From “Soviet West” to “Western East:” Russia’s reimagination of Baltic “Westernness” in a post-2004 geopolitical reality

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I explore how the popular image of Baltic ‘Westernness,’ widespread in the period from the mid-1950s to late 1980s, has undergone discursive reconstruction in Putin’s Russia. Using popular geopolitics as a theoretical approach, and critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a method, I demonstrate that among other popular geopolitical visions, the reconstructed image in question has been employed by the state media to articulate Russia’s current foreign policy agenda in relation to the Baltic states.