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The Baltic Governorates, [a] originally the Ostsee Governorates, [b] was a collective name for the administrative units of the Russian Empire set up in the territories of Swedish Estonia, Swedish Livonia (1721) and, afterwards, of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (1795).
The Baltic states regained de facto independence in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Russia started to withdraw its troops from the Baltics starting with Lithuania in August 1993. However, it was a violent process and Soviet forces killed several Latvians and Lithuanians. [20]
Russians in the Baltic states is a broadly defined subgroup of the Russian diaspora who self-identify as ethnic Russians, or are citizens of Russia, and live in one of the three independent countries — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — primarily the consequences of the USSR's forced population transfers during occupation.
Territorial changes of the Baltic states refers to the redrawing of borders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia after 1940. The three republics, formerly autonomous regions within the former Russian Empire and before that of former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and as provinces of the Swedish Empire, gained independence in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917.
The Baltic: A new history of the region and its people (New York: Overlook Press, 2006; published in London with the title Northern shores: a history of the Baltic Sea and its peoples (John Murray, 2006)) Šleivyte, Janina (2010). Russia's European Agenda and the Baltic States. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-55400-8. Vilkauskaite, Dovile O.
Finally in 1934, the three Baltic states reached the Baltic Entente agreement. [10] In spite of the Vilnius issue, the Baltic states were open to the Polish option. The Warsaw Accord was signed in March 1922 by Finland, Poland, Estonia and Latvia, but the Finnish parliament failed to ratify it. [11]
The four countries on the Baltic Sea that were formerly parts of the Russian Empire – Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – consolidated their borders and independence after the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian independence wars following the end of World War I by 1920 (see Treaty of Tartu, Latvian-Soviet Riga Peace Treaty and Soviet-Lithuanian Treaty of 1920).
Soviet expansion in 1939–1940. After the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September 1939, in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact the Soviet forces were given freedom over Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, an important aspect of the agreement to the Soviet government as they were afraid of Germany using the three states as a corridor to get close to Leningrad.