From “Object” to “Subject”: The contribution of small nations to region-building in North Eastern Europe

Abstract

This article analyzes the impact of small nations on the constitution of a historical region in North Eastern Europe. It is shown that the small nations' drive for emancipation, self-determination, and independence from the surrounding large states formed the backbone of regional discourses in the Baltic Sea region since the beginning twentieth century. Similar features may be noticed already in the older discourse on “Norden”. After the realization of a Baltic League failed in the 1920s, and as the East Baltic states remained outside the “Nordic” unity, the “Baltic” issue consequently shrunk to the three Baltic states. For they continued to keep the notion of a Baltic Sea region in cultural and historical terms alive, North Eastern Europe may be identified as the centre of historical discourses on Baltic sea region-building, which is based on similar social values as in the Nordic nations.