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(Re)drawing Boundaries: Russia and the Baltic States

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Borders in the Baltic Sea Region

Abstract

The three Baltic countries—Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia—share a difficult history with Russia. Once a part of the Russian Empire and Prussia, they also enjoyed a period of independence and were later integrated within the Soviet Union. These sutures turned out to be rather unstable, as the Soviet Union disintegrated, following which the three republics sought independence. By becoming members of the EU and joining NATO, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have drawn a geopolitical and a cultural boundary with Russia that has been reified both from the Russian and the European sides. In other words, the new identities not only help delimit the representations of self, but also construct national interest (cf. Hopf 2012), essential for foreign policy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Elizaveta Gaufman

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  1. Elizaveta Gaufman
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tartu , Tartu, Estonia

    Andrey Makarychev

  2. Kazan Federal University , Kazan, Russia

    Alexandra Yatsyk

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Gaufman, E. (2017). (Re)drawing Boundaries: Russia and the Baltic States. In: Makarychev, A., Yatsyk, A. (eds) Borders in the Baltic Sea Region. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-352-00014-6_11

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