Word: baltics
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Unlike some citizens in the Baltic republics, Armenians do not seriously contemplate secession from the Soviet Union. "Look at us, surrounded by Turkey and Iran," says an Armenian party official. "Secession would be the stupidest thing we could do. We'd be swallowed up immediately." His comments are backed by history: for several centuries, Armenians and Turks fought for control of the Lesser Caucasus mountain range, which borders Asia Minor. During that struggle, Armenians often turned to their Russian neighbors for + help. In the 19th century, Russians and Armenians built a string of fortress cities along what...
...more work. But they were double- edged. The shovel brigade was not organized by the Communist Party but by a new, pro-perestroika grass-roots movement called the Estonian Popular Front. Since the group first emerged last April in the most northerly of the Soviet Union's three Baltic republics, similar movements have taken root and flourished in neighboring Latvia and Lithuania, attracting hundreds of thousands of followers. What unites them is the common goal of promoting greater regional autonomy. In the words of the Latvian movement's draft program, people want "to be masters in their own land...
Since annexing Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania in 1940, Moscow has tried to stifle resurgent nationalism in the Baltic states. Flags from the brief era of independence between the two World Wars were banned from public display. So many workers flooded in from outside the region that non-Latvians now outnumber Latvians (52% to 48%) and Estonians constitute only 60% of the population in their republic. Economic decisions take the form of edicts from Moscow. Notes Indrek Toome, chief ideologist of the Estonian Communist Party: "In our own republic we are not entitled to fix the price of a cinema ticket...
This shrewd collaboration may be calculated to keep the party from losing the initiative and divert nationalist sentiment into controllable channels. But the tactic is not without risk. Concerned that 90% of the Popular Front members are Estonian, Russians who live in the Baltic republic have formed their own "international" movement. Estonian leader Valjas has urged Popular Front members to "avoid aggravating nationalist disputes...
...Serbs are not the only group in the Communist world that are undergoing a revival of nationalism. In the Soviet Union tensions are smoldering in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian enclave in the republic of Azerbaijan. Vigorous popular fronts have sprung up in the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Though sanctioned by the local Communist Parties, the movements boldly tested the very limits of glasnost...