Russia’s “soft power” in the Baltic

The disintegration of the Soviet Union led to the emergence of new states on the political map. Having lost the opportunity to exercise the same degree of influence through the former instruments Russia, willing to attain its goals in a new environment, has to resort to soft power mechanisms in the post-Soviet space. According to the classical definition of J. Nye “soft power” shall be understood as an ability to attain goals not through coercion but through engagement and thus could be realized via 1) culture, 2) political values and 3) foreign policy[1]. In case of the Baltic countries Russia has to take into account the whole set of obstacles and limitations.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union led to the emergence of new states on the political map. Having lost the opportunity to exercise the same degree of influence through the former instruments Russia, willing to attain its goals in a new environment, has to resort to soft power mechanisms in the post-Soviet space. According to the classical definition of J. Nye “soft power” shall be understood as an ability to attain goals not through coercion but through engagement and thus could be realized via 1) culture, 2) political values and 3) foreign policy [1]. In case of the Baltic countries Russia has to take into account the whole set of obstacles and limitations.

“The Baltic Russians”: they are changing and getting fewer in number

A significant number of Russians (herinafter this term will be used instead of the “Russian-speaking” population) continue to live in each Baltic state despite the substantial level of emigration in two previous decades. The table below provides statistics about national composition of the Baltic states (based on the census data) which enables us to see the dynamics of changes taking place in each country separately and from comparative perspective (Table 1) [2].

National composition of Lithuania’s population was not changing much throughout the Soviet period. In 1959 according to the census data 79.3% of Lithuanians lived in the country while in 1989 there were 79.6%. In the same period the share of the titular nation representatives in other Baltic republics was decreasing – from 74.6% in 1959 to 61.5% in 1989 in Estonia and from 62% in 1959 to 52% in 1989 in Latvia [3]. A glance at the table is enough to realize that the Russians in Lithuania make up a different community from the Russians living, say, in Latvia. Lithuania due to its small ethnic Russian population will never face the worsening of the internal political situation which Latvia encountered during the referendum on the Russian language. Besides, Russian communities are not internally homogenous. There is a modern generation of the 20-year old “Baltic Russians”, they are different from their parents, there are Old-Believers who came to the Baltic Sea shores long before the Soviet Union times, there is the generation of those who were born and brought up in the Soviet Union. In a nutshell, different Russians live in the Baltic countries; they all have their peculiarities that should be taken into consideration. There is no unity both between the Baltic states (the values of the “singing revolution” are important now only for “the singers” themselves who have already left the political Olympus while “the Baltic way” which once united 2 m. people seems already archaic) and between the Russians living there. Only the referendum on granting to the Russian language the status of a state language was capable of consolidating to a certain extent the Russian community in Latvia. Is consolidation possible in other Baltic countries? There has recently emerged a powerful, even irreversable, according to some experts, trend toward decreasing the role of the Russian language in communication of ethnic Russians in Lithuania both in professional sphere and everyday life. Especially it becomes obvious in the relations between different generations of Russians living in Lithuania.

Russian youth speaks Russian either with heavy accent or with many mistakes, preferring very often to socialize in Lithuanian or English, while major part of senior Russians do not know Lithuanian. The problem of preserving the Russian language as one of the pillars of Russian mentality, vision of the changing world and the system of values of the Russians in Lithuania (by the way, the number of Russian mass media has slashed over the 15 years) is extremely acute. Besides, it’s necessary to point out profound social inclusion of the Russian population in Lithuanian society and their perception of Lithuanian Republic as motherland. According to the research project ENRI-East carried out simultaneously in several Central and East-European countries, more Russians in Lithuania identify themselves with Europe than, say, Russians in Latvia who believe that they are more deprived of rights than the Russians in other Baltic states. However, everywhere in the Baltic countries the identity for the Russian-speaking youth starts not with Russia proper, but with the “Russian culture”.

One of the major challenges for Russia in its interaction with the Russians of the Baltic countries is that not only the Russian population is shrinking but Russians are changing and it’s hard to consolidate them. Well, New Year Day and Victory Day of May, 9th remain national holidays for them, but how long will it continue? Hostile external environment, decades of living in a foreign language-speaking society, the opportunities provided by the united Europe cannot but have a strong effect on them. The afore-mentioned changes require not declarative but intent attention of Russia to the “Baltic Russians”. They are unlikely to be the resource, the instrument of the Russian “soft power”, rather, they might be its target, provided that under “soft power” we understand not a set of political spinning technologies but the development of strong ties with our compatriots based on business, scientific cooperation, interaction in the field of education and culture and, of course, political support.

The threat from the past

The Baltic region is unstable from the geo-political viewpoint system. Here clash the interests of some big players and consequently different soft power mechanisms and even in broader terms civilizational projects compete with each other in terms of their appeal. Seeking to be back in Europe, the Baltic countries were not only trying to get integrated in political and cultural system of the West but to break up with Russia as a non-Western state. For the Baltic national elites who actually championed the agenda of Euro-Atlantic integration “the Baltic Russians” are a kind of “fifth column”. Russia is viewed by them as an irritating factor, the Soviet past is looked upon through the prism of Russian occupation and in accordance with culpa innata principle is used to justify the actions of the authorities. It significantly limits Russia’s possibility of effective use of soft power through mass media, culture and educational, political and economic cooperation.

After the collapse of the communist system and proclaiming of independence Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have evolved from the former Soviet republics into completely de-Sovietized states. The motto “Back in Europe” made by national elites into a building block of the Euro-Atlantic integration programs led to the situation when the Baltic countries turned out to be the only ones from the post-Soviet family to join the EU and NATO. However, formal from the institutional point of view completion of the post-communist transformation process does not at all mean that the Baltic countries have abandoned the Soviet past. While initially national elites were guided by the logic of gaining national sovereignty and Euro-Atlantic integration then at the end of a two decade-long period of independence the “Soviet legacy” factor which is very often understood as “the Russian threat” is put on the top of national agendas. “Russian threat” factor is not only always taken into account by political elites of the Baltic states in making internal policy decisions but is often used in international relations as an instrument of manipulations and bargaining for different preferences. According to the Intune cross-national research, it is the elite-groups of the Baltic countries that often look at Russia through the prism of potential threat thereby extending this perception from national level to the level of the European Union. In Lithuania an overwhelming majority of political elite (98% of those polled) consider Russia’s interference into European affairs as a threat (from the three options “big threat”, “big enough threat”, “not a big threat” 40% of the polled chose the answer “big threat”). Mostly these were the representatives of the right wing of political spectrum [4]. Their reaction to the threat was manifested in using the rhetoric and images of the past, their biased application. For example, “the policy of memories” pursued in Lithuania since it gained independence is in line with external policy reforms and foreign policy priorities. Lithuania’s policy towards Euro-Atlantic integration made the comprehensive program of “remaking memory” and “shaping of pro-Western sentiments” a must. It is in the time of the conservatives’ tenure when most active attempts were made to re-orient national memories culture, tout on people “martyrological discourse” and make Lithuanians’ resistance to the so-called “occupation” in mid-20th century into a supreme value. The right-wing political elite of Lithuania were guided by the attempts to impose a new understanding of “historical justice” by denial of the previous regime including the criminalization of alternative assessments, introduction of lustration regime (at the end of the day it turned into the object of manipulations by the conservatives), intentional escalation of the “legacy of the past” issue in order to add fuel into the conflict situation and create conditions for making people perceive the facts of the past only from the point of view of the right-wing elite-groups [5].

Similar examples can be provided with regard to Latvia, whose leadership believes the referendum on granting to the Russian language the status of a state language to have been masterminded by the Russian special services. In Estonia where in 1995, the most successful for the “Russian” parties year, they got 6% of votes Security Police (KaPo) regularly publishes analytical surveys marking some politicians, civil organizations and mass media as “unreliable” and posing a potential threat to Estonian statehood because of their ties with Russia. Among them were, for example, mayor of Tallinn E. Savisaar, his deputy M. Kylvart, newspaper “Komsomolskaya Pravda” (years-long publications of a gifted G. Sapozhnikova were taken notice of), “Impressum” media-club, etc.

A top priority territory

It is most unlikely that political elite of the Baltic countries seeking Euro-Atlantic integration failed to realize what a limited set of functional opportunities “small countries” have: buffer zone, diplomatic intermediary, barrier-state, geo-political sluice and periphery. And due to the peripheral and transit status of the Baltic states the above set of opportunities depends upon the behavior of the major states including, of course, Russia. This is how K.Paulauskas from the Institute of International Relations and Political Sciences at Vilnius University describes the attitude of Lithuania to Russia, USA and EU (this view is typical of all Baltic states, actually): “ USA is our good friend, what the U.S. does must be beneficial for Lithuania. A big angry bear is Russia, which does its utmost to make life in Lithuania miserable, to do harm to Lithuania. EU is a generous source of social and economic well-being which gravity made us member of the family. When EU agrees with USA it’s good for Lithuania, when EU agrees with Russia it’s bad for Lithuania.” [6]. We can only add to this that the country’s constitution enshrines a ban on any “eastern alliances”; “Lithuania shall never and under no circumstances join any newly created on the basis of a former USSR political, military, economic or other alliances or commonwealths of states”. Surely it does not contribute to rapprochement of Russia and Lithuania or Russia and the Baltic countries on the whole. It is truly so if we remember that many representatives of the Baltic political elites regard “the Baltic Russians” as the main threat to the existence of their independent sovereign states.

We shouldn’t expect any positive changes in the foreseeable future. Of course, we can assume that with time when current political players are replaced by others and the Soviet period belongs to a very distant past Russia’s relations with the Baltic countries will start to normalize just due to the time factor. However, the list of reciprocal claims (above all the status and position of Russians in the Baltic countries) is so long that it would be wrong, to put it mildly, to rely on the “time cures” formula. Besides, “the Baltic Russians” cannot be disregarded just because the demand for such concern is strong: according to the TNS Emor survey, residents of Lithuania and Latvia put Russia in the first place among the most important partners, while Estonians rank Russia as the second after Finland most important partner [7]. The logic of Russia’s economic cooperation with the Baltic countries suggests that political elites of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia should get focused on making bilateral contacts more pragmatic and should refuse from putting ties with Russia on ideological basis as well as imposing historical agenda in mutual relations.

Until recently all Russia’s attempts to employ “soft power” mechanisms in the Baltic dimension have been discrete and non-systemic and, frankly, inefficient. That said it does not mean that Russia should give up these attempts. Vice versa, despite the fact that bilateral format of interaction will not be bringing results to Russia for a long time to come this area, for all the difficulties Russia faces in implementing its action plans in the Baltic segment of the post-Soviet space, should be prioritized in pursuing Russian foreign, cultural, scientific and educational policies. Remembering qualitative and quantitative changes that have happened with Russians in the Baltic countries over the last two decades, it’s just not a wish but a guide to action. In this regard the activities in the Baltic direction belong to the category of the ones where time factor is not our ally any longer for we don’t know how much “the Baltic Russians” will change in another twenty years time.

1. Nye J. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. N.Y., 2004.

2. Lietuvos statistikos departamentos (http://www.stat.gov.lt); Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia (http://www.csb.gov.lv); Statistics Estonia (http://www.stat.ee). Statistics is provided on titular nations and the Russian population, other national groups were not considered.

3. Национальный состав населения СССР (по данным Всесоюзной переписи населения 1989 г.). М.: Финансы и статистика, 1991.

4. Матоните И., Мартинович В. Россия, Турция и США как внешние угрозы единству Европейского союза: анализ представлений национальных элит // Палiтычная сфера. 2010. № 15(2). С. 71–84.

5. Сафроновас В. О тенденциях политики воспоминания в современной Литве // Ab Imperio: Studies of New Imperial History and Nationalism in the Post-Soviet Space. 2009. № 3. P. 424–458.

6. Paulauskas K. The Big, the Bad and the Beautiful: America, Russia and Europe’s Mellow Power // Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review. 2008. № 20. P. 120–126.

7. Estonian Human Development Report. Baltic Way(s) of Human Development: Twenty Years On. 2010/2011. Eesti Koostöö Kogu. Tallinn: AS Printon Trükikoda, 2011.