AH Challenge: Baltic Union

[TheSevenLeggedFallyDowner]

With a POD after May 8, 1945 create an independent nation consisting of the modern day nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Presumably this will be done by engineering an alternate break-up of the Soviet Union, but if you can get creative and do this in another way, that is fine. Bonus points for including Kaliningrad in this union and/or for creating a Baltic Union after the Soviet breakup in 1991.

[wormyguy]

Can't think of any logical way this could happen after the POD, but the "United Baltic Duchy" the Germans were planning on creating after Brest-Litovsk fits the bill.

[black angel]

well... if in the post war world the Forest Brothers fight the good fight a little harder and the USSR decides that the best way to crush the Baltic peoples is to make one Baltic SSR, move forward to to 1989 the Baltic Union pulls out of the USSR, fear of Soviet attack keeps them together as the Eastern block and USSR falls apart, Russia doesn't give up it's claim on the Baltic till 1992, these 4 years of fear has the Baltic stay together out of Russia fear, while the 3 nations that make up the union have a great deal of Autonomy.

[Goldstein]

There is a series of problems this challenge sets.

The first one is Estonia. As you know, Bob, () while Latvia and Lithuania have a relatively convergent Baltic culture, Estonia has an Uralic one, much closer to Finland than to Latvia and Lithuania. Even if Russian can be a potential lingua franca, this is very improbable (just see what has happened in OTL Latvia regarding the Russian-speaking community).

There is, anyway, the fact of the three counties having a very similar economical, political and social background, not to tell they share a potential common threat.

I think it's doable. You just need the independence process in those countries to be nastier. That way, there could be a greater sense of menace from the Russian-speaking communities, from Russia as a whole, and a more definite "United we stand" approach to their independence. Then someone makes a federal or confederal proposal, and then it's just a matter of time.

[I Blame Communism]

That's the funny thing, though: although the language groups are Estonian vs Baltic, Estonia and Latvia have to a very considerable extent had the same history, and Lithuania a differant one altogether. This is still visible today, when Lithuania has a much smaller Russian community and treats it much better, whereas Latvia and Estonia have both followed the "ethnic democracy" road.

Going back before the Russian Revolution, Lithuania was Catholic with Polish landowners, and Estonia-Latvia was Lutheran with German landowners. And of course in the post-revolutionary period, Lithuania was often something of a pawn to the Soviets in foreign relations, which hardly endeared it to its neighbours. It's only since the events of 1941-1991 brought them toegether that all three Baltics have felt a sense of togetherness, really.

I don't find the scenario at all likely, but Goldstein's idea is the best. Kaliningrad is pretty much out bar World War III, because that's where Russia keeps a disproportionate number of its military assets. Any local oligrach with pretensions to being the ruler of his Fourth Baltic Republic is likely to be unseated by the Russian troops.

[Tyr]

Or you could go in the opposite direction and have the Russian rule be far nastier. Make the local languages absolute minorities whilst the Baltic SSR gets immigrants from all over the Soviet Union.
Their split from the USSR is done largely for economic reasons.