What Ukraine can learn from the Baltic states
When I first left home to go to Uni, Latvia became home for three years of my studies. Riga didn’t look that different to Lviv— old buildings, cosy coffee shops, grumpy faces on public transport, well-groomed ladies. If not for the language, cheesecakes (Latvian ones more likely to be non-baked), and a somewhat better public transport, it would be hard to tell I’m not in Ukraine.
Some years later, living in Sydney, by stroke of luck, I found myself surrounded by Latvian-Australians. Latvians became my adopted family and a large part of my social circle. I wasn’t exactly looking to learn anything, let alone how nations handle a Soviet past, how to be a Latvian (or a Ukrainian) abroad, or how to grow one’s national identity (or expand beyond one, for that matter). But learn I did.
Like most subtle lessons in life, this one is hard to pin down to a few bullet points. But this June brought a few occasions to revisit observations from my time with the Latvian — and more broadly — the Baltic community. For Baltic people, June is the month of both grief and cheer: on June 14th, the Baltic community remembers mass deportations of 1941, and about a week later — cheers for Līgo— the life-affirming summer solstice festival.
The lessons in honouring the past
On June 14, 1941, 10,000 Estonians, 15,424 Latvians, and 17,600 Lithuanians were deported to various Gulags in the eastern-most territories of the Soviet Union. The stories told at the remembrance events ring close to home: Soviet mass deportations left bloody stains all across Ukraine.
The deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944 is case in point. Every time I explain to foreigners why Russians have no historical claims to Crimea, chills run down my spine — from Jamala’s 2016 Eurovision-winning song “1944”. A song, you see, is an easier reference than a Wikipedia article.
Remembrance takes a lot of work. The daily grind of organising events, the effort of showing up at choir and theatre rehearsals, often after a long day at work, the extra dozen miles to drive to a Saturday school to get the kids to learn a language. Remembrance takes showing up.
The lessons in shaping the present
When I did my undergraduate degree at Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga), this was still new to me: that I can have professors who were ministers in the Latvian government, held degrees from Harvard or LSE, and — were no more formal than “Hi Marta!” when I ran into them in the School corridors.
Latvians (as also Lithuanians and Estonians) were very fast, post independence, to cleanse their governments from Soviet apparatchiks: in part, by bringing in the diaspora for key government positions, and in part, by letting the young politicians take centre stage. For Ukraine, ridding itself of the dominance of Soviets-style politicians has taken much longer, but the Revolution of Dignity of 2013/14 dealt a decisive blow to the Soviet ways of governing.
The critical role of education — to bring up home-grown talent — is yet another enabler of cutting ties with the Soviet past, and paving the path to a more dynamic future. SSE Riga clearly punches above its weight in educating the next generation of leaders. The parallels with Kyiv School of Economics are telling: both are light-years away from the outdated Soviet-style University model. They pursue a nimble, dynamic model of education that serves as a knowledge-generation engine.
The lessons in changing the future
Before the war started, I was at a #StandWithUkraine rally here in Adelaide, South Australia, listening to speakers making general statements like “supporting Ukraine's right to self-determination”. And then spoke Peter Malinauskas (then an opposition candidate in the upcoming state election), — his speech was about his Lithuanian grandparents’ experience as WWII refugees escaping to Australia. Well, I thought, — things are not hopeless after all, — some folks do understand the context of the Russian threat.
More recently, this put a smile on my face: the now South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas just got blacklisted by the Russians! Nice — what a welcome sign of doing the right thing.
Shaping policy is not just for career politicians. What I learnt from both the Baltic and the Ukrainian diaspora, — is that human relationships and personal narratives matter.
Here’s one account by a third-generation Ukrainian Australian: “When I was training as a lawyer, I used to talk to this South Australian MP, — he went to work along the same street as I went to Uni, and we would talk about my Ukrainian background, the Soviet persecution of Ukrainians, the Holodomor, and all that… You know, he never knew about Holodomor, and why Russia was always after us. He said it was eye-opening to him!”
A recent conversation with a work colleague reminded me how first-hand accounts are ever more important in the post-truth information field. “So how are things in Ukraine?”, — “Well, you read about it in newspapers, right…” — “Yes, but is that the truth?”
Last words
My take on the lessons from the Baltics is necessarily a personal one — as seen through the prism of my lived experience.
There are parallels in our past, and there are major differences — from history to the size of the economy. But I do take comfort in walking side by side with those who weathered the storms of history so much akin to those weathered by my own people in Ukraine.
