The Baltic region is frequently neglected in broader histories of Europe & its international significance can be obscured by separate treatments of the various Baltic states. With this wide-ranging 2011 survey, Andrejs Plakans presents an integrated history of three Baltic peoples
- Estonians, Latvians & Lithuanians
- & draws out the common threads to show how it has been shaped by their location in a strategically desirable corner of Europe. Subordinated in turn by Baltic German landholders, the Polish nobility & gentry, & then by Russian & Soviet administrators, the three nations have nevertheless kept their distinctive identities
- significantly retaining three separate languages in an ethnically diverse region. The book traces the countries` evolution from their ninth-century tribal beginnings to their present status as three thriving & separate nation states, focusing particularly on the region`s complex twentieth-century history, which culminated in the eventual re-establishment of national sovereignty after 1991.