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This book examines the role of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the downfall of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. It includes groundbreaking, archives-based research on important facets of the Soviet collapse like, for example, politics of history, Soviet Atheism, economic reforms, the military and the use of force. The authors place the Baltic struggle for independence in the context of international politics, analyzing interlinkages with the Warsaw Pact countries, the activities of the Baltic diaspora, small-state diplomacy and strategic and security-related questions from the end of the Cold War and into the 1990s.
List of contents
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania at the end of the Cold War - Politics of history in Russia - Gorbachev, Perestroika and Glasnost - Atheism, and informal social networks - Soviet cultural diplomacy - Danish diplomacy and the Baltic question - Normalization regime in Czechoslovakia - Baltic diasporas - Use of force and the coup d'état in the USSR in 1991 - Security narratives in the 1990s
About the author
Kaarel Piirimäe is an Associate Professor in Contemporary History at the University of Tartu and a Senior Research Fellow at the Estonian War Museum.
Olaf Mertelsmann is an Associate Professor in Contemporary History at the University of Tartu.
