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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 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).
The term Baltic countries (or lands, or states) was, until the early 20th century, used in the context of countries neighbouring the Baltic Sea: Sweden and Denmark, sometimes also the German Empire and the Russian Empire. With the advent of Foreningen Norden (the Nordic Associations), the term Baltic countries was no longer used for Sweden and ...
Latvia followed on 5 October 1939 and Lithuania shortly thereafter, on 10 October 1939. The agreements permitted the Soviet Union to establish military bases on the Baltic states' territory for the duration of the European war [26] and to station 25,000 Soviet soldiers in Estonia, 30,000 in Latvia and 20,000 in Lithuania starting October 1939.
Greater German Reich – Dissolved in 1945, its former territory now consists of the entirety of the countries of Austria and Germany, and parts of what is now Belarus, the Czech Republic, France, Luxembourg, Poland, Russia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Greece, Serbia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Slovenia.
Large numbers of the inhabitants of the Baltic countries fled westwards before the Red Army arrived in 1944. After the war, the Soviets established new borders for the Baltic republics, adding the regions of Vilnius and Klaipėda to Lithuania and transferring 5 percent of Estonian territory and 2 percent of Latvian territory to the Russian SFSR ...
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 United Baltic Duchy [1] (German: Vereinigtes Baltisches Herzogtum; Latvian: Apvienotā Baltijas hercogiste; Estonian: Balti Hertsogiriik), or alternatively the Grand Duchy of Livonia, [2] was the name of a short-lived state during World War I that was proclaimed by leaders of the local Baltic German nobility.