Estonia

Why did so many people invade this country? There's nothing of value here. Also, how did the people survive as an independent culture?

Also, who are the Latvians? I thought maybe the Latgalians or something were the direct ancestors of the Latvian people, but apparently all of these people were distinct groups who spoke distinct languages.

Controls the south of the Gulf of Finland bottleneck, so if you got a naval presence there you can cuck St. Petersburg from shipping.

Why would you need to cuck St. Petersburg before 1700? Denmark, Germany, Poland, Russia, and Sweden all tried to invade before St. Petersburg was a thing. And even as far as bottlenecks go, Estonia seems like an anomaly. Finland doesn't nearly get as much attention. Even Thrace has had more stability despite being far more lucrative.

A mainland country on the border of teutonia, Scandinavia, mainland Europe, powers such as Russia and poland-lith. The edge of hanseatic league, etc. Weak peripheral. Also speaks finn-uralic language rather then continental language group/family. Unique in such except for huns as well.

Also edge of cimbri. Location. Topography

To use geopol, its a hinge or pivot.

...

It's a buffer state between empires. First between Russian and the Swedish empires and then between German and Soviet empires

Look at your own map. Notice that the Neva river ending where St. Petersburg is today connects to a massive lake and river system that spans western Russia, and is the only sea access for it.

Finland isn't as attractive for southern invaders since you'd need to cross a body of water. Reminder that during the time that Swedish and Russian empires were the major powers in the area both did end up conquering Finland.

Trade.
Taxes.
Control.
Saint Petersburg was a trading hub center location place.
If Russia and eastern Europe wished to trade with rest of western Europe and world, they'd either had to go through Byzantines or Ottomans, then piracy filled Mediterranean, then pass through pillars of Hercules, then stormy waters of northern Iberia whatever that's called.
Or you could go west through gulf of Finland and get immediate trade access to all of northern shores of Europe.

The surrounding powers were intimidated, so they launched a series of pre-emptive strikes. Estonians have the power of living in the present which granted them the ability to tap into unheard of spiritual energies. Though small in number, this would allow Estonians to dominate Eastern Europe if left unchecked.

Behold the power of Finnic magic!

>controlling trade routes of cyka blyats who are hardly intelligent enough to grow their own food

please, as if that's the reason all of europe's powers would die on the hilly battlefields of Estonia

Furs and slaves were big business back then.
American's today don't seem to have a problem dying on the dusty battlefields of middle east

>slavery in 17th century Europe
>thinking that smelly furs are anywhere near comparable to black gold

pseuds get out

Control of Baltic trade, particularly the amber reserves in Estonia. Amber in the middle ages was considered a gemstone in northern Europe.

"Smelly furs" were the lifeblood of Canadian and north american colonists. They were worth quite a bit back in the day

>lifeblood of a backwater even more impoverished than Russia before they learned industry

PSEUDS GET OUT REEEEEEEEEEEE YOU CANNOT DENY THE POWER OF EESTI

Yes there was slavery in 17th century Europe especially in russia

There was serfdom, but not slavery. Nobody was exporting slaves from Russia to other places. Nobody was importing slaves into Russia.

Linguistic differences still exist between those regions albeit not many.

The uniting factors were similar culture, language, religious traditions as well as differences between these tribes and the ones surrounding them.

Actual effort to unite these groups under a single Latvian name only began in the 19th century.

Ah, that's pretty interesting. So it's like a France situation regarding the north v. south.

More questions: what group had the most influence on Latvian? Why didn't Latvian and Lithuanian merge together as a nationality?

Even further out now: why is Lithuania so small now despite once being a large and powerful country? Surely there'd be more ethnic Lithuanians.

Tree from Riga was enormously important. They were one of the only supplies of mast-tree in Europe.

Estonia is a very strategic place for controlling that trade, especially the island Ösel.

Comparitevely with Lithuanian the Latvian language as it is spoken today was heavily influenced by the German language. This is a consequence of the Northern crusades of 1200's. Rīga, Cēsis, among many other modern Latvian cities, were originally founded by German settlers. Modern Latvian is basically a weird blending of Baltic syntax and various loanwords.

To be fair, the enthic Lithuanian borders have mostly been the same size throughout the last 1000 years. The Lithuanian state (Duchy of Lithuania) however has variously expanded and shrunk in different times, incorporating various other (Russian, Belarussian and Ukrainian) principalities.

Supposedly Latgalians had the most influence but there aren't many sources available regarding the pre-christian period in this region. Latvian as we know it today became more standardized with the creation of a Latvian identity led by the "Young Latvians". At this point the language had been influenced heavily by German, Russian and even Swedish.

I'm not sure Latvian and Lithuanian tribes would ever merge into a single nationality but the real deciding factor was the subjugation of the Latvian tribes while the Lithuanian tribes managed to defend themselves and form their own state.

Turks enslaved slavs and other Russians until the 19th century.

slavs and Russians*

"Serfdom" literally means slavery (servus). Actually it's even worse because they're tied to a land, not to a person/family.

But they're white. Whites can't be slaves and insinuating otherwise undermines the struggles of colored folk worldwide.

Said no one ever.