a Russian translation of the volume was subsequently launched in Moscow, one of its authors was denied an entry visa to Russia.10Not surprisingly, Dr Vike-Freiberga was highly reluctant from the outset to participate in the Moscow commemorations. Only later, under pressure from President George W. Bush of the United States, did she change her mind and accept the invitation, becoming the only Baltic head of the state to attend. The Latvian president stated that she would take part in the ceremony in Moscow out of respect for the Russian people and their sacrifice in the fight against Nazism, but she stood firm when it came to the interpretation of Latvian history and Russo- Latvian relations after the Second World War. Speaking on the Latvian radio program Krustpunkti, she suggested that Russia's harshly negative reaction to the Latvian viewpoint precluded open discussion on important questions of recent history, while other countries were making attempts to reevaluate their past. According to the Latvian president, Soviet-era stereotypes continued to dominate the Russian interpretation of the Second World War and the postwar era. In an article published in Der Tagesspiegel on 6 May 2005, Vike-Freiberga reiterated her earlier statement, arguing that after the expulsion of the Nazis, Latvia and the other Baltic states had become victims of Soviet occupation, which resulted in mass arrests, killings, and deportations of their citizens. She also suggested that both Latvia and Germany had faced their record in the Second World War, while Russia refused to separate its heroes from its tyrants and condemn the atrocities committed in the name of communism.11
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