How will you explain existance of this countries? Can somebody have information about pre ww2 period?

Lithuania had a commonwealth with Poland for a few hundred years and had one of the biggest empires at the time 1200ish to 1500ish? They left the commonwealth and it eventually fell apart when Lithuania cracked the shits.

Lithuania has mostly been occupied throughout its existence. It became quasi-independant around about 1930ish from the Soviets/Russians but shortly after it was taken by the Nazis and put into a three way Baltic Union and was ''''liberated''''' was inducted back in until the 90s when they had a very tense standoff with the Soviet Union.

Lithuania is and has been fairly broke throughout history as far as I know.

Their religion has been Catholicism/Christianity for basically forever and are fiercely loyal to it.

Alcoholism is the national sport, shortly ahead of suicide and basketball.

Now obviously I'm probably wrong on some points but this is basically everything I've ever learnt about my granddads country but hope I gave some insight.

Also the language is meant to be one of the oldest.

They are right tho, non-country nationalism is worse than Nazism/Communism, at least the latter two are discredited.

Latvian here, i guess i would have told you something, but i assume this thread is made with intention to find reasons why we shouldnt exist.
So fuck off

>How will you explain existance of this countries?
Soon, I won't have to.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_repression_in_the_Soviet_Union

Won a war against Russia and forced them to pay for the peace treaty in gold. Your move.

link ?

There was a crusade in Estonia I believe

Estonia was part of the Danish Empire during the medieval period

Between the 1560's to 1710 Estonia was part of the Swedish Empire

All three were part of the Russian Empire, when the revolution happened they offered to help the Bolsheviks in exchange for independence. They would end up being occupied by Germany during ww2 and betrayed by Stalin, in his attempt to retake missing parts of the former Russian Empire (Finland, Poland) would be annexed into the Soviet Union.

So for much of their history they've been part of empires and barely independent it seems.

Pic related is the old flag of Estonia I think when it was independent after Russian revolution

it was flag of the Estonian Governorate within the Russian Empire (1721-1918)

15 million gold rubles

Source (can't link because apparently it's spam):
p. 1145
Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926
By Jonathan D. Smele

Northern Crusade was actually against all of the Baltics.

>Pic related is the old flag of Estonia I think when it was independent after Russian revolution

Nah it's the flag of the Governorate of Est(h)onia, which was a governorate of the Russian Empire in what is now northern Estonia.

>when the revolution happened they offered to help the Bolsheviks in exchange for independence.

Not really, considering the War of Independence was fought against bolsheviks.

Thanks, I wasn't to sure. I knew it was associated with Estonia somehow

YW.

This looks like a poverty ass flag.

it looks sh t i agree tho its russian not estonian.

They have unique culture.

One of the last pagans in Europe.
Estonia and Latvia were conquered in the 13th century by Northern German crusaders. The local populations were then enslaved (or "enserfed", but it doesn't matter much). The Livonian Order ruled the land together with various Bishoprics. Denmark also ruled northern Estonia until selling it to the Livonian Order in the 14th century.
While their goal was christianisation, this never happened and the peasants retained their pagan traditions until the 18th century, when the Moravian Church arose.

In the early 16th century the reformation happened, and the local German nobles adopted Lutheranism. Estonia and Latvia are nominally Lutheran to this day, although nobody is religious.
Then, in the 16th the Livonian War happened, and ultimately Sweden got Northern Estonia.
Lithuania, in the meantime had had a large empire, and later got in a personal union with Poland, and they together formed Poland-Lithuania. This state got Latvia and southern Estonia. Poland-Lithuania started a counter-reformation, and for this reason Latgale is catholic today.

Later, Sweden conquered all of Estonia and Latvia. Lithuania remained in Poland-Lithuania.

Then, in 1700-1721 the great Northern War happened, Russia conquered Estonia and Latvia. Throughout all this, the original German nobles and landowners had remained, and so had slavery. Peter the Great supported the nobles and gave them special rights. The Swedish king right before this war was on his way to ending slavery, but the war sadly ended that.

Then, in the late 18th century, the partitions of Poland-Lithuania happened and Russia got Lithuania. Lithuania never got any special rights like the Baltic provinces of Estonia, Livonia and Curonia did.

In the 19th century the national movements began, and the first Baltic German Estophiles and Lettophiles arose This played a large part in the modern culture of Estonia and Latvia.
(cont)

In 1918, with the Brest-Litovsk treaty, Germany occupied Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and created client states here.

Before the occupation began, and after the Russian imperial forces left, Estonia declared independence.

After the Germans left in November of 1918, the communists had come to power in Russia, and wanted to conquer Estonia and Latvia.
Estonia was a bit more succesful, driving out the communists by 1919. Latvia had a bit more trouble, and we went to help them. The Landeswehr, an army of the local German nobles arose in Northern Latvia, and the newly created Republic of Latvia, and the Estonian army fought with them, eventually winning. Latvia also had a bit of trouble with communists.
Eventually we won and gained independence, and a few territories that were lost after WW2.

Lithuania on the other hand had a war with Poland, and lost Vilnius. They managed to conquer Memel/Klaipėda though, which was originally meant to be a free city like Danzig.

Also, slavery had technically ended in the 1810s/1820s nominally, but actually persisted on until 1861, when it was abolished all over Russia. There was even an uprising in 1858 in Estonia, where a lot of manors were burnt down.

Speaking of uprising, we had quite a few. In 1343, a lot of Germans were killed, and a lot of manors burnt down. But sadly our kings were murdered and the uprising failed.

We look towards the Swedish times the best. The Swedish king really wanted to end slavery, but sadly time ran out.

Now, you might ask, why don't we hate Germans? This is because of WW2. Our hate flipped around. Previously, we had liked the Russians for ending slavery. But what they did in WW2 was just horrifyingly disgusting. The Germans behaved like civilised people, and gained a lot of respect amongst the peasantry.

lost territory, which Russia will never give back, and is still occupying

Now, why weren't we Germanified and still have our cultures?
The amount of Germans that came here wasn't as big as in Prussia. And we were a bit further away.
If more Germans had came here, we would be speaking German. Lithuania would still speak Lithuanian though, probably.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limitrophe_states wtf is this guys