Russia’s Politics of Memory and the Conflicts in the "Near Abroad"

Introduction

After the Fall of Soviet Union Russia was afraid to loose its sphere of influence. For Russia the loss of the Soviet empire and the loss of the status of global superpower is still a large trauma. The political elite of Russia is still conviced that Russia should have an important place in multipolar world. Russia is trying hard not only to loose the influence in the world politics, but it is trying even harder not loose the influence in the former Soviet republics, which Russia is calling it’s “Near Abroad”. So I will start this paper with explanations and definitions of the concept of the “Near Abroad”.

Not only Russia has problems in coping with the past, but also Baltic states, what makes the bilateral relatioships between Russia and each of the Baltic states even more complicated. Even after joining the EU and NATO Baltic states still feel threatened from Russia. Collective experience with Russia in the past conducts to the distrust in good bilateral relationships. Even problems with Russian minorities in Latvia and Estonia stem from the experience of the past and collective memories about the Hitler-Stalin Pact and the politics of Sovietisation. However, at the end of the seminar paper I will try to find some possible solutions for the problems in the bilateral relationships and how to improve them.

In this paper I composed the following Hypothesis:
1) Russia and the Baltic states have problems in coping with past, so it is very hard to build good bilateral relationships.
2) All the problems in bilateral ralatioships between Russia and Estonia, Russia and Latvia, Russia and Lithuania are build upon the collective memory of all states.

In this seminar paper I will try to find answears to following questions:
What does the concept of “Near Abroad” means?
How does the geopolitical situation between Russia and the Baltic states influences the bilateral relationships?
Which aspects of collective memory played an important role for Baltic states to choose NATO and EU not CIS?
What was the reaction of Russia, when Baltic States decided to join NATO and EU?
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