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The Emergence of New States in Eastern Europe in 1918—Lessons for All of Europe

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The Emergence of New States in Eastern Europe in 1918—Lessons for All of Europe The Emergence of New States in Eastern Europe in 1918—Lessons for All of Europe The Emergence of New States in Eastern Europe in 1918—Lessons for All of Europe Adam Balcer WiseEuropa Królewska Street 2/26 Warsaw 00-065, Poland Email: [email protected] Abstract: The year of 1918 was a crucial point in the history of Europe. Its importance does not only stem from the end of World War I, but also from the establishment of new states. Eastern Europe was particularly an arena where many new states emerged after the dissolution of tsarist Russia. The abovementioned process was correlated with the outcome of World War I (the defeat of the Central Powers on the Western Front and their victory on the Eastern Front against the tsarist Russia resulting in imposing their protectorate over Eastern Europe) but simultaneously it was infl uenced by the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution originating from a structural crisis of Russia. The legacy of nation-building processes, taking place in the period of 1917–1921 in the European part of the tsarist Russia— even when some of the states did not manage to survive— occupies a key role in the historical memories of those countries. The importance of this legacy originates from the fact that these states often constituted the most progressive nation-building eff orts in the world. The wider context of these developments and the important interlinkages existing between them are very often unfamiliar to many Europeans today. Despite that, the state-building attempts, undertaken in Eastern Europe between 1917 and 1921, had a huge impact on the trajectory of European history. Contextualising this particular academic enquiry with the events of 1918 and benefi ting from methodological advantages of process tracing, our project represents an attempt to restore (or, if necessary, build from scratch) a communicational system for sending a historical message to a wider Europe. A century doi:TalTech 10.2478/bjes-2021-0001 Journal of European Studies TalTech Journal of European Studies Tallinn University of Technology (ISSN 2674-4619), Vol. 11, No. 1 (33) 3 Adam Balcer after, while celebrating the Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish truly big anniversaries in 2017–2018, Europeans have already forgotten how interconnected and interlinked the 1918-bound events had been and by how much those events had affected the entire European continent as well as the international system. Keywords: history of Europe, independence, international system, World War I In November 2018, when the world was commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, WiseEuropa, a Polish independent think tank together with Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia), Latvian Institute of International Affairs, the city of Pori (Finland), Czesław Miłosz Centre of Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania) and journal The New Eastern Europe launched the project ‘The Emergence of New States in Eastern Europe in 1918—Lessons for All of Europe’. The process of the project’s implementation was co-funded by the European Commission within the framework of the program ‘Europe for citizens’ (European Remembrance). Within the project, a special issue of The New Eastern Europe was published, an exhibition was created and six conferences were organised. On a concrete note, the project-generated findings were introduced in the Ballroom of the Tyszkiewicz-Potocki Palace, the University of Warsaw in Poland (20 March 2019), the Historical Presidential Palace of the Republic of Lithuania in Kaunas, Lithuania (25 April 2019), the Conference Room of Latvian War Museum in Riga, Latvia (10 June 2019), the TalTech Law School/Department of Law at Tallinn University of Technology in Estonia (16 September 2019), the Satakunta Museum in Pori, Finland (3 October 2019), and the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium (4 February 2020). Finally, this Special Issue of TalTech Journal of European Studies is dedicated to the main theme of the project, namely the fight for independence of Eastern European states at the end of World War I and in the postwar period and its legacy for contemporary Europe. Indeed, 1918 was a crucial year in the history of Europe. Its importance does not only stem from the end of World War I, but also from the establishment of new states. Eastern Europe was particularly an arena where many new states emerged after the dissolution of tsarist Russia. The abovementioned process was correlated with World War I (the defeat of the Central Powers TalTech Journal of European Studies 4 Tallinn University of Technology (ISSN 2674-4619), Vol. 11, No. 1 (33) The Emergence of New States in Eastern Europe in 1918—Lessons for All of Europe occupying most of European and part of tsarist Russia), but simultaneously it was influenced by the Bolshevik Revolution originating from a structural crisis of Russia. In fact, the process started before the end of World War I with the declaration of independence of Finland, which was issued in December 1917 and internationally recognised in early 1918. The same year Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland also gained and maintained independence. Unfortunately, other states which announced independence in 1918 and gained at least partial international recognition (as was the case for Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine and some others) were destroyed by the Bolsheviks between 1920 and 1921. Many more short-lived bids for independence or autonomy occurred at that time in the former Russian Empire, both in Europe and Asia, but were crushed by the Bolsheviks. All of these states sometimes cooperated closely between themselves against common enemies (mostly the Bolsheviks), but sometimes they fought fiercely against each other. Moreover, these states constituted the avant-garde of European modernity and democratisation. The legacy of nation-building processes taking place in the period of 1918– 1921 in the European part of tsarist Russia—even when the states did not manage to survive—occupies a key role in the historical memories of the citizens of these states. The importance of this legacy originates from the fact that these states often constituted the most progressive nation- building efforts in the world. The wider context of these developments and the important interlinks existing between them are very often unfamiliar to many Europeans today. Despite that, the state-building attempts undertaken in Eastern Europe in 1918 had a huge impact on the trajectory of entire Europe and even the world. In line with the argumentation of the American historian Joshua Sanborn, the demise of Russian Empire should be treated as the first stage of the twentieth-century phenomenon of decolonisation, which after World War II expanded into the other continents (Sanborn, 2014, p. 5). World War I contributed decisively to the October Revolution in Russia and, in consequence, to the creation of the Soviet Union. Immediately after the war, the Bolsheviks managed to reconquer huge parts of Eastern Europe, striving to achieve independence by dividing the continent for the first time. That partition constituted a prequel to the Iron Curtain, which divided Europe for almost half a century after World War II. The history of Europe after World War I is seen mainly through the prism of the international order established at a peace conference in Paris in 1919 and subsequently called the ‘Versailles system’. However, in Eastern Europe, the interwar TalTech Journal of European Studies Tallinn University of Technology (ISSN 2674-4619), Vol. 11, No. 1 (33) 5 Adam Balcer order was constructed on the basis of the Treaty of Riga (18 March 1921), signed between Poland and Bolshevik Russia. According to the treaty, Moscow finally recognised the independence of Poland, Finland, the Baltic States, and the division of Ukraine and Belarus. Therefore, the international order established in Europe during the interwar period should, in principle, be called the Riga-Versailles one. The successful defense of independence allowed Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to finalize their nation-building processes and create modern political, social and cultural institutions in the interwar period. After World War II, this legacy played an enormous positive role helping the Baltic nations and Poland to maintain social cohesion under communism and successfully re-establish their states as independent (the Baltics), sovereign (Poland) and democratic after the fall of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the interwar period gave Finland the opportunity to undertake a spectacular civilizational leap to become one of the most modern nations in the world during the second half of the 20th century. A century since the wars of independence (1918–1921), the division between the countries which succeeded in the fight and those that failed is still noticeable. Characteristically of the context, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the only countries which managed to defend their independence between 1918 and 1921 became the EU Member States. And even if certain efforts failed in this period, they left a positive imprint. As the Canadian- Polish historian Jerzy Borzęcki (2008, p. 276) pointed out, even though that which the federalist program promoted—particularly by Poland—did not prevail, it forced Moscow to maintain the illusion of Belarusian and Ukrainian independence. As a result, it contributed to the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922 as a federation of republics, which was composed of the four republics of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and the Transcaucasian Soviet Socialist Republic (which was made up of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan) inspired by the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. The federal structure of the Soviet Union, though often only nominally, was different from the centralised system of tsarist Russia. In 1991, after the collapse of the USSR, it became the foundation for the creation of over a dozen newly independent states. The dissolution of the Soviet Union, accompanied by the change in political systems (1989–1991), looks, at a first glance, similar to the events of 1917– 1921.
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