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Independence and The 20th Century
Baltic states - Independence, 20th Century, Sovereignty: The collapse of the German and Russian empires during World War I allowed the Baltic peoples to establish independent states. The road to independence was similar in all three. In November 1917, at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), all of Lithuania and most of Latvia were under German military ...
Soviet Occupation
Baltic states - Soviet Occupation, Independence, History: While the war in the west remained uncertain, the Soviets observed strictly the limits of their bases and concentrated their attacks on Finland, which had also been assigned to the Soviet sphere of influence but had refused to sign a pact of mutual assistance. The fall of France altered the situation. On the day that Paris fell, June 15 ...
The Early Modern Age
Baltic states - Hanseatic League, Reformation, Nationalism: During its first two centuries Lithuania's political union with Poland consisted of a loose alliance based on a joint ruler. On July 1, 1569, the purely personal union was refashioned by a joint parliament meeting in Lublin into a Commonwealth of Two Peoples. While the state entity thereafter had a common elected sovereign and a ...
Soviet Republics
Baltic states - Soviet Republics, Independence, Geography: Postwar political, industrial, and agricultural policies wrought fundamental changes in the economic and social structures of the Baltic lands. Their economies were integrated into the general Soviet system of planning and development. Considerable increases in production resulted from heavy investment in large projects in Estonia and ...
Independent Statehood
Baltic states - Independence, Sovereignty, Geography: After achieving independence, the Baltic countries faced the need of political and socioeconomic restructuring. Radically parliamentarian constitutions were adopted in all three; the legislatures clearly predominated over the executive. In Estonia a single-chamber parliament (Riigikogu) was elected under a system of proportional representation.