Two Other Baltic Republics Remembered and Promoted

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 8 – Ever since Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania recovered their de facto independence in 1991, activists in what are now Russian regions to their northeast and southwest have recalled the efforts of their ancestors to promote a fourth and fifth Baltic republic and argued that the time is coming for those projects to be realized.

            Tomorrow is the 102^nd anniversary of the attempt to form an independent Ingermanland in northwestern Russia, and this week as well, activists who believe that Kaliningrad/Koenigsberg should be the fourth Baltic republic spoke out about the reasons behind their ambitions.

            Pavel Mezerin, a Free Ingria activist now in emigration, provides details about the former, and Vadim Petrov, a leader of the Baltic Republic Party, outlines his movement’s position in an online discussion hosted by the Vilnius-based Institute for the Regions of Russia (http://region.expert/ingria102/ and region.expert/baltic_republic/).

            Mezerin calls that 102 years ago, 50 kilometers from St. Petersburg, the Republic of North Ingria was proclaimed and a state formed. Located on the Karelian isthmus, the republic ruled over approximately 30 square kilometers and was engaged in military action against the Bolsheviks both on its own and in alliance with others.

            Republic forces did not succeed in occupying St. Petersburg, but they did force Lenin’s government to leave that city in secret and move to Moscow. The Ingermanlanders would have had more success had they not been opposed not only by the Bolsheviks but by White Russian leaders who declared they would never recognize Ingria.

            Mezerin points out that in 2018, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania marked the centenaries of their independence. And the he adds: “Ingria must become the fourth independent Baltic Republic,” stressing that “the flame of freedom which was ignited in Ingermanland 102 years ago continue to burn even now.”

            Also this week, Vadim Petrov, a leader of the Baltic Republic Party, outlined in a video on why the Amber Coast must be a Baltic Republic lest it remain “a hostage of the Kremlin’s empire” (region.expert/baltic_republic/; cf. windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/08/moscow-has-transformed-kaliningrad-from.html).