Posted on 01/28/2018 12:32:58 PM PST by GoldenState_Rose
It’s definitely an interesting and boom time in the Baltics right now.
The Soviet generations are dying off and the post Soviet generations are increasing MASSIVELY. There are people near 40 years old there now with no real memories of Soviet times other than what they did on the playground. There is definitely a growing divide between haves and have nots.
These are tiny countries and the size of Russian cities just over the border dwarfs them. The weight of geography and cultural history will once again draw them east. If that will be in 10 years or 100 I don’t know. But it will happen.
Piłsudski was a Polonized Lithuanian. I'd love to see the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth return.
Fixed it.
You’re wrong.
While entities like the E.U. will have their part to play, in this age of Brexit and sovereignty, tiny countries will shine in all their varied, unique, language-preserving glory while the delusional empire-minded (China and Russia) are in for a rude awakening. That is of course until the freedom-lovers within those countries embrace the new reality as well and rise up against their backwards overlords.
We are moving into an age of “tiny countries.”
Other interesting developments in the post-Soviet space include:
“Kazahkstan to change from Cyrrilic to Latin alphabet.”
http://www.dw.com/en/kazakhstan-to-change-from-cyrillic-to-latin-alphabet/a-41147396
You should read less Russian propaganda.
9% of Estonian export goes to Russia. The trouble with doing business with Russia is that they feel this 9% of volume makes them entitled to control how the relations with the countries where the 91% goes must be.
We regrettably got a leftist dominated government now for the first time since independence, but it looks like having them actually have power is the best cure for their popularity, that has fallen to 36% by now. I just hope they can’t do too much damage.
If you drive through the rural areas of eastern France you will find literally hundreds of British, French, and German WW1 cemeteries. There are also 3 US cemeteries from WW1. I visited one and asked the caretaker if anything happened to the US cemeteries during the German occupation of France in WW2. He said no, they pretty much left the cemeteries alone and the French continued to maintain them.
You shouldn’t discard cultural aspect. After 30 years if an Estonian business has one Russian employee they all speak Estonian. If there are at least two their operational language is Russian. The same is true in Kazakhstan. If there are at least two white people present during a cabinet meeting the President speaks in Russian. All the public speeches by Kazakh officials are always in Russian.
From today:
“Russian State Cult of Cyrillic Alphabet a Relatively Recent Development, Bagdasarov Says”
http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/02/russian-state-cult-of-cyrillic-alphabet.html?m=1
Agreed.
The question of alphabet is purely political in this context. Your link correctly points out at cultural aspect of script usage but it fails to explain how exactly Latin would help Turkic people to better exercise their identity. Latin is more alien for Central Asia that Cyrillic for sure and the idea of it is to inflict a cultural split between Russia and Central Asia realigning the latter to China and Muslim world.
Why not Arabic alphabet if so?
I also fail to see the benefits of all the above for the West pushing the agenda in the first place. It makes about as much sense as if Russia was campaigning in Southwest for switching to Spanish ‘for Hispanics to better exercise their identity’.
This is why they will survive as separate entities - for the same reason Ireland, Scotland and Wales more or less stayed unique from England while the Cornish were absorbed - language, culture/history kept them distinct for a long time, but then the Welsh and Cornish adopted anglicanism and finally the Cornish lost their language and then they were lost
similarly the Armenians, Jews, Yazidis, Mandaens, Samaritans, Alawites, Zoroastrians survive even in tiny communities due to this separation
Within the east slavs we have the destruction of the Belarussian language first when it was reduced to a local language under the later stages of the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth - not due to forced policies but due to Polish being the prestiage langauge, then under the Tsar in the 1800s with the rise of literacy and finally the forced Russianization under the Bolsheviks.
Latvia, Lithuania will survive.
If anything we will have more "small nations" but within a wider framework like the EU. You see this in India (at least 40 different nations in one union) or Switzerland.
Even Russia gives Buryats, Tuvans, Enki, Tatars and udmurt relative freedom to survive as separate entities.
But Estonia is firmly tied to Europe
history in Russia (well not only Russia) is selective...
You write like a Russian. Are you Russian?
yes, 9%, but Estonia is dependent on Russian gas. Plus all the roads and rails from estonia head to Moscow. Now they are planning (or have started building a train line from Estonia to Poland.
Moving to the Latin alphabet makes it easier for both westerners to “read” some Kazakh and for kazakhs to learn Western languages. At the same time it makes modern technology like phone keyboards easier to use for Kazakhs if they want to import them from Latin alphabet countries (though I agree that’s not a big plus point)_
Heating gas can be replaced by heating oil. The stations were fitted for this in 1994 when Russia turned off the gas last time.
Russia decided to blockade all Estonian goods in the 90s hoping to make it submit, but only achieved that Estonia’s economy can’t be killed by Russian whims any more.
Nope, I am ethnically Norse. Blonde and blue-eyed. Also tall.
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