In this section, I firstly summarily explain what my book, based on the comparative historical sociology approach, contributed to the research field known as Baltic area studies. Then I discuss the venues and promise of the further application of this approach in the same field.

So firstly, this approach rejuvenates writing on the modern history of the Baltic countries. In 2018, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania celebrated the centenaries of the proclamation of independence of their states in 1918. As is commonplace on comparable occasions, this celebration was marked by the publication of many thematic surveys and syntheses of the history of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as independent nation states (e.g. Ijabs et al. 2018; Laar and Hiio 2018; Černiauskas et al. 2018; etc.). My assessment of the success of the restoration of this independence by 2018, including the application not only of the OIST, but also the OOST (comparison of the economic and social progress during both periods of state independence) offers a new way of commemorating and celebrating the centennial anniversary of the Baltic States. Importantly, my book not only exposes a new interpretation of the last century of the Baltic past, but encompasses all three Baltic countries, whereas almost all the anniversary publications exemplify a conventional national historiography approach.

Secondly, my study provides new benchmarks for assessment of the economic and social progress of the Baltic States during the next two decades of history. While the Baltic peoples celebrate their Independence Days on different days (Lithuanians on 16 February, Estonians on 24 February and Latvians on 18 November), there is one day (23 August) that is commemorated by all three. This is Black Ribbon Day, a firmly established part of the historical culture of all three Baltic countries to commemorate each year the anniversary of the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed on 23 August 1939 between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. This event sealed their historical fates for the next 50 years because the events that unfolded in the summer of 1940 were simply the realisation of secret Nazi-Soviet agreements. According to my approach, the centenary of this pact is a proper time for the ultimate assessment of the performance success of the Baltic restorations. This will be also the proper time to celebrate their complete endurance success, as by 2039–2040 the restored Baltic States will not only have endured longer than the interwar period of their history (partial endurance success could already be celebrated in 2011–2012), but also longer than the complete foreign occupations period.Footnote 1

Elaborating my framework, I would like to suggest that 2039–2040 will be an important date in Baltic history, marking the end of the restoration period. In fact, restoration eras do not endure indefinitely in the histories of countries afflicted by endogenous or exogenous revolutions (in the latter case, they are imported from abroad and imposed from above in the wake of foreign occupations). A restoration may be terminated by new endogenous or exogenous revolution, as happened with most restoration regimes after the 1815 post-Napoleonic restorations. For the Baltic countries, this would happen in the event of the commonly feared new Russian occupation, bringing on the endurance failure of Baltic restorations.

However, even successful restoration periods do not last forever. They end when demographic continuity between the intermediate and restored systems thins out, as the persons socialised under the intermediate system die out, with their shares in the total population decreasing below the critical thresholds specified in the Introduction (at least 7% of survivors from the intermediate system who were aged 15 years or older at the time of the restoration onset, at least 10% of survivors who were at least 10 years old, and at least 20% of survivors born before the start of restoration). In the restored Baltic States, these critical thresholds will be approached by 2039–2040, when most survivors from the Soviet occupation period will have died out.

In fact, due to the increase of life expectancy at an advanced age, the critical thresholds may be crossed at some later date (by 2050 or even later). However, due to the expected ultimate economic success of restoration (see Chap. 9), the Baltic States will predictably become host countries of intense immigration. Most immigrants are persons of younger ages. So, if the share of the immigrant population will increase in the total population, the share of survivors from the Soviet past will decrease below critical thresholds by 2040 anyway.

“Post-restoration society” may be a usable designation for the period following the celebration of complete endurance success. However, I would prefer to use the concept “climacteric society”‘(including “climacteric democracy”, “climacteric capitalism”, etc. as derivatives), borrowing and appropriately modifying another concept from ecology. Here, “climax” is the central concept in ecological succession theory, designating an ecosystem composed of biological species best adapted to the average conditions in its area and existing in a steady state or equilibrium (Clements 1936).

Importantly, climax does not insure against new radical transformations. By 1989–1991, state socialism was climacteric in the Soviet Union. The concept of climax just indicates the point in time after which token restoration is no longer possible. Climacteric society cannot be described as a restored society anymore, becoming a social system sui generis (the restoration era comes to an end). At the climacteric stage, explaining the actual difficulties and problems within a society by resorting to “survivals of the past” becomes awkward or unpersuasive, as all bearers of such survivals are dead or socially inactive due to their advanced age.

Until the climacteric stage is reached, the media (not only in the Baltic countries, but in all post-communist countries) will continue to depict “social evils” of all kinds (e.g. corruption, low work ethics or even the excessive consumption of alcohol) as “survivals of or throwbacks to the Communist past”. This is also how many scholars explain the underperformance of former Communist societies (Pop-Eleches and Tucker 2018; Tucker 2015). Curiously, Soviet scholars also explained the “dark sides” of socialist societies as legacies or survivals of the capitalist and sometimes also the feudal past (see Alymov 2012). However, if the perceived dysfunctionalities persist into the climacteric stage, the inability of a climacteric system to cope with these alleged “survivals of the past” reveals its own internal weakness.

Thirdly, and maybe most importantly, my analysis provides the thesis of the legal continuity of the Baltic States since 1918, which is the cornerstone of the constitutional doctrines of all three Baltic States, with a sociological foundation. This foundation helps to counter the occasional doubts that this thesis is only legal fiction. My analysis enriches it with sociological substance, establishing at the same time the validity limits of continuity claims and thus generalises the Baltic experiences.

The Baltic States are not the only former republics of the former Soviet Union that dispute their status as new states succeeding the constituent units of the USSR. Among them, Georgia is the most persistent in claiming continuator state status of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, which existed in 1918–1921 and was extinguished by Soviet aggression despite the broad international recognition of its independence (Jones 2014). Importantly, it was also recognised by Soviet Russia, which signed a treaty with Georgia on 7 May 1920 in Moscow that was quite similar to the 1920s peace treaties with the Baltic States. However, contemporary Georgia is still not internationally recognised as a continuator of the 1918–1921 Democratic Republic of Georgia or its restoration.

In fact, even continuity of the contemporary and interwar Baltic States still remains disputed by the Russian Federation, whose legal scholars consider them as the successor states of Soviet Estonia, Soviet Latvia and Soviet Lithuania as union republics of the USSR (see e.g. Černičenko 1998; Meževič 2016). In this dispute, the contemporary Baltic countries may hold the upper hand because they can ground their claims in the body of international law, produced by diplomatic activities related to the founding and work of the League of Nations and then substantially enlarged by the United Nations (see Mälksoo 2003; Ziemele 2005).

There are two fundamental principles of law that are relevant in the resolution of legal disputes on the continuity of the identity of states as units in the state system: ex injuria jus non oritur (law or right does not arise from injustice) and ex factis jus oritur (existence of facts creates law or right). The first principle is a tautology similar to the “law of identity” in formal logic (A = A), which just reaffirms the validity of the legal norm: an act that violates a valid legal norm is illegal, period. However, the second principle claims that after some time, the norm can forfeit its validity, making the reality created by the illegal act legal. Its analogue in domestic law is prescription law, which recognises the acquisition of private property rights through uncontested use during a specific period of time, or releases wrongdoers from prosecution for light offences after a specific period of time has passed (see Aust 2005; Nussbaum 1947; Orford and Hoffman 2016).

Baltic scholars in international law studies (Jundzis 2017; Mälksoo 2003; Ziemele 2005; Žalimas 1997, 2005) indeed insist on the primacy of the ex injuria jus non oritur principle during their polemics against their Russian colleagues. To extricate the Russian Federation, which is internationally recognised as the continuator state of the USSR, from responsibility for the crime of occupation and export of the socialist revolution, they argue that by claiming continuity of the interwar Baltic States, the contemporary Baltic States are pretenders or impostors, concealing their real identities as former Soviet republics under the feigned or stolen identities of the long-dead Baltic States.

From the Russian point of view, these republics became both de facto and de jure extinct in August 1940, after acceding to the USSR, which was their legitimate successor state from early August 1940 until 6 September 1991 when the USSR recognised the independence of the Baltic republics a few months before its own extinction on 26 December 1991. According to this view, in 1989–1991, there was no restoration of states which had become extinct in 1940, but the creation of new independent states by former republics of the USSR, employing the right to secession granted to union republics under the last Constitution of the USSR adopted in 1977. From this Russian perspective, there is no difference between the Baltic States and other former republics of the USSR, all of them being successor states of the Soviet Union.

In my terminology, according to the Russian view of the contemporary Baltic States, their relationship to the interwar Baltic States is a type restoration (where the interwar and contemporary Baltic States are different states), while the Baltic view claims token restoration, involving affirmation of identity between the interwar Republic of Lithuania and the contemporary Republic Lithuania, the interwar Republic of Latvia and the contemporary Republic of Latvia, the interwar Republic of Estonia and the contemporary Republic of Estonia. This is not a scholastic dispute because different views on the identity of the Baltic States have very practical political implications.

The Baltic view of token identity between the interwar and contemporary Baltic States grounds their denial of citizenship rights to Soviet-era immigrants and claims of restitution according to peace treaties signed with Soviet Russia in 1920. The Russian assumption of their token difference grounds the claim that all former Soviet citizens, permanently living in the territories of the Baltic countries as of September 1991 were entitled to citizenship, and that only the former delimitation lines between the Soviet republics are the legitimate borders of their successor states (see Part II for a detailed discussion).

Of course, in this discussion I side with my Baltic compatriots because my aim is to spell out the implications of the thesis that continuity and identity between the interwar and contemporary Baltic States is not legal fiction (pace Müllerson 1993: 483) intended to rationalise purely political decisions (to not grant citizenship rights to persons who immigrated in 1940–1990 or demand reparations from Russia), but is actually a sociological fact. As such, the Baltic restorations were unique not only due to a long waiting period (some 50 years). They were also unique due to the attempted restoratio ad integrum including the return to the preoccupation status quo in domestic, economic and political organisation, despite the long intermediate period under a very different economic and political system. To recall, it is these features that make them paradigmatic or ideal typical cases of modern restorations.

In the analyses of Baltic restorations by Baltic legal scholars refuting the Russian interpretation of the contemporary Baltic States as successor states of the Soviet Baltic republics, I missed a discussion of the broader legal implications of their overall international recognition as the genuine continuators of the interwar Baltic States. I argue that my sociological conceptualisation of restorations, grounded on the assumption of the paradigmatic status of the Baltic cases, may also provide guidelines for spelling out these implications. Of course, the aims of the legal theory of restorations of states as actors in the international system are different from those of sociological theory. Sociological theory provides tools for empirical classification and explanation, allowing us to distinguish restorations from similar but nevertheless different phenomena. Legal theory focuses on rights and entitlements: when does a state has the right to claim continuity and identity of some formerly existing state, and when are such claims not accepted?

Legal disputes on this issue take place in two situations. The first is when a state dissolves and one of the successor states claims to be the continuator state or denies this status. For practical purposes, this equates to claiming to be the sole inheritor of the assets and liabilities of the defunct state in other countries. When the assets are greater than the liabilities, this kind of inheritance is attractive, but in other instances it is just a burden. Therefore, precedents are contradictory. The interwar Republic of Austria (1918–1938) denied its continuity with the Austrian part of the dual Austro-Hungarian Habsburg monarchy, claiming to be a new successor state on par with Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. However, the Allied powers rejected these claims, singling Austria out as a continuator (Marek 1954: 199–236). In 1991–1992, the Russian Federation claimed and won international recognition as the continuator state of the USSR, while the other fSU republics (with the exception of the Baltic States) were internationally recognised as new successor states of the Soviet Union. At the same time, the continuator status of undiminished Yugoslavia was denied to the “rump” of Yugoslavia, including Serbia and Montenegro. The UN considered it a new state, on par with the other successor states of the former Yugoslavia (Ziemele 2001).

In the second situation, also exemplified by the restoration of the Baltics, states claim the identity and continuity of formerly existing states that were de facto extinct. Almost universal (except for Russia) acceptance of the view that the Baltic States were the last victim states of World War II, which were restored after a longer waiting period, prompts the question – what does the extraordinarily long duration of this period imply for restorations attempted or claimed in the future? Does duration of time lapse since the de facto termination of a state not matter at all, considering the claims of the later government exercising control over its territory to be its legitimate continuator?

The sociological theory of social restorations outlined in this book helps to identify relevant facts for application of the principle ex factis jus oritur by suggesting a temporal limit for the de jure persistence of failed or de facto extinct states. It is applicable also in situations where a state is extinct both de facto and de jure, but where social movements or some successor state (in the case of state dissolution into two or more states) demand that it be restored. When can such claims, voicing the right of the extinct state to be restored, be recognised as legitimate?

The Montevideo Convention provides the list of necessary conditions for a state to qualify as a person in international law: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.Footnote 2 The last criterion may be redundant, as with no government a state also has no capacity to enter into relations with other states. Spelling out implications of (a), I would suggest that de facto extinct state should preserve the right to restoration until its former citizens die out.

This right holds even if there are no states continuing to recognise this state de jure, as in Ethiopia in 1936–1941 and Austria in 1938–1945. I conceive the relevant citizen population as persons who were born and underwent basic socialisation before its de facto extinction, which may have been caused by its occupation and annexation, dissolution into two or more states, or unification with another state, regardless of whether this unification was contested by some of its citizens or not (in fact, only a minority of Austria’s population as of 1938 disagreed with the annexation of their country by Nazi Germany). Assuming this proposal, it is easy to account for how states that were extinguished on the eve of World War II (Ethiopia, Austria, Albania, Czechoslovakia) could be token restored, even if at least two of them also lost their recognition de jure.

After de facto extinction, citizens may voluntarily or for practical reasons accept passports issued by the occupying power or successor states. However, this cannot extinguish the loyalty or oaths of allegiance of the citizens of the de facto extinct state (who may only make up a small minority) who do not accept the recent changes. As long as citizens of the extinct state survive, this state also preserves the right to restoration, regardless of whether this right is still recognised by international law or not. Nevertheless, the duration of this right is not perpetual. A state forfeits this right when its former citizens die out. Their offspring, born after the extinction of the original state, may inherit citizens’ rights in this state, but they can also be legitimately considered citizens of the intermediate state.

Of course, under conditions of the dissolution of the successor state or other circumstances making it possible to apply the right of a nation’s self-determination, their heirs are entitled to secede and establish a sovereign state. During the process of self-determination, a historical state may be used as a reference system. This may be the state where their grandfathers lived or even a more ancient polity (as the community of the citizens of the State of Israel did in 1948). In these cases, the newly established state also can be considered as a restoration of this ancestor state. However, this would be restoration of a different kind: a type restoration.

Under this restoration, denial of full citizenship rights to that part of the population that does not descend from the population of the historical reference state or claims upon a territory within historical borders would be illegal. That is why contemporary Israel is not entitled to the “historical lands” of ancient Jewish states, while Estonia and Latvia are entitled to strips of land detached from them in 1944–1945 by the Soviet government. The gap in demographic continuity is also the ultimate reason why former colonial countries (e.g. the contemporary People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, founded in 1962) should be considered as new states, despite having ancient state ancestry (Beylik Algiers 1516–1830). It also accounts for the difference in the situation of the Baltic States and Transcaucasian republics (Georgia and Azerbaijan), which did claim their continuity with namesake states that existed in their territory in 1918–1921, but did not get their claims internationally recognised: by 1990, their population as of 1920–1921 had already died out.Footnote 3

The delay of the Soviet Union’s dissolution until 2010 or 2020 would have surely decreased the chances of international recognition of continuity or identity of the restored Baltic States with their 1918–1940 namesakes. The restitution of 1940 property rights would have hardly been possible by 2010 or 2020. The leaders of the independence movements would have taken a more accommodating attitude to Soviet-era immigrants, who would have made up an absolute majority in at least two (Estonia and Latvia) Baltic countries (see Chap. 5). Had the Baltic restorations taken place in 2040 or 2050, then they would have been type restorations, involving no continuity between the original and restored states.

I would like to add the argument that this (demographic) interpretation of the limits to state continuity just spells out the implications of the idea of popular sovereignty, where the “populus” or the community of citizens is considered the ultimate source or basis of sovereignty. The state cannot survive its populus, except we (following Edmund Burke) accept that the will of past generations is absolutely binding for their successors. However, as time goes on, new generations may foster attachments, loyalties and identities that are very different from those of their ancestors, exchanging (for example) their national identity for a pan-European one. One such massive shift already occurred when the national German and Italian identities suppressed or sidelined many local or regional identities after the unification of Germany and Italy in the middle of the nineteenth century. A common European identity may at some time in the future suppress national identities, providing for the transformation of the EU into a federal state. For this reason, granting states immortality or giving them a too generous waiting time allowance for their restoration after de facto extinction can have politically obnoxious consequences.

Concerning further tasks of the research grounded in the comparative historical sociology of restorations approach on Baltic countries, I would like to underline that this book provided tentative answers to only a few (to not sacrifice depth for breadth) research questions entailed by this approach. Selecting them, I used two criteria. Firstly, the questions asked are in line with the distinctive features of socialist revolutions. Bourgeois revolutions were anti-feudal, considering absolute monarchy as the epitome of evil. They promised political liberty and equality, institutionalised in the democratic republic. The French Revolution of 1789 failed to realise this promise, leading to the terrorist Jacobin dictatorship and then the military monarchy of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Socialist revolutions were socio-economic by nature, promising the acceleration of economic and social progress after the abolition of private property over means of production as the alleged brake on the development of “productive forces”. Communist regimes promised higher economic growth rates, allowing underdeveloped countries to catch up to the most economically advanced countries in only a brief period of time and to create an economic foundation for a level of human flourishing without precedent in human history. Tellingly, histories of the Baltic countries, published under Soviet occupation, painted pictures of economic stagnation under “bourgeois dictatorship” during interwar independence, contrasting them with unprecedented economic and social progress under socialism.

Assessing the success of post-socialist restorations by measuring and comparing the contribution of original capitalist, state socialist and restored capitalist economic systems to economic progress and the increase of human well-being, I am merely taking socialist revolutions on their own terms. The ultimate cause for the demise of state socialism was the failure to deliver on the promise to accelerate economic progress and social development of countries where Communist parties had established their rule. Measuring the performance of post-communist regimes by the same yardsticks that Communist regimes applied to themselves allows us to learn whether the allegedly doomed capitalist system, after its restoration, was able to perform better on these promises.

Another important reason for focusing on the economic, health and somatic progress was the hope that findings of research to fill the lacuna in the data necessary to apply the outperforming original and intermediate systems tests (guided by the CREPS, CRHPS, CRSPS) for assessment of the success of Baltic restorations will be of interest to the broader research community, including researchers who may remain unpersuaded or sceptical of comparative historical sociology of restorations.

Nevertheless, it was not possible to fill all the lacuna in the currently available data necessary for application of restoration performance success tests (OIST and OOST). Therefore, some of these tests could not be properly applied or the results of their application may be deemed only as first approximations. This refers to our estimates of GDP for the Baltic countries in 1913–1938, which were derived using indirect or econometric methods. While they allow for assessing the economic standing of the interwar Baltic countries in the international comparison (including the finding that they were considerably richer in comparison with the USSR), they lack the fine grain that would allow tracing structural changes in the economy needed to fill GDP figures with more economic substance. So these findings can and should be improved, by measuring economic output using direct methods (constructing historical national accounts) in further research, providing a firmer basis for the application of the OOST in the assessment of the economic performance success of Baltic restorations.

Further original research is needed even more for the application of the OIST in the assessment of the economic success of Baltic restorations, where estimates are available only for the Estonian GDP for the bulk of the occupation period (since 1950). No estimates (not even tentative ones) are available in the SNA framework for Soviet Estonia or Lithuania before 1973. Therefore, for these countries, I was only able to provide an assessment of the early economic restoration success, using MPD data on the GDP of the Baltic countries since 1973. I also could specify the target values for the ultimate application of the OIST in 2039–2040, based on our estimates of GDPpc of these countries in 1938 and MPD data for 1989–1990. Pending progress in the measurement of real output in 1939–1972, the application of the OIST for assessing the actual performance success of these countries is not possible.

Although it was possible to fill the lacuna in the available knowledge on life expectancy for interwar Lithuania, there is no reliable information for the 1935–1958 period, which is needed for a more precise dating of the end of epidemiological transition in Lithuania and monitoring of the actual health performance success during the two decades remaining until the ultimate application of the OIST in 2039–2040. Another important improvement would be the enlargement of the available (thanks to Katus’ research) collection of life tables for Estonia and Latvia with those on the 1939–1949 period. One possibility for how to narrow the gap for the 1940s would be the use of the still incompletely processed or published data of censuses under the German occupation in 1941–1943.Footnote 4

Archive files containing anthropometric data on draftees to the Lithuanian military in 1929–1939 remains as a resource that is completely untapped by historical anthropometric research. The same applies for data on conscripts to the Soviet Army in all three countries, which were not accessible to biological anthropologists during the Soviet years and remain unexamined by contemporary Baltic historians.

The above remarks all refer to tasks and challenges of further improvement to the fundamental data needed for cross-time and cross-country comparative analysis of the economic, health and somatic progress in the Baltic countries since their emergence as independent states in 1918. However, the agenda of comparative historical sociology of restorations is by no means exhausted by socio-economic issues alone. In Marxist parlance, the establishment of independent Baltic States was also a “bourgeois” revolution, involving the abolition of the division of the population into estates, radical land reform and establishment of democratic republics. However, the first attempt at the democratisation of the Baltic countries failed even before the Soviet occupation, with authoritarian coups destroying democracy in its fledgling stages in Lithuania in 1926, and in Latvia and Estonia in 1934.

By 1990, the population of Lithuania included only 11.70 percent born in 1926 or earlier, 5.19 percent who were at least 10 years old and 3.01 percent who were at least 15 years old in 1926 (HMD 2022). Therefore, no token restoration of democracy was socio-demographically possible in this country in 1990. On the other hand, type restored Lithuanian democracy could celebrate its endurance success already in 1996, narrowly escaping the early failure in September 1993, when the revolt of the servicemen of the Voluntary National Defence Service (VNDS; Savanoriška Krašto Apsaugos Tarnyba; SKAT) broke out. The core of the VNDS consisted of volunteers who, during the dramatic time of the confrontation between the government structures of the Republic of Lithuania and the Soviet military (in 1990–1991), were preparing themselves for armed resistance if Moscow’s authorities were to attempt to bring down Lithuanian independence by force (Norkus 2012: 306–307).

These volunteers were enormously disappointed by the ex-communist Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party’s victory in parliamentary elections in October 1992. The revolt diminished when the volunteers found no partners among the eminent political figures of the Lithuanian Right, who would agree to assume authority in the state after a coup. Had they behaved differently, post-communist political developments in Lithuania would have likely followed the trajectory of Georgia, where post-communist democracy endured for an even shorter time (October 1990–September 1991) than its first experience in February 1919–March 1921. In September 1991, violent hostilities among pro-independence forces themselves erupted, culminating in an armed coup d’etat against the democratically elected President of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia in late December 1991, followed by a civil war (Jones 2014).

Longer experiences with political democracy under interwar independence in Estonia and Latvia did indeed contribute to the stability of post-communist democracy in Estonia and Latvia, making possible the very token restoration of parliamentary democracy in both countries, which was implemented in the most impressive way in Latvia by the reenactment of its 1922 Constitution. Both restored democracies could celebrate their partial endurance success in 2004–2005, when they outlasted the original interwar democratic regimes. When setting exact dates, which are necessary for celebrating anniversaries, we should consider that in all three countries, the first democratic periods started with elections to constituent assemblies (see Nohlen and Stöver 2010). In Estonia, this kind of election took place already on 5–7 April 1919, and in Latvia they were held almost simultaneously with the Lithuanian elections (on April 17–18, 1920). The second democracy period commenced with democratic elections to the Supreme Soviets in February–March 1990, which went on to restore independence.

To recall (see Chap. 5), in 1988–1991, supporters of independence restoration were divided as to whether restoration of independence by the Supreme Soviets of the Baltic Soviet republics, elected according to the legislation of the occupier power (USSR), was in fact legally correct. According to present consensus among Baltic legal scholars and political scientists, the democratic legitimacy of the last Soviet parliaments provides legal and meta-juridical validity for their claims of identity between the interwar and post-communist states (Jundzis 2017; Mälksoo 2003; Ziemele 2005; Žalimas 1997, 2005). As a matter of principle, democratisation may precede the establishment or restoration of an independent state, as this was the case in the former Soviet and Yugoslavian republics.

To enable assessment of the performance success of democracy restoration in future research, continuing, expanding and complementing the analysis provided in this book, I would suggest using this version of the criterion of democracy restoration performance success:

  • CDRPS (Criterion of democracy restoration performance success): Restored democracy is performance successful if the values of deliberative, egalitarian, electoral, liberal and participatory democracy indexes under restored democracy surpass those of the original democratic regime.

This criterion is tailored to apply to data in the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) data sets, released by the V-Dem Institute based at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Its recent release (Coppedge et al. 2022) covers 202 countries for the years 1789–2021 and comprises of more than 483 V-Dem indicators, 82 indices and five high-level indices. I would like to suggest prospective researchers accept the complex and sophisticated conceptualisation of democracy devised by the constructors of these databases.

Assessment of the endurance success of a restored democracy can be made by comparing the duration of the restored democratic system with the duration of both the original democratic and intermediate non-democratic systems. Thus, the complete endurance success of democracy restoration in Lithuania can only be celebrated in 2054, when/if restored democracy will have also outlasted the complete period under authoritarian and totalitarian regimes (1926–1990). In Estonia and Latvia, it may take somewhat less to wait until the proper time (2046) for completion of the OIST test for the endurance success period.

However, an assessment of the performance success of the restored democratic regime makes sense only when comparing the original democratic and restored democratic regimes because the aims of democratic and authoritarian regimes are totally different. If there are dimensions where the democracy index value(s) under the original regime are higher than under the restored democratic regime, then the restoration democracy was only partially performance successful. If in all dimensions the original democratic regime surpasses the restored regime, then the restored democratic regime should be considered a performance failure. Exploration of V-Dem data on the Baltic countries suggests that generally values of Deliberative, Egalitarian, Electoral, Liberal and Participatory Democracy Indexes are higher for the restoration period than for the interwar years. However, examination of this task demands a separate study incorporating other sources of information as well.

Importantly, the monitoring of the condition of restored democracies using the highest interwar time values as benchmarks can also be continued after 2004–2005 until the point when their endurance success will have been completely proven. This is another service that better knowledge of our historical past and its actualisation in the historical sociology of restorations can provide for the enhancement of the restored Baltic democracies.

Threats to the stability of restored social systems can come from inside, deriving from the weakness of their economic bases (e.g. due to dependence on the export of a limited range of products) or outside (e.g. due to a geopolitically exposed location). The existence of these threats makes an assessment of the success of their restoration based only on their well-being performance incomplete. The situation of even very wealthy countries with high levels of human development may be precarious if they are not internationally secure.

Therefore, application of the restoration sociology approach includes an assessment of the international security of restored states. As far as international security is considered a collective good that cannot be created by a single state (especially by a small state, as exemplified by the Baltic States), this assessment is conducted using cross-time comparisons of configurations of the international order that provide this common good (or not):

  • CRIOPS (Criterion of the rehabilitation of international order performance success): A rehabilitated or restored configuration of international order C is performance successful if it is more peaceful and secure for member states than intermediate configuration B or original configuration A.

Wars between major powers or their dissolution mean the breakdown of a complete configuration, which is replaced by the next configuration featuring different major players. Applying the CRES, the duration of general peace under subsequent configurations of international order is compared, while the application of the CRIOPS involves counting local wars and the capacity of that particular configuration to avoid their upgrading to a general war. The application of this criterion is possible only as a separate study, encompassing all post-communist countries as part of the global international system.Footnote 5

In this book, I limit myself only to a few considerations that are necessary for its completion. In fact, the political cultures of the restored Baltic States continue to be shaped by the trauma of their loss of independence in 1940, accompanied by the decimation of their most socially active members by Soviet repressions already in 1940–1941. Others escaped this fate by fleeing to the West in 1944, and those remaining were able to preserve their social position only by collaborating with the Soviet occupants. This trauma explains why determination to prevent a repetition of 1940 is the main driving force behind foreign policy of the restored Baltic States.

This determination includes the resolution to not repeat what is perceived as a key mistake of foreign policy during interwar independence. Specifically, this is capitulation to Soviet ultimatums to accept Soviet military bases in September–October 1939, when military resistance was still possible. Finland’s successful resistance during the Winter War in 1939–1940 is perceived as proper behaviour, which the Baltic States sadly did not display in 1939–1940. Thus, the defence policies of the restored Baltic States are aimed at preparing them to repeat Finland’s feat in the Winter War.

Different from the interwar years, the elites of the restored Baltic States securitize (perceive as a potential aggressor) only one state, which is the same for all three: the Russian Federation. They perceive post-communist Russia as another avatar of the Russian Empire, which is recognised as a perennial existential threat. The security situation was much more differentiated during the first independence period. Interwar Estonia elite’s perceptions of territorial security threats display most similarities to those of its contemporary successors in terms of their overwhelming concern with the Soviet/Russian threat. The military of interwar Latvia had war plans with two potential adversaries – Soviet Russia and Germany, based on scenarios of Soviet or German invasions. Concerns about the “German threat” increased after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, almost overshadowing concerns about the “Soviet threat” (Ilmjärv 2004).

However, interwar Lithuania’s international situation was the most complicated – and the most different from that of restored Lithuania. Lithuania was the only Baltic State without a border with the USSR, which was perceived by Lithuanian political elites more like an uncertain ally than a definite threat. The proclaimed top aim of Lithuania’s foreign policy until 1938, when its government yielded to Poland’s ultimatum to establish diplomatic relations, was to regain its historical capital Vilnius. According to all three of Lithuania’s interwar constitutions (1922, 1928, 1938), Vilnius was the official capital of the Lithuanian state. Thus, in interwar Europe, Lithuania was a revisionist power together with the USSR, Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria (Butkus 2019; Kasparavičius 1996).

The reclaiming of Vilnius was possible only after Poland’s military defeat in a new major war, where its most probable adversaries (and Lithuanian allies) were Germany and the USSR. Lithuanian military planners even acquiesced with military defeat and temporary occupation of a majority or even all of Lithuanian territory, with remainders of its military retreating to Latvia and its government going into exile. They took inspiration from the post-World War I restoration of Belgium and Serbia. Serbia did become Yugoslavia, perceived as Greater Serbia by Serbian nationalists, after suffering military defeat and occupation. It did ultimately win by taking the side of the victorious coalition (Jokubauskas 2014, 2019).

In the early 1930s, Lithuania’s international position was further weakened by the conflict with Germany over Lithuania’s attempts to Lithuanianise the autonomous Klaipėda Region. It did face resistance from the local government dominated by Germans and the bulk of the local population, including people of ethnically Lithuanian descent.Footnote 6 Germany reacted by imposing economic sanctions on Lithuania. This conflict escalated after Hitler’s rise to power, with economic sanctions almost turning into a complete economic blockade, which greatly aggravated the impact of the worldwide economic crisis and delayed recovery until 1936. Lithuanian hopes of regaining Vilnius collapsed after the USSR and Germany signed (in 1932 and 1934 respectively) non-aggression pacts with Poland (Eidintas et al. 2003).

This made possible the signing of the Treaty of Good Understanding and Co-operation between Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia on 12 September 1934 in Geneva, known as the Baltic Entente. However, it never developed into a military alliance, including at the very least the preparation of common war plans, and was not expanded by a custom tax union or other forms of economic cooperation. Lithuania did not receive any support from its Baltic allies after receiving the Polish ultimatum regarding Vilnius in March 1938, followed by the German ultimatum in March 1939 to cede the Klaipėda Region. Deepening of Baltic cooperation by pursuing a common defence policy was also hampered by their declaration of neutral powers status on the eve of World War II, which included waiving commitments to participate in the sanctions against the aggressor powers, which they did have as members of the League of Nations (Kasparavičius 2010, 2021).

Therefore, when it received the first Soviet ultimatum to accept Soviet troops on its territory in late September 1939, the Estonian government did not even attempt to consult its allies, while the other Baltic governments behaved similarly both in the autumn of 1939 and in June 1940, silently capitulating (Ilmjärv 2004) one after another. Certainly, acceptance of the Baltic countries to NATO in 2004 (together with admission to the EU in the same year) radically improved the international security situation of the restored Baltic countries compared to their position in the interwar “Versailles system”, which in hindsight proved to be so fragile.

However, the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014 disclosed that NATO membership does not bring total security. Its escalation in 2022 from a “hybrid war” to open military conflict further increased the risk that their territories will become a theatre of war between Russia and the (hopefully) ultimately victorious NATO forces. While this is broadly expected in the Baltic countries, the realisation of this expectation can only meaningfully described as a shock.

The meaning of shock expresses the connotation of surprise. This does not mean that a shock event is completely unexpected, although some are (the Covid-19 pandemic is an example). Earthquakes are expected in seismic zones. Before the post-Napoleonic restoration era, wars between European great states were the norm, while recurring economic crises are part of the normalcy of capitalism. The surprise element of shock refers to the unpredictability of the timing and extent of the next occurrence of the disturbance, which is expected to happen.

The prospect of an upcoming Russian-NATO war on the territory of the Baltic States provides relevance for further research in the framework of the comparative historical sociology of restorations, guided by the Criterion of restoration resilience, imported and adapted from the field of restoration ecology (see Chap. 3).

  • CRR (Criterion of restoration resilience): A successfully restored social system is more resilient in comparison with the original system both in the sense of its capacity for rapid recovery after shocks and its lesser vulnerability to systemic change, shifting it into an alternative equilibrium. Footnote 7

Systems with weak resilience need a longer time to recover and may shift into an alternative equilibrium, which implies systemic change. So CRR combines two ideas of resilience: resilience as the return speed to the initial state of equilibrium state and as the degree of (in)vulnerability to transition to an alternative stable state. Alternative stable states are defined by their stable states or attractors, which may differ in terms of the depth and breadth of their attraction basins (see Holling 1973; Scheffer 2009).

The measurement of resilience by the speed of return to the initial equilibrium expresses an engineering-based concept of resilience. It makes sense to apply the idea of return time to both ecological and social systems, as they may be significantly different by the time it takes them to recover from disturbances such as fire for forests, cities from natural catastrophes (e.g. floods or earthquakes) and economies from wars or economic crises. In the restoration sociology of the Baltic countries, this idea of resilience can be fruitfully applied when comparing the impact of the Great Depression of 1929–1933 and of the Great Recession of 2008–2011 on the Baltic economies.

Using the CRR to explore the impact of a possible or upcoming NATO-Russian war on the restored Baltic States, both ideas of resilience are highly relevant. The alternative equilibrium in such a war is just the extinction or dispersion of the actual populations of these countries, making their territories vacant (albeit radiation-contaminated) colonisation areas. So, when applying the CRR to the situation of an upcoming war, we would ask the following questions: are the populations of the contemporary Baltic States better protected from war-related extinction in comparison with those of the interwar Baltic States? What can be done to increase the prospects of their survival as well as to increase the speed of return to normalcy provided that war will not end with transition to an alternative equilibrium?

Obviously, these questions are so topical and complicated that they can be answered only by conducting multidisciplinary research projects, involving the collaboration of experts from different countries. So, I close with a few remarks focusing on two critical areas: food security and energy security. In both cases, I highlight the possible contribution of historical sociology of restorations.

The scenario of a temporary new occupation of the Baltic countries in the event of military conflict with Russia is tacitly assumed in the official documents of the Baltic States outlining their national security strategy priorities. The Lithuanian document commits ‘all and each citizen to resist the aggressor by all possible means, including military defence, partisan war, civic disobedience, refusal to cooperate with the occupation administration and other means’.Footnote 8 The success of a partisan war and civic disobedience is critically dependent on the capacity of the civil population to survive without having to cooperate with the occupant administration, which predictably will not care about its survival. Quite the opposite, genocidal policies can be expected as a response to partisan war and civic disobedience.

The predominantly agrarian character of the Baltic economies, low levels of urbanisation and comparatively high levels of agricultural productivity enabled the Baltic countries to survive the World War II years without succumbing to famine, which is what happened in many countries or parts of their territories under German occupation (Collingham 2012). In 1946–1947, Ukraine, Moldova and parts of central Russia were hit by famine caused by drought, preceding war devastation and exacerbated by the policies of the Soviet government (Ganson 2009). However, the Baltic republics were not affected – because of afore-mentioned reasons and because collectivisation had still not been implemented at this time. With no sufficient food resilience resembling that which the Baltic countries displayed under military occupations during WWII, there is a risk that their exile governments may return to countries liberated from the Russian aggressor devoid of a population, previously starved out by the occupant administration.

This problem is also important in the scenario where the Russian military will not be able to swiftly occupy the Baltic States and they will become an area of protracted military standoff where decisive battles will take place. During the period of WWI and subsequent independence wars, among the Baltic countries Latvia turned out to be the least food-resilient, with part of its urban population starving to death in 1918–1919 (Šilde 1976: 295). This was the price for Latvia’s relative modernity by 1914. As the most urbanised and industrialised Baltic country, it was the least food self-sufficient and so, the least food-resilient (Norkus and Markevičiūtė 2021). However, the main reason was that Latvia was where positional warfare continued for more than2 years, devastating a larger part of its territory (see Chap. 8).

As far as the contemporary Baltic States are thoroughly urbanised and only a fraction of their populations is employed in agriculture, the food resilience of the restored Baltic countries is even lower than in Latvia by 1914. This applies both in the sense of capability to feed their populations after food imports and inputs (fuel, fertilisers) necessary to continue agricultural production under occupation (resilience against the shift to an alternative equilibrium) have ceased and the ability of agricultural production to swiftly recover after liberation from Russian occupation (resilience as recovery speed). Food resilience is maximised by increasing the food self-sufficiency of a country. By 1939, all three Baltic countries were net food exporters and thus self-sufficient to a high degree, meaning they also displayed high food resilience (Norkus and Markevičiūtė 2021: 655–657). The comparative study of food resilience of the interwar and restored Baltic countries would be a highly policy-relevant contribution of the historical sociology of restoration furthering the enhancement of their security.

The capability of the civil population to survive at least one winter under hostile foreign occupation should be considered as the crucial test of the energetic resilience in the sense of (in)vulnerability to the transition to an alternative equilibrium. Maximal levels of security against energy supply shocks are ensured by energy supply self-sufficiency. Most premodern agrarian societies did achieve such self-sufficiency due to low levels of energy consumption. Their energy needs could be satisfied using only local resources of wood, wind, water and animal power energy.

Only industrial and post-industrial countries with large endowments of fossil fuels or uranium are able to satisfy their energy needs without having to rely on energy imports, which make them vulnerable to interruptions in energy supply or energy price fluctuations. Among the interwar Baltic countries, Estonia was a completely energy self-sufficient country due to its development of a shale oil industry (in fact, in 1939 it even exported motor fuel). Although it did import some coal and oil products for economic reasons, as a matter of principle, interwar Estonia could satisfy domestic energy demands by its own production, substituting coal with oil shale or shale oil (Holmberg 2008).

This did not apply to the other Baltic countries. The interruption of coal imports stopped the bulk of Riga’s industry both in 1914 and in 1939–1940 (Stranga 2015: 209–220). Nevertheless, the populations of the Baltic countries (except for their Jewish parts, which became the victims of the Holocaust) could survive 3 years of German occupation in 1941–1944 even in the absence of fuel imports (except for what was needed for the German army). Agricultural production could continue using animal draught force, while biomass (woods) was substituted for coal for household heating needs and partly also for those of industry. This is barely imaginable for their modern economies, where not only industry but also agricultural production is no longer possible without fuel imports and a stable electricity supply.

While the governments of the Baltic States do not display awareness of any food security risks, this is not the case for their energy security needs. However, they do not perceive as a risk the low energy self-sufficiency of the Baltic countries, but rather their dependence on a sole supplier – Russia, which is also perceived as sole probable aggressor. According to this perception, so long as the Baltic States remain dependent on Russia as their energy supplier, the former metropolis power does not need to use military power to enforce its will – it can do this simply by halting deliveries of gas and electricity. The leverage of energy supply was demonstrated by the partial success of the economic blockade of Lithuania from 18 April to 1 July 1990, when Moscow forced Lithuania to conditionally suspend its independence declaration act (Antanaitis 2001; Šimėnas 1996; Vagnorius 2010).

Escalation of the Ukrainian war from its “hybrid war” phase into full-scale military conflict in 2022 prompted the Baltic countries to stop their energy imports from Russia. This was made possible by EU-supported investments into the build-up of infrastructure. It includes the construction already in 1995–1999 of the Būtingė oil terminal to secure an alternative crude oil delivery route to the Lithuanian Mažeikiai oil refinery, which remains the main supplier of liquid fuels for markets of all three Baltic countries; installation of two submarine power cables (Estlink-1 and Estlink-2), connecting the power grids of Estonia and Finland in 2005–2006 and 2012–2014; completion of the gas pipeline from Poland to Lithuania in 2021, and many other projects (Leonavičius and Genys 2017).

However, this did not bring Latvia and Lithuania to the energy resilience levels of the interwar years, and even that of Estonia may diminish due to the decreasing contribution of its oil shale industry to the overall energy supply. Diversification of energy import sources will not diminish dependence on energy imports as such, while energy self-sufficiency alone amounts to complete energy resilience. Even during a brief occupation and its rollback by allied NATO forces, the populations of the Baltic countries may freeze if military action were to take place in the winter. The reconstruction of Soviet-era residential buildings to improve their energy conservation properties did help to increase the resilience of most dwellings to brief interruptions in heating during winter, but would be insufficient in the event of longer interruptions to the supply of electricity and heating.

Importantly, a centralised energy supply structure is highly vulnerable not only to military attacks (this is one of the painful lessons of the Russian-Ukrainian war), but also to technogenic accidents, which can not only interrupt energy supply, but also cause environmental pollution as a side effect. Therefore, the greening of energetics is the most promising avenue to bring the energy resilience of the Baltic countries back to interwar levels, when the bulk of their energy needs were satisfied by biofuels (mainly firewood).

Of course, this does not mean just a restoration of the energy balance of the interwar years because along with the renewable energy sources (biomass) used in this time, the use of wind and solar energy should also be increased, based on wind turbines and solar cell technologies that did not exist in the past. The equipment of individual houses with solar cell batteries may decrease the dependence of many energy users on a centralised supply source. In this way, a large part of the Baltic population can become enabled to switch from being energy consumers to prosumers, satisfying their energy needs through local production for their own needs. Food resilience may be increased along similar lines by encouraging the urban population to use their rural residences (now used only for recreation purposes) for food production (Alber and Kohler 2008; Smith and Jehlička 2013; Steel 2020). Owned by many Baltic urbanites, they could also serve as safe retreats in cases of emergency.

These are only a few illustrations of how comparative historical sociological research can inform public policy choices in the restored Baltic States, in addition to offering a better understanding of the Baltic past. Far from exhausting the agenda of research on social change in the Baltic countries during the recent century within this framework, this book is (hopefully) only a pioneering exploration of the heuristic potential of this approach. I also hope that it stimulates quantitative social science history research into the complicated history of the Baltic countries during the past century, so as to fill the remaining lacunas and improve the results exposed in this book.