How to make both Latvia and Estonia much more populous?

CaliGuy

Banned
What realistic ways are there with a PoD of 1850 or later to make both Latvia and Estonia much more populous than they are in our TL?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
For the record, I excluded Lithuania here since it is more populous than both Latvia and Estonia are (and that's in spite of the fact that both Latvia and Estonia have much more ethnic Russians than Lithuania has!).
 
During WWI, if the Romanov's survive and the United Baltic Duchy is created as a rump Russian Empire, then many White Guards can move to the new nation instead of America or western Europe.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Also, why exactly would the locals in Latvia and Estonia allow White Russian forces to do this?
 
Also, why exactly would the locals in Latvia and Estonia allow White Russian forces to do this?
They wouldn't have a choice.

The region was under German occupation, a force which was actually seen as liberators. Furthermore, the Russian Civil War is beginning, and communists are seen as an extreme threat.
So, the people of the Baltic either accept a German puppet regime administered by the Romanovs and one that possesses a large Russian minority, or communist domination.
 
During WWI, if the Romanov's survive and the United Baltic Duchy is created as a rump Russian Empire, then many White Guards can move to the new nation instead of America or western Europe.

If the Baltics are Russified in this fashion, then it is highly possible the locals will emigrate en masse, to the Nordic area, to other European countries, to the Americas as their countries would not be their own anymore. So, this would also lead to a significant loss of population, even if we accept the idea that White Russian emigres would opt to stay as close to Red Russia, to move to an area that is explicitly a German puppet and, if German support is withdrawn, would fall to Moscow in a couple of months should the Reds want so. I think also the great majority of the Russian Whites would opt to emigrate farther away.
 

trurle

Banned
The problem is actually support of that many men. Well, realistic plan: Gerald Ford, infuriated by tax rise, decided to build his next factory not in Dagenham (England) but in Tallinn (Estonia). This project flourished, created economic boom and attracted hundreds of thousands of people from around the world by 1940. But then the Soviets invaded anyway..err..in conditions of impeding doom Ford factory was converted to produce tanks and armoured cars. And Gerald Ford is buried alive in the ruins of his factory after it was overrun after all..
 
What realistic ways are there with a PoD of 1850 or later to make both Latvia and Estonia much more populous than they are in our TL?
Impossible. 1850 is way, way too late. If you butterfly away the Soviet deportations, WW2 and mass emigration to the West, you can get them both to be around 3-4 million, but not much more than that.

Not that Latvia and Estonia can support a lot of people, anyway.
 
I'm not sure that you could necessarily get much German immigration to Estonia and Latvia. Even in circumstances where the region was under uncontested German control, Estonia and Latvia would still be relatively poor territories on the fringes of the German sphere. I would be surprised if you managed to get as many German immigrants to these countries as we got Soviet-era Russophone immigrants in OTL--in the Soviet Union, the Baltic States were actually rich areas desperately short on labour.
 
After WWII, Stalin downgrades Latvia and Estonia to ASSRs of the Russian SFSR as punishment for collaboration with Nazi Germany, and proceeds to flood the country with Russophone immigrants. Job done, just a pretty nasty way of doing so.
 
How would this change in political status lead to more immigration?
Hmm... To be honest, barring more serious deportations and a need to fill the void, I'm not entirely sure. Immigration from Russia to the Baltics during the Soviet period was was pretty major anyway.
 
It also seemed to respond to economic issues, including labour shortages, in the Baltic States. At very most you might have a situation like Tatarstan's, say, where the titular nation remained the near-majority throughout the Soviet era.
 
It also seemed to respond to economic issues, including labour shortages, in the Baltic States. At very most you might have a situation like Tatarstan's, say, where the titular nation remained the near-majority throughout the Soviet era.

In the 1959 census, there were c. 900 000 ethnic Estonians in the Estonian SSR (75%) and 270 000 Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians (20%). In the 1989 census, there were 960 000 ethnic Estonians (62%) and 550 000 Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians (35%). In other words, the non-Estonian population had doubled in three decades.

Had the USSR survived past the 1990s, and had the OTL population trends of 1960-1990 continued, it would have been quite possible by the late 2020s that the ethnically non-Estonian population would have made up a slight majority of the people of the Estonian SSR.
 
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They wouldn't have a choice.

The region was under German occupation, a force which was actually seen as liberators. Furthermore, the Russian Civil War is beginning, and communists are seen as an extreme threat.
So, the people of the Baltic either accept a German puppet regime administered by the Romanovs and one that possesses a large Russian minority, or communist domination.

The 1918 German occupation in Latvia and Estonia was not seen as liberators at all. Even the Bolsheviks were more popular at the time (which isn't even much of a surprise).

Of course, the German Empire may still have the strength to stay there in spite of its unpopularity, and flood the region with German and (maybe) White Russian colonists.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
They wouldn't have a choice.

The region was under German occupation, a force which was actually seen as liberators. Furthermore, the Russian Civil War is beginning, and communists are seen as an extreme threat.
So, the people of the Baltic either accept a German puppet regime administered by the Romanovs and one that possesses a large Russian minority, or communist domination.
Why would the Germans allow the Romanovs to govern their Baltic puppet state, though?
 
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