Dirva = Field. [volume] (Cleveland, Ohio) 1915-current, 1948-08-20
$500 SUPERIOR AVE.
BY ALFRED BILMANIS
Latvian Minister, in the USA

Latvian Minister, in the UsA
I'm Memory of the Injustices done
to the Baltic Nations)
THE Baltic Problem is not the
result either of the First or the
Second World War; it is an old
international one, as old as the pro-
blem of the Danish Straits, of the
river Rhine on the French h-German
frontier, the Dardanelles, etc. There
fore in almost all great European
Wars the Baltic has been the bat
tlefield for the great contesting par
ties of world politics and conflict
ing ideologies.
During the last 4C00 years many
a great power has vanished, but
not the Balts who were forged in
to one area of Baltic culture and
Baltic civilization, characterized by
such we'll known expressions as:
the East Baltic Race, the Baltic
Languages, Baltic Popular Arts,
Baltic Folklore, Baltic Peoples, Bal
tic Nations, Baltic States and the
Baltic Entente. This community
is as regional as that of the peo-
pie of the Scandinavian area, and
parallel with such other cultural
political phenomena as the Latins,
Latin-Americans, Anglo-Saxons, the
Slavs, etc.
Standing guard over Western ci-
vilization at their outpost, the Bal
tic peoples have carried out their
mission heroically. That is why the
future should be shaped not as the
future of some small national mi
norities, but the Balts slough be
treated as nations in their own right
and according to their role in the
past and their potential Importance
in the new world growing out of
the chaos Of the postwar ideologies.
Their role as the dividing line Of
Western and Eurasian civilizations
and as a bridge between Western
Europe and Russia has not yet end
ed. The Baltic regional security
group is as necessary as the Sean
dinavian, or there will be no secur-
ity at all for Europe.
1t has often been said that the
Baltic States have common fate.
This is undoubtedly true, because
they share certain basic geographic
cal peculiarities whose influence up
on their several histories has been
and remains the same for each.
They are situated together in the
area known as North Central Eu-
rope. Geographically it would be
wrong to say Eastern Europe,
seeing that the Longitude 250 E of
which mark the East
West center of the European Con-
tinent, passes right through the su-
burbs of Tallin in Estonia, the very
heart of Latvia, and Eastern Lith-
uania.
The geographic sector of Europe
in which the Scandinavian Countries
and Finland and the three Central
Baltic States - Estonia, Latvia and
are situated, has been
designated by the Swedish geograp-
her Sten de Ceer as "Balto-Scan-
dia", because the topography of this
sector displays the same morainal
nature. The center of this section
occupies the Baltic Sea around which
Danes, Swedes, Firms, Ests, Lat
vians, Lithuanians, Prussians and the
Poles had settled since time imme-
mortal.
Their countries comprise thousand
or more of lakes, glacial residues,
peat marshes; the rolling rills Of
the Baltic shores are covered with
fir and pine trees, and the ordic
birch is as often to be met in the
Baltic as in Scandinavia Similarity
to the Scandinavian, the Baltic ri
vers flow into the Baltic Sea = all
of which would make the Baltic coun-
tries belong to the extended Scan
dnavia Major, from a strictly topo-
graphical point of view. Moreover,
the Baltic Sea as the Mediterranean
of Northern Europe holds together