Introduction

Limited scholarship, particularly in other than national languages, has contributed to a situation in which the three Baltic countries are still “terra incognita” for many scholars outside the geographic and cultural region of northeastern Europe. Because of their peripheral location and cultural marginality, it is not surprising that even today in international contexts these countries are often represented in a rather mystified, mysterious, sometimes romantic way.

From the Western point of view, the Baltic countries have often represented the East, whereas for the East these countries seemed to be part of the West. This duality in interpretations, combined with the geopolitical, cultural, and linguistic marginality of the Baltic states, has contributed to the development of a certain rhetoric of intellectual preservation and self-realization (Hoyer et al., 1993; Lieven, 1994).