HISTORICAL DISCOURSES OF THE BALTIC STATES AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR THE PROTECTION OF YOUNG DEMOCRACIES AFTER THE COLLAPSE OF THE USSR: SELECTED ASPECTSThe aim of the article is to discuss selected elements of the historical policy of the Baltic states, tracing the process of shaping their official historical discourse – from post-Soviet nationalist narratives and the glorification of interwar independence to the pro-Western freedom narrative. The starting point of the research is the hypothesis that the top-down memorisation processes of the Baltic states, the centre of which were anti-Sovietism and nationalism, were an effective instrument for protecting the young democratic systems in the Baltic Sea against both the neo-imperial attempts of Putin’s Russia and the autocratic inclinations characteristic of other countries created after the collapse of the USSR.