In this chapter, I provide the assessment of the somatic performance success of the Baltic restorations, guided by the criterion of restoration somatic performance success (CRSPS). This assessment involves application of the outperforming intermediate system and outperforming original system tests (OIST and OOST) or cross-time comparison of the increase in body height during three epochs of Baltic history (interwar independence or the original system, totalitarian occupations, and restored independence). For this aim, annual data series are presented for all three Baltic countries and the Netherlands as a benchmark country in the supplementary Dutch standard test (DST; see Chap. 4). Due to reasons explained in the previous chapter, in terms of human height, Finland was a catch-up country with respect to the former Baltic provinces. Therefore, it is not possible to extend the general tests with the regional “Finnish standard” supplement in the same way as was done for economic and health progress.

Our main data source are data sets NCD-RisC 2016 and NCD-RisC 2020. This data is compiled by a global network of health scientists, working on major risk factors for non-communicable diseases (NCD), coordinated by the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre on NCD Surveillance and Epidemiology at Imperial College in London.Footnote 1 We prefer this source to Baten and Blum (2015), because German scholars provide only decadal means. This would limit our data to 1–2 data points for the original system period and to 2–3 data points for the restored independence period, complicating the application of the OIST and OOST, which is better served by the annual values in the NCD-RisC data. However, most data points in NCD-RisC 2016 and 2020 are imputations derived using the sophisticated Bayesian model, devised to produce or simulate data points for years where real observations are missing (see Finucane et al. 2014). Therefore, the compilers of this database provide estimates of male height together with confidence intervals of varying breadth. The lower and upper bounds of these intervals are provided in Tables 13.1 and 13.2 together with height values themselves.

Table 13.1 Height of 18-year-old males born in 1959–2001 in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Netherlands
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Table 13.2 Height of 18-year-old males born in 1896–1922 in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Netherlands
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They will be used in the assessment of the reliability of the NCD-RisC estimates. There is no reasonable alternative but to accept at face value these estimates for the late socialist and post-socialist periods. Chapter 10 did contain a contribution to the research on life expectancy in interwar Lithuania because important historical sources had escaped the attention of experts in demography, accustomed to working with contemporary sources. The same applies to contemporary experts in human biology, who may lack knowledge of important historical sources and are not accustomed to searching through archive material. In this part of the book, I work to contribute to the anthropometric historical research by locating new sources, which allow taking a critical approach to certain data on the Baltic countries before 1940 that is used by contemporary human biologists.

Assessing the anthropometric success (or ‘anthropometric dividend,’ cp. Costa-i-Font and Kossarova 2014) of post-socialist restoration in the Baltic countries in the first retrospective (by the OIST), I compare changes in male height over the first 12 post-socialist cohorts (born in 1989–2001 and aged 18 in 2007–2019) with those over 12 cohorts who grew up under the socialist regime (born in 1959–1971 and aged 18 in 1977–1989). Data on the height of the 18-year-old male in 2007–2019 are from a recent release of NCD-RisC (NCD-RisC 2020). It is also the source of data about the height of the socialist cohorts born in 1967–1971 and aged 18 in 1985–1989. However, data about the height of 18-year-old males born in 1959–1966 and aged 18 in 1977–1984 are from NCD-RisC 2016, as the new NCD-RisC release only starts with 1985, when the 1967 cohort reached the age of 18. NCD-RisC 2020 is also the source of data on transitional cohorts born in 1972–1988 and aged 18 in 1990–2006 (see Table 13.1).

As far as it takes time for humans to grow up, no assessment of the early somatic success of capitalist restoration is possible. The 1989–2007 period is that of 18 transitional cohorts, including persons who were born under the socialist system but became fully grown after systemic change had occurred. However, no clean separation between the different periods was attempted, accepting the fact that they overlap. Thus, a 1989 birth cohort (aged 18 in 2007) is considered both as the last transitional and first post-socialist cohort, and a 1971 cohort (aged 18 in 1989) can be considered as both the last socialist and the first transitional cohort.

For Estonia and Latvia, the data indicate that there could have been a worsening in living conditions during the transition period. It is most conspicuous in the case of Estonia, where there was a very marked decrease in the decadal height increase rate over the transitional cohorts (0.19 cm/decade) in comparison with the last socialist cohort (1.06 cm/decade). Importantly, over the 1971/1989–1981/1999 cohorts, an absolute decrease in height was revealed, which can be explained by the worsening living conditions during the last years of socialism, or by obstacles experienced by adolescents in catching up on growth during the first post-socialist decades.Footnote 2

Actually, height decrease started already with the 1967/1985 cohort, suggesting that somatic regress by 0.53 cm over the 1967–1981 birth cohorts can be attributed to difficulties in living conditions under late socialism rather than to those of the transition period. This interpretation is corroborated by the consistent growth trend since the 1985 cohort, encompassing also all post-socialist cohorts, whose first years of life coincided with restorational economic recession in the 1990s.

In Latvia, the last “purely socialist” cohorts display height increase, but from 1976/1994 there was stagnation and a slight decrease in height, with heights starting to consistently grow only from the 1988/2006 cohort. In Estonia, this cohort was the first that was taller than the 1967/1985 cohort, the whole period of lower heights extending over 21 (1967–1988) birth cohorts. On account of the lower height decline, it took Latvia less time to recover: the 1990/2008 cohort was already taller than the 1976/1994 cohort, the height increase crisis extending only over 14 cohorts.

Among all three Baltic countries, Lithuania is unique in displaying the pattern of consistent growth, uninterrupted by absolute regress episodes during all three (late socialist, transitional and capitalist) periods (see Table 13.1). Due to this consistency, Lithuanian males were able to overtake (from 1997, when the 1979 birth cohorts turned 18 years old) their Latvian peers, becoming the second tallest in the Baltic countries. This picture may be accepted at face value, relating it to Lithuania’s record of continuing economic growth under late socialism, enabling it to catch up to the other Baltic countries by 1989. It can also be perceived as an invitation to conduct a comparative case study of the social policies of the Baltic countries, looking at whether they were more generous and supportive for families with children in 1989–2004 in Lithuania (cp. Aidukaitė 2004).

However, Lithuania’s exceptionality can also be attributed to a lower quality of data. In fact, confidence intervals for Lithuania’s estimates are much broader in comparison with Estonia’s data in the 1967/1985–2001/19 cohort span, covered by the NCD-RisC 2020 data. Janina Tutkuvienė (2007: 47) did not find any statistically significant differences between the levels of physical development of children and adolescents measured in 1984–1986 and in 2000–2002. However, this may indicate the same type of stagnation that transpires in the Latvian data. Andrej Suchomlinov, who conducted a longitudinal auxological study of children from the city of Vilnius and surrounds born in 1990, reports ‘certain retardation in the growth of infants born in 1990’ (Suchomlinov 2011: 22) in comparison to those observed in 1966–1968. However, these growth arrears could be compensated by strong catch-up growth during adolescence. Tutkuvienė (2007: 47–48) also reports that body mass index (BMI) values of Lithuanian adolescent girls in the early 2000s were lower than their peers 20 years ago, explaining this change culturally: the strong presence of the slim female body cult in the mass media of restored independent Lithuania.

Confidence intervals for the height estimates for Latvia are also large, inviting suspicions that actual height decrease over the transitional cohorts was much larger than reported by NCD-RisC 2020. However, the problems with the quality of NCD-RisC data on the 1959–2011 birth cohorts are relatively minor in comparison to those found with the 1896–1940 birth cohorts, extracted in Table 13.2. They are needed for assessment of somatic progress under restoration in the second retrospective as well as for specification of target values for the ultimate application of the OIST. In this application, the ultimate somatic success of post-communist transformation in the Baltic countries is indicated by height increase over 31 cohorts (1989–2020) who grew or will grow up under restoration exceeding its increase over 31 cohorts (1940–1971) from the intermediate period. Thus, we need height data regarding the first cohort to have been born under the intermediate system. Due to data gaps for 1939–1940, in the assessment of economic and health progress, I considered 1938 as the last year of the original and the first year of the intermediate system. The NCD-RisC (2016, 2020) data sets are gapless, and so assessment of somatic progress comparison periods can be closer to the actual chronology, starting the intermediate period with the 1940 birth cohort.

However, the application of the second retrospective for assessment of the anthropometric success of capitalist restoration in the Baltic countries (by the OOST guided by the CRSPS) is complicated by the brevity of the first independence period. There were only five cohorts (1918–1922) born under independence, who could celebrate their 18th birthday before Soviet occupation. In 1918, the independence of the Baltic states was only nominal, while in 1940 barely half of the 1922 cohort members could celebrate their 18th birthday before the Soviet invasion. With only two or three annual cohorts, no cross-time comparison of the body height increase rate is possible.

Therefore, I compare height increase over 12 post-communist cohorts (born 1989–2001) with that over 12 cohorts born in 1910–1922. These cohorts end with boys born in 1922 under independence and who grew up to the age of 18 in 1940, but start with cohorts born under Russian or German (in the territories under German occupation in 1915–1918) rule. Members of the first cohort celebrated their 18th birthday in 1928, when their homelands celebrated the tenth anniversary of independence. Thus, the formative years of these cohorts belong to the independence period.

Additional justification for the incongruence between the actual political chronology of the first independence of the Baltic States and the time boundaries of the period used for the OOST as part of the CRSPS is that changes in height growth rates are more closely related to the economy than to politics. As Latvian historian Gatis Krūmiņš (2017: 787–788) points out, establishment of the independent states was not coupled with a change in the economic system. On the contrary, separation from Russia helped the Baltic countries to preserve the capitalist economic system for another two decades. Therefore, comparison of height change over the first cohorts after the restoration of capitalism with that over the last cohorts who grew up before its abolition in 1940 does make sense.

In a similar way, for the assessment of the economic success of capitalist restoration in the second retrospective, the 1913–1938 period was used as a comparator, although it is not strictly congruent with the 1918–1940 period, which is the “correct” period according to political chronology. This incongruence was justified by the need to use a comparison window falling between two points of top performance of pre-communist capitalism. The 1910–1922 generations are a proper comparator for those born in 1989–2001, as both had early growth conditions complicated by World War I and its economic consequences (1910–1922) or by the transformational contraction of the economy and its aftermath (1989–2001). Both could profit from the improvement of their living environment during the phase of adolescent compensatory growth.

When assessing the reliability of NCD-RisC data by historical sources, one faces the complication that the most reliable historical sources are about the height of military conscripts, who in the interwar Baltic States were drafted at the age of 20–21, when human growth is nearly complete. NCD-RisC (2016) data refer to height at the age of 18, when there is still room for more growth. This means that the NCD-RisC (2016) imputations are of only limited comparability with most historical sources.

Coping with this predicament, I would like to suggest this rule of thumb: if NCD-RisC (2016) imputations of mean height at 18 years of age are larger than the observed means of 20–21-year-old conscripts, they most probably are overestimations. Most obviously, this is the case when the observed values of 20–21-year-old conscripts are outside the lower 95% confidence interval bound for estimates of their height at 18 years of age. NCD-RisC (2016) imputations may be underestimations if the observed values for 20–21-year-old conscripts are outside the upper 95% confidence interval value of estimates of their height at 18 years of age. However, the underestimations can be identified less reliably, as the extent of growth after 18 is difficult to establish, while conscripts measured at 20–21 years of age could not be taller at the age of 18.

Applying this rule, I believe that the NCD-RisC (2016) data overestimated the Lithuanian male height of those born in the 1890s. Regarding 18-year-old Lithuanian males, it claims a height of approximately 169.0 cm in 1914–1915. To recall (see Chap. 12), according to historical sources, the mean value for conscripts aged at least 21 in the Kaunas and Suvalkai provinces in 1912–1913 was 166.4 cm. This value is still within the lower bound (165.19 cm) Bayesian estimate of the mean for 18-year-old males in 1914. However, surely 21-year-old draftees were on average at least 1 cm shorter when they were younger, which means that the Bayesian model of NCD-RisC (2016) still needs calibration. Therefore, I used height data from historical sources (Obzor Kovenskoj gubernii na 1912, 46; Podrobnyj otchiot po prizyvu k ispolnenniju voinskoj povinnosti naselenija Suvalkskoj gubernii, 1913; Prizyvnyje spiski po g. Kovno na 1913 g.) to run the regressions in Chap. 12.

Sources of the height measurement of conscripts to the army of independent Lithuania in 1919–1940 can be found in archives but remain unprocessed and unused in research. An exception is the survey on Lithuanian 20-year-old conscripts enlisted in 1926–1927, conducted by the military physician Vytautas Steponaitis (1928), who derived the mean value as 168.00 cm. He did not report the N of his sample, but he most probably processed data about all conscripts in this year range—up to 25,000 men (Jokubauskas 2014: 105). The birth year of these conscripts was 1906–1907. According to NCD-RisC 2016 data, their height in 1924–1925 (2 years before being drafted) was 169.85 and 169.94 cm. The Steponaitis value is still inside of the confidence interval, but it is very close to its lower bound. Taking into account the 2 years difference between the age referred to by NCD-RisC 2016 estimates and the age at which the height of drafted members of the 1906–1907 cohorts were measured, the only conclusion can be that the NCD-RisC data are overestimates.

Historical anthropometric sources have much more to offer regarding the height of males in interwar Estonia and Latvia. During the first years of independence, the Latvian Statistical Office published data on Latvia’s conscript height means for all of Latvia and its regions (Valsts statistiskā pārvalde 1927: 3). Therefore, the NCD-RisC 2016 data stand in reasonably close correspondence to the historical data in Latvia’s case. Thus, according to historical sources, the mean height of Latvian conscripts at 20–21 years of age was 170.5 cm in 1927 (Valsts statistiskā pārvalde 1927: 31) and 171.70 cm in 1939 (Kokare and Cauna 1999: 378–79). These values are very close to the values provided by NCD-RisC 2016 for 1907 and 1921 cohorts (170.27 and 171.43 cm correspondingly).

For the independent Republic of Estonia, male height is best documented for the 1927–1935 period in the publication released by the Estonian State Statistical Office (Riigi Statistika Keskbüroo 1937: 321). Uniquely, this publication contains height measurements taken at two moments: at the start (at the age of 20) and upon completion of active military service (at 21–22 years of age). In addition, the famous Estonian anthropologist Juhan Aul (1897–1994) measured 15,110 draftees ending their active military service in 1932–1936. His data remained unpublished, with part of it perishing during World War II. However, Aul discusses some of his findings in his magisterial Anthropology of Estonians (Aul 1964). According to his final estimate, the mean height of his sample was 172.03 cm (Aul 1964: 44).

For an earlier period, an important data point is provided by Estonian anthropologist Nikolai Köstner, who measured the stature of 8627 (21–22-year-old) Estonian soldiers in 1924, deriving 171.25 cm as the mean value (Köstner 1927: 436). At almost the same time (1925–1926), Richard Juhan Villems (1926) measured conscripts at the Tartu garrison and seamen of Estonia’s marine forces (N = 1548). Villems (1926: 72–76) calculated two mean values. One refers to the height of conscripts from mainland Estonia (172.1 cm, N = 1398) and the other represents conscripts from the Western Estonian archipelago (173.7 cm, N = 150). He then gives as the sample mean the average of the two figs. (172.9 cm), which is 1.65 cm higher than Köstner’s result. The correct result is obtained using a weighted mean: ((172.1 × 1398) + (173.7 × 150)/(1398 + 150)) = 172.26. It almost completely coincides with Köstner’s finding.

Comparing historical source data and NCD-RisC estimates, the overestimation bias on Estonia can be detected in the NCD-RisC 2016 data set. While the Riigi Statistika Keskbüroo (1937: 321) mean height of 20-year-old Estonian conscripts in 1935 was 171.00 cm, according to NCD-RisC 2016, the mean height of the same (1915) cohorts was already 172.73 cm in 1933 (at the age of 18). Importantly, the observed value for 20-year-old males (171.00 cm) is outside the lower bound (171.34 cm) of the NCD-RisC 2016 estimate of their height at 18 years of age. According to the Riigi Statistika Keskbüroo (1937: 321), the real height (172.00 cm) of Estonian males born in 1915 was still below their height value in 1933 (172.73 cm) as provided by NCD-RisC 2016 even in 1936–1937, when they were discharged from military service.

Most importantly for my aim of assessing the anthropometric success of capitalist restoration by the OOST, there is no noticeable difference between Aul’s (1964) mean value of 172.03 cm for the 1932–1936 period or Villems’ (1926) 172.26 cm for 1925–1926 or Köstner’s (1927) 171.25 cm for 1924. This indicates that the 1.32 cm (or 1.1 cm per decade) height increase over 1910–1922 birth cohorts in Estonia, as implied by the NCD-RisC 2016 data, may be an exaggeration too.

However, even if we accept the 1.1 cm decadal height increase for interwar Estonia at face value, height increase over the 1989–2001 cohorts (1.77 cm or 1.8 cm/decade) is still higher, which means that restored independent Estonia passes the OOST as part of the CRSPS. The same applies to Latvia (a 0.9 cm/decade increase over 1910–1922 and 1.09 cm/decade over 1989–2001 birth cohorts). Lithuania, with its 0.98 cm over 1910–1922 and 0.75 cm over 1989–2001 cohorts, just misses out.

All three Baltic countries passed the OIST by 2019 because the height of 18-year-old males who grew up under restored capitalism over the first 12 cohorts (born in 1989–2001) increased more than it did over the last 12 cohorts to have grown up under socialism (1959–1989). This was a considerable challenge only for Estonia because of the marked height increase (1.27 cm or 1.06 cm per decade) of Estonian males over the last 12 purely socialist generations. With a height increase of only 0.44 cm (Latvia) and 0.47 cm (Lithuania) over the last 12 purely socialist cohorts, Latvia and Lithuania are typical cases of the crisis in improving living conditions for young people that struck socialist countries along with the overall health crisis (see Norkus 2023).

The acceleration of height increase over cohorts born after the restoration of capitalism in comparison with the late socialist countries (in all three Baltic States) and transitional cohorts (only in Estonia and Latvia) inspires much optimism also about the ultimate somatic success of capitalist restoration according to both the OIST and Dutch standard test (DST). According to the OIST, the ultimate somatic success of restoration in the Baltic countries will be indicated by an increase in height over 31 cohorts (1989–2020) who grew up under restoration exceeding its increase over 31 cohorts (1940–1971) during the intermediate period.

According to the NCD-RisC 2016 data on the height of 18-year-old males in 1958 (born in 1940), it was 173.49 cm in Lithuania,Footnote 3 173.85 cm in Latvia and 175.79 cm in Estonia (see Table 13.1). Together with the NCD-RisC 2020 report on the height of 18-year-old males in 1989, this data implies that the “purely socialist” growth dividend was 3.93 cm in Lithuania, 4.19 in Latvia and 3.61 cm in Estonia. Adding these figures to heights in 2007, when the first post-socialist generation reached 18 years age, we receive the following target values for ultimate passing of the OIST: ≥185.41 cm height in 2038–2040 for Estonians, ≥183.14 cm for Lithuanians and ≥ 182.39 cm for Latvians (see Table 13.1).

Passing the DST means decreasing the height gap behind the Netherlands by 2038–2040, which existed by 1989. Actually, in 1989, it was quite small for Estonia (0.92 cm), but considerable for Latvians (3.31 cm) and Lithuanians (3.93 cm). Over the 1971/89–1989/2007 cohorts, the height of Dutch males increased by nearly 2 cm, or 1.04 cm/decade, which was above the performance of Baltic males. Therefore, by 2007, the gap behind the Dutch increased to 2.45 cm for Estonians, 5.02 cm for Latvians and 4.02 cm for Lithuanians. After the next 12 cohorts (in 2019), the gap behind the Netherlands was exactly the same as in 1989 for Estonians, larger for Latvians and decreased by 0.56 cm for Lithuanians, who thus passed the actual DST by 2019.

If over the next 19 generations (until 2038) male height increase in the Baltic countries will continue at its recent rate (for 1989–2001) and the increase of Dutch heights will not accelerate, all three Baltic countries will easily pass the ultimate DST. Assuming that the increase of height over the 2001–2020 generations will continue at the same rate as in the 1989–2001 generations, the height of Estonians in 2038 will be 185.35 cm, Latvians—181.58 cm and Lithuanians—181.52, while Dutchmen themselves will be 183.84 cm tall. These height values are slightly below the target values implied by the OIST, but they are sufficient (under the perfectly realistic assumption that the height increase of Dutchmen will not accelerate)Footnote 4 to pass the DST, as the height increase rate of Baltic males among the 1989–2001 cohorts was markedly above that of the Dutch.

Importantly, this scenario implies that by 2038, Estonians will be taller than Dutchmen themselves. Before considering this as indicative of a lack of realism, we should take into account the fact that according to NCD-RisC 2020 data, 18–19-year-old Estonian males have already been ranked as the tallest in the world. This happened in 1985–1986 and applied to the 1966–1967 birth cohorts. This provides proof that the genetic potential of Estonians is sufficient for growing taller than the Dutch and the assurance that this will happen in the near future: if Estonians who grew up under Soviet occupation could outgrow Dutchmen, then they can certainly repeat this feat under restored independence.

The comparison of Estonian and Dutch time series in Table 5.6 inspires even more optimism because the 1896/1914–1913/31 Estonian male cohorts were taller than their Dutch peers. However, overtaking Dutchmen does not necessarily mean taking first position in the global ranking, as in 2019 Estonians were only the third nation, overtaken by the Montenegrins and followed by the Bosnians, whose populations have higher shares of bearers of the haplogroups reputed as height genes (Grasgruber et al. 2014). Otherwise, it would be appropriate to replace in 2038–2040 the “Dutch standard test” with the “Estonian standard test” to celebrate the ultimate confirmation of the Estonian restoration’s performance success by anthropometric data.