This article was downloaded by: [University of Chicago] On: 26 April 2009 Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 784375792] Publisher Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Baltic Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t759156371 From “Object” to “Subject”: The contribution of small nations to region-building in North Eastern Europe Jörg Hackmann a a University of Greifswald, Online Publication Date: 01 December 2002 To cite this Article Hackmann, Jörg(2002)'From “Object” to “Subject”: The contribution of small nations to region-building in North Eastern Europe',Journal of Baltic Studies,33:4,412 — 430 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/01629770200000201 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01629770200000201 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. From "Object" to "Subject": The Contribution of Small Nations to Region-building in North Eastern Europe J6rg Hackmann, University of Greifswald Abstract. This article analyzes the impact of small nations on the constitution of a historical region in North Eastem Europe. It is shown that the small nations' drive for emancipation, self-determination, and independence from the surrounding large states formed the backbone of regional discourses in the Baltic Sea region since the beginning twentieth century. Similar features may be noticed already in the older discourse on "Norden". After the realization of a Baltic League failed in the 1920s, and as the East Baltic states remained outside the "Nordic" unity, the "Baltic" issue consequently shrunk to the three Baltic states. For they continued to keep the notion of a Baltic Sea region in cultural and historical terms alive, North Eastern Europe may be identified as the centre of historical discourses on Baltic sea region-building, which is based on similar social values as in the Nordic nations. ithout any doubt, the peaceful struggle of Estonia, Latvia and W Lithuania for the renewal of their independence has fundamentally reshaped the perception of the Baltic Sea area, not only in international politics, but also in the scholarly world. The phrase "fundamentally reshaped" may seem to have been overused already during the last decade, but we must resort to it once again in order to describe the starting point for an analysis of historical region building processes in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Until the 1980s, speaking of the Baltic Sea region in history always carried with it either a notion either of nostalgia, or of a bitter anti-Soviet taste -- that is, if it was not imbued with the Soviet "sea of peace" ideology. With the new perception of the Baltic that has emerged, we should, however, revise our mental maps, and even the name of this region, as both these aspects are not based on unchanging units, but instead Downloaded By: [University of Chicago] At: 04:08 26 April 2009 have been shaped by historical influences. Thus, one should avoid such pitfalls as an allegedly natural delimitation of the region: although the Baltic Sea seemingly provides a natural framework, the shape of the Baltic as a historical region, and its relation to other historical regions, are both topics still open to discussion. In addition, one has to be aware that the term "Baltic" itself in historical and political terms is rather ambiguous, a consequence of the changing meanings of this designation, in particular since the mid-nineteenth century. ~ Such aspects of the Baltic Sea region's history were the main reasons for the formulation of the concept of North Eastern Europe as a historical region. 2 JBS, VOL XXXIII, NO 4 (WINTER2002) 412 FROM "OBJECT" TO "SUBJECT" 413 This leads to two major topics to be discussed here: Firstly, can the drive of the "small nations" for emancipation and the maintenance of their independence be viewed as the central factor determining the historical structure of the North Eastern European region? And secondly, if so, what are the contours and cohesive forces of a region shaped in this way? Thus far, the German historiography on North Eastern Europe has been rather brief on the role of the small nations in the region during the inter- war period, although Klaus Zernack at least noted the continuation of a regional historical and cultural context (1993: 20-1). Stefan Troebst (61) made use of Karl Renner's formulation -- originally referring to the Habsburg Empire -- that small nations proved to be more powerful than the great states, in that the former succeeded in tearing the latter apart) Ralph Tuchtenhagen's article on North Eastern Europe includes the national movements and the small state identities of the Finns, Estonians and Latvians, as well as national aspirations of the Karelians and Ingrians, and he even speaks of a Balto-Scandinavian setting. The Lithuanians, however, are hardly regarded in his definition of the region (1999: 76-8). When discussing the case of the small nations in North Eastem Europe, two perspectives may be adopted: the first being the comparative analysis of societal developments across the region; and the second, the struggle of the small nations to maintain a place for themselves within the shifting power structures of the twentieth century. With regards to the first approach, any comparison should draw upon the rich material of the various national historiographies. Nevetherless, comparative analysis so far has been still limited either to the peoples of the tsarist empire (Kappeler 1992), or to single cases from the region being used in broader comparisons, although the influential study by Miroslav Hroch did include several eastern and northern European nations.4 Material for a broad Downloaded By: [University of Chicago] At: 04:08 26 April 2009 regional approach may be found, however, in David Kirby's Baltic World (1995). Concerning the second aforementioned analytical approach, the research of such Finnish scholars as Kalervo Hovi, Seppo Zetterberg, and Marko Lehti has to be mentioned in particular. "Small" Nations and States The discourse of "small" nations and states, which is frequently used today as a category in political and scholarly discussions, was initiated by Tom~i~ Garrigue Masaryk in 1902, with specific reference to the case of the Czech nation (Strkl 18-9, Hadler 115). In this case, the notion of the "small nation" was introduced with the aim to promote the creation and stabilization of new nation states in Central Europe. Thus it departed from Franti~ek Palack2~'s conception of 1848 that the Habsburg Empire provided 414 JORGHACKMANN the best framework for the development of the Austro-Slavic nations, since in 1918 the historic situation had become favourable for the appearance of small states (Masaryk 1922a: 42). Masaryk's argumentation reveals that smallness is not only a matter of a state's absolute or relative size and power, but is also a question of culture, where rivalry with larger states leads to increased efforts by small nations to prove their cultural worthiness (1922a: 43-4). This sentiment is echoed in the statement of Anthony D. Smith (217) that for small nations, their distinctive culture is their "very raison d'etre". 5 When categorizing small states, the primary criterion of absolute size is rather simple to identify. It seems, however, that such a quantitative approach becomes more important if it is based on a diachronic or synchronic comparison of demographic developments. In that respect, the question, "Why are there so few Estonians?" (Raun 1995: 67), increases in importance as a line of inquiry, as it might show that political structures had a major -- that is, negative -- impact on the demographic trends in Estonia in comparison, for instance, with Finland. The second way of determining a "small nation", on which already Masaryk was focusing (StSkl 27-8), takes geopolitical relations into account. Looking at the relative size in particular has to deal with the constellations of political power. Thus, a state is first of all "small" when it is in proximity to a "great" power. In this respect, Ukraine, too, is a "small nation" (Kappeler 199I). For a "small" nation at the periphery of a given region, smallness seems to be a less important issue than for those directly neighbouring a "large" nation or state. A third perspective takes the internal features of a society into consideration, when judging "smallness". Once again, this approach, too, was already an important point in Masaryk's reflections (Hadler 116-7). Following Hroch's analysis of nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Downloaded By: [University of Chicago] At: 04:08 26 April 2009 processes, small nations may be described as "non-dominant" ethnic groups. They are shaped, firstly, by an incomplete social structure, as the elites in society are predominantly drawn from a different ethnic group; secondly, by the "lack" of history, in the sense of an uninterrupted existence of a distinct cultural and political unit of their own; and thirdly, by the lack of political independence (Hroch 16).