Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T03:49:39.923Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Changes of Ethnic Composition in the Baltic States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Peteris Zvidrinš
Peteris Zvidrinš*
Affiliation:
University of Latvia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The aim of this article is to analyze changes in the ethnic structure in the Baltics. The publication of the results of the 1989 Census data allows one to analyze the dynamics of ethnic structure in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania since the 1920s. The restoration of the de jure independence of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia allows one to describe accurately the factual ethno-demographic situation, because it has made available information which could not be published openly in the former USSR. Nevertheless, a major problem is posed by territorial alterations, especially in Lithuania.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , Fall 1994 , pp. 365 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe and ex-USSR 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. “Lithuanian Nation: Victims and Losses (1940-1954),” Revue Baltique, Vol. 2, No 1 (February 1991),45.Google Scholar

2. A. Stanaitis, P. Adlys. “Lietuvos TSR Gyventojai. Vilnius 1973,” Tiesa (Vilnius), May 26,1989, 100.Google Scholar

3. Peteris Zvidrins. “Changes of Ethnic Structure in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia,” Humanities and Social Sciences, Latvia, 1993 (1), 11.Google Scholar

4. According to some sources, in Lithuania more than 100,000 farmers were deported during the six months of 1948, and up to 120,000 persons, mainly living in towns, in March and June 1949 (Revue Baltique, February 1991, 52).Google Scholar

In Latvia from 1946 until 1953 almost 200,000 people, mostly Latvians, disappeared. It is true, a large part of them returned from the Gulag camps after Stalin's death.Google Scholar

5. Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1991. Washington, 1991,9.Google Scholar

6. Recent Demographic Developments in Europe and North America: 1992. Strasbourg, 1993.Google Scholar

7. Anatol Lieven. The Baltic Revolution. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence, New Haven and London, 1993, 184. The proportion of foreign-born among the non-Latvians in Latvia was 51%, but among the non-Estonians in Estonia it was 61%.Google Scholar

8. Juris Dreifelds. “Immigration and Ethnicity in Latvia,” Journal of Soviet Nationalities, Vol. 1, No. 4, Winter 1990–1991, 57–59.Google Scholar

9. Peteris Zvidrinš, Inta Vanovska. Latviesi: statistiski demografisks portretejums, Riga, 1992, 54; Statistika Aastaraamat, Tallinn, 1993, 79. Between 1980 and 1992 the Latvian proportion of the natural increase in Latvia was only 4%, the percentage for Estonians in Estonia was 18%.Google Scholar

10. Peteris Zvidrinš and Juris Krumins. “Morbidity and Mortality in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the 1980's,” Scandinavian Journal of Social Medicine, Vol. 21, No. 3, 1993, 155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Parming Tonu. “Population Changes in Estonia, 1935–1970,” Population Studies, 26 (March 1972); calculations of the Estonian demographer V. Kaufman, and the author of this paper. Some sources give slightly higher numbers for Estonians in present-day territory of Estonia in 1934: 977,600 (See Rasy i narogy, Moscow, Vol. 21 (1991), 87).Google Scholar

12. Recent Demographic Developments in the Member States of the Council of Europe and Yugoslavia, Strasbourg, 1990.Google Scholar

13. The more diverse the ethnic composition of the state (territory), the higher also the value of the index. See Note 3, pp. 17 and 25.Google Scholar

14. The census identified a multitude of ethnic groups, 128 of which were listed by population. The remaining several hundred ethnic names are applied to the group “other nationalities.”Google Scholar

15. Latvija sodien, Riga: LR VSK, 1990, 19.Google Scholar

16. The proportion of Russians who knew the titular language in 1989: in Alma-Ata—0.6%, in Bishkek—0.6%, in Ashhabad— 1.7%, in Dushanbe—2.3%, in Tashkent—3.5%, etc. (Journal of Soviet Nationalities, Vol. 1, No. 4, 40).Google Scholar

17. In Latvia and Estonia since 1991 the natural increase has been negative. In Latvia in 1993 it reached 12,438, or 5%. The minimal positive natural increase still existed in Lithuania in 1993 (612), but the number of population is also decreasing in this country since 1992. The number of deaths here is exceeding the number of births in 1994.Google Scholar

18. Latvijas statistikas gadagramata 1992, Riga, 1993, 80; National Report on Population: Lithuania. Vilnius, 1994, 25.Google Scholar

19. Lietuvos gyventojai 1992, Vilnius, 1993, 15.Google Scholar