Matters related to the most recent history of the Baltic Assembly’s emergence is multidimensional and enormous. Therefore, this reporting and analytical study is synthetic. The analysis of the activities of the Baltic Assembly reflects trilateral political communication between Baltic states from 1991 to 2009. The integration process of Baltic states with the European Union to a large extent depended on this concerted cooperation of the Baltic states’ representatives within the Baltic Assembly. The presented information shows, however, that the political, economic, cultural and historical views of Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian politicians were extremely different on more than one occasion, and their respective priorities of domestic and foreign policies were sometimes radically different. Not every resolution passed during the session of the Baltic Assembly was actually implemented. Most have been partially realized while others have failed to be realized at all. The inability to form a practically operating Customs Association was a painful issue in the trilateral cooperation of Baltic states. Complete economic freedom between the partners has never actually come to existence either. In the author’s opinion, the geopolitical position of Small Baltic States imposes certain conditions, and the fundamental condition to be noticed on the global international arena is group solidarity, which is the basic statutory aim of the Baltic Assembly.
In this article theoretical concepts were presented. These concepts give a possibility of a immediate look in the process of initiation of the Baltic states of international cooperation. You still should be aware of the fact that they don’t explain dynamic process of this kind of cooperation and probably this is the cause why the are not perspective. However, while looking at the empirical research, you can see that changes of transformation of the post communistic Baltic countries are based on various factors; inner – political system, socioeconomics, institutional and also international. On the successive stage of the transformation of the Baltic states (after 2004), not only the existence of newly created (created using and basing on the experiences of international institutions) democratic institutions, but also the character of the relationship of the state towards civil society, becomes the basic sign of the quality of changes. On the other hand, the quality of the normative transformation of the newly created political and socioeconomic systems determines their ability of effective functioning in diverse international society. It shall be remembered, that the characteristic feature of the society is slow adapting to the new, that’s why in Latvia Lithuania and Estonia, it will take long for the political and socioeconomic transformation to end.
W celu uświadomienia sobie znaczenia najważniejszych wydarzeń historycznych i istoty współczesnych inicjatyw w ramach Regionu Morza Bałtyckiego ( RMB ) niniejszy artykuł porusza następujące kwestie: ¬– wysiłki polskiej dyplomacji zmierzające do stworzenia stabilnej formy politycznej i militarnej współpracy w subregionie Morza Bałtyckiego i Europy Wschodniej w okresie międzywojennym, – nieudaną próbę integracji Potrójnej Bałtyckiej Ententy przez Kraje bałtyckie (Litwę, Łotwę, Estonię) – przedstawienie czynników determinujących skuteczne i udane partnerstwo pojawiające się w regionie Morza Bałtyckiego na początku XXI wieku, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem inicjatyw podejmowanych przez Polskę i państwa bałtyckie; – starania Polski i państw bałtyckich, aby wspólnie stworzyć "jedność braterstwa" w regionie Morza Bałtyckiego. Na samym końcu artykułu przedstawiono analizę polskiej polityki zagranicznej z początku wieku oraz ogólne wytyczne dla nowo powstałych krajów bałtyckich (Litwa, Łotwa i Estonia).
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In order to realize the meaning of the major historical events and the essence of contemporary initiatives in the context of the Baltic Sea Region (BSR),this paper identifies the following issues: – efforts of the Polish diplomacy to create a stable form of political and military cooperation in the subregion of the Baltic Sea and Eastern European region in the interwar period; – not a successful attempt to integrate The Triple Baltic Entente by the Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia); – presentation of the factors that determine the effective and successful partnerships emerging in the BSR in the early twenty-first century, with particular emphasis on the initiatives taken by Poland and Baltic states; – efforts of Poland and the Baltic states to jointly cope with the formation of „unity of brotherhood” in BSR. Last but least, the article presents an analysis of the Polish foreign policy at the beginning of the century and the general directives for the newly established Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia).
The paper discusses the demographic and cultural situation of Poles in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in the years of 1945-1991. These are three entirely different, as regards history and culture, countries, and therefore the Poles live there in different circumstance. Until 1961 due to the deportation of the local people, the action of Russian settlement and Polish repatriation, more than half of the permanent residents were exchanged and deprived of intellectuals. Cultural, scientific, educational, and historical heritage of Poles was considerably destroyed, nationalized, or dispersed. Collective, cultural, and educational life of the Polish minority in Estonia was left entirely without its institutional forms. In Latvia it functioned at the private-underground level. Only in Lithuania, where Poles constituted a well-united community, has it survived until today. In Latvia the Poles are the only ethnic group whose number has remained equal with the pre-war period. They were subject to profound Russification during the Soviet rule, and managed to improve their position in the second half of the 1980s. Only from 1990 onwards could Polish institutions in Estonia work again, but the majority of the small number of Poles there (3.000 in 1989) treat the Russian language as their mother tongue. Only in Lithuania had a wide range of Polish-speaking schools been established. There were also social, learned, and cultural organizations licensed by the authorities. From 1953 onwards the “Czerwony Sztandar” [The Red Banner] (today “Kurier Wileński” [The Vilnius Courier]) was issued − the only Polish daily in the USSR. The progressive Russification had reduced over the years a percentage of Poles who could speak Polish, and children who were taught in this language. It is comforting to know that the Poles in Lithuania, despite the greatest war losses among their intelligentsia, showed endurance in education at all levels and developed cultural and educational activity.
The Lithuanian historiography is not a novelty in Polish academic literature. The attempts undertaken many times by historians to examine the Lithuanian past are fully justified by the common history of the Polish and Lithuanian lands. It is worth stressing that there are still many controversial questions in this area, which have not been answered in both Lithuanian and Polish academic circles. Taking into account the basic facts from Lithuanian history in the 20th century, when Lithuanians undertook the first actions towards developing a state which would be officially recognized by the international community, it should not be surprising that it is a subject frequently discussed by the newest studies, which continually refer to the equally rich literature of the earlier period. The researchers ascribe considerable significance to the circumstances, in which the independent Lithuanian state came into being and to its functioning in the interwar period, in years 1918–1940 . What also had a strong influence on this process were the following events in the history of the state, when Lithuania was in the end incorporated into the Soviet Union.
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