Baltic Facades by Aldis Purs

Author:Aldis Purs
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 4

Economic Developments

The massive political transformations endured by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania over the past 150 years are equalled by revolutionary economic transformations. The two have almost always been inextricably intertwined. Late nineteenth-century industrialization, modernization and urban growth tore apart traditional, tsarist and Baltic German institutions. War and revolution devastated economies and people alike. Independence involved state-building and entirely new economic models. Soviet occupation brought deportations and terror, but also socialist transformation. Nazi occupation brought the Holocaust and more terror, together with an economy completely subservient to the war effort. The return of Soviet rule introduced five-year plans in a central command economy, collectivization, heavy industrialization and migration of workers. The collapse of the Soviet Union also meant the collapse of this economic order. The Baltic states’ aspirations to join the European Union included a fundamental reordering of all economic life, and momentary, fleeting success brought euphoria and new expectations. The most recent economic calamity, and the slow, painful recovery that has followed, has simply reinforced the common theme of economic development in the Baltic region: massive, violent economic disruptions have come with dizzying regularity and, as with states and populations, no general system has remained in place for more than a few decades. If economic analysts crave stability, there has never been any in Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania.

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