|
Singing Revolution
The Singing Revolution was a series of events from 1987 to 1991 that led to the restoration of independence of the three Soviet-occupied Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania at the end of the Cold War. The term was coined by an Estonian activist and artist, Heinz Valk, in an article published a week after the 10–11 June 1988 spontaneous mass evening singing demonstrations at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds. Background During World War II, the three Baltic countries were invaded and occupied by the Stalinist Soviet Union in June 1940, and formally annexed into the USSR in August 1940. Following the Nazi German occupation in 1941–1944/45, the three countries were reconquered by the Soviet army in 1944–1945. In 1985, the last leader of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev introduced ''glasnost'' ("openness") and ''perestroika'' ("restructuring"), hoping to stimulate the failing Soviet economy and encourage productivity, particularly in the a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baltic States
The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea are sometimes referred to as the "Baltic nations", less often and in historical circumstances also as the "Baltic republics", the "Baltic lands", or simply the Baltics. The term "Balticum" is sometimes used to describe the region comprising the three states; see e.g All three Baltic countries are classified as World Bank high-income economy, high-income economies by the World Bank and maintain a very high Human Development Index. The three governments engage in intergovernmental and parliamentary cooperation. There is also frequent cooperation in foreign and security policy, defence, energy, and transportation. Etymology The term ''Baltic'' stems from the name of the Baltic Sea – a hydronym dating back to at least ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active and professed refusal of a citizenship, citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders, or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hence, civil disobedience is sometimes equated with peaceful protests or nonviolent resistance. Henry David Thoreau's essay ''Resistance to Civil Government'', first published in 1849 and then published posthumously in 1866 as ''Civil Disobedience (Thoreau), Civil Disobedience'', popularized the term in the US, although the concept itself was practiced long before this work. Various forms of civil disobedience have been used by prominent activists, such as Women's suffrage in the United States, American women's suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony in the late 19th century, Egyptian nationalist Saad Zaghloul during the 1910s, and Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi in 1920s British Raj, British India as part of his leadership of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Estonian National Independence Party
The Estonian National Independence Party, or ENIP, (, ''ERSP''), founded on 20 August 1988 in Estonian SSR, was the first non-communist political party established in the former USSR. Founders of the party were nationalist and anti-communist dissidents. The initiative to establish the Estonian independentist party came from Vello Väärtnõu, the leader of a local Buddhist group. On 30 January 1988 he organized a press conference in Moscow for Western media where he announced plans for the formation of the party, with the aim to restore the fully independent Republic of Estonia as a nation state on the State continuity of the Baltic states, restitution principle. This made the ENIP the most radical or political movement of its day. Väärtnõu and several fellow Buddhists were expelled from the Soviet Union shortly after the press conference. ENIP was officially founded in August 1988 in the village of Pilistvere in central Estonia.(Simons, Westerlund. "Religion, Politics and Nati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MRP-AEG
The MRP-AEG (, the Estonian Group on Publication of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) was an organisation active in 1987–1988 which aimed to publish the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact, together with its secret protocols, and liquidation of its consequences. MRP-AEG was set up on 15 August 1987 by Lagle Parek, Erik Udam, Tiit Madisson and others. On 23 August 1987, the 48th anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the group held a public meeting in Hirvepark, Tallinn (generally called the Hirvepark meeting). The group published its informational bulletin (MRP-AEG Bulletin ()) through samizdat Samizdat (, , ) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual rep ..., and led to establishment of the ERSP. Copies of the bulletin have been published in book form by the SE&JS publishing company in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Congress Of Estonia
The Congress of Estonia (Estonian: ''Eesti Kongress'') was a grassroots parliament elected in February 1990 in then Soviet-occupied Estonia and actively participating in the popular nonviolent resistance to the Soviet rule, which resulted in the restoration of the country's independence from the Soviet Union in August 1991. In September 1991, a Constitutional Assembly was formed with half of its members elected from the Congress of Estonia to write a new constitution. The new Constitution of Estonia was approved by the referendum in June 1992, and the Congress dissolved itself in October 1992, once the freshly elected parliament of Estonia (''Riigikogu'') had been sworn in. Activity After the Congress had been elected in February 1990 (in the first democratic nationwide elections held in Estonia since 1930s) it immediately posed a challenge to the authority of the other quasi-parliament in the country, the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR (which was elected in March 1990). T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Estonian Citizens' Committee
The Estonian Citizens' Committees () was a nonpartisan political movement in Estonia, founded in 1989–1990, which had as its purpose the creation of power structures in order to restore the Republic of Estonia on the basis of legal continuity by * registration of citizens of the Republic of Estonia, * carrying out the elections of the Congress of Estonia, and * convening the Congress of Estonia as a legislative body representing the citizens. The first call for setting up these committees was made on February 24, 1989, – the 71st anniversary of the Republic's declaration of independence in 1918 – during a meeting of representatives of the Estonian Heritage Society, the Estonian National Independence Party ERSP, and the Estonian Christian Alliance. Legally, the initiative centered on the prewar constitution of 1938 of independent Estonia, which postulated that the Estonian people were invested with the highest level of power in the country. All legitime citizens, who r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Popular Front Of Estonia
The Popular Front of Estonia (; RR), introduced to the public by the Estonian politician Edgar Savisaar under the short-lived name Popular Front for the Support of Perestroika, was a political organisation in Estonia in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Edgar Savisaar introduced the idea of popular front during a TV show on 13 April 1988. The idea was developed through the year and finally The Estonian Popular Front was established on 1 October 1988 with a massively crowded congress which turned to a culmination of the first phase of the Singing Revolution. It was to a significant degree the precursor to the current Estonian Centre Party, although with a much broader base of popularity at the beginning. History The Popular Front of Estonia was a major force in the Estonian independence movement that led to the re-establishment of the Republic of Estonia as a country independent from the Soviet Union. It was similar to the Popular Front of Latvia and the Sąjūdis movement i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lithuania
Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and the Russian exclave, semi-exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest, with a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Sweden to the west. Lithuania covers an area of , with a population of 2.89 million. Its capital and largest city is Vilnius; other major cities include Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai and Panevėžys. Lithuanians who are the titular nation and form the majority of the country's population, belong to the ethnolinguistic group of Balts and speak Lithuanian language, Lithuanian. For millennia, the southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Balts, Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, Lithuanian lands were united for the first time by Mindaugas, who formed the Kingdom of Lithuania on 6 July ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latvia
Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to the southeast, and shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Sweden to the west. Latvia covers an area of , with a population of 1.9million. The country has a Temperate climate, temperate seasonal climate. Its capital and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city is Riga. Latvians, who are the titular nation and comprise 65.5% of the country's population, belong to the ethnolinguistic group of the Balts and speak Latvian language, Latvian. Russians in Latvia, Russians are the most prominent minority in the country, at almost a quarter of the population; 37.7% of the population speak Russian language, Russian as their native tongue. After centuries of State of the Teutonic Order, Teutonic, Swedish Livonia, Swedish, Inflanty Voi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Estonia
Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Russia. The territory of Estonia consists of the mainland, the larger islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, and over 2,300 other islands and islets on the east coast of the Baltic Sea. Its capital Tallinn and Tartu are the two largest List of cities and towns in Estonia, urban areas. The Estonian language is the official language and the first language of the Estonians, majority of its population of nearly 1.4 million. Estonia is one of the least populous members of the European Union and NATO. Present-day Estonia has been inhabited since at least 9,000 BC. The Ancient Estonia#Early Middle Ages, medieval indigenous population of Estonia was one of the last pagan civilisations in Europe to adopt Christianity following the Northern Crusades in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multi-party Democracy
In political science, a multi-party system is a political system where more than two meaningfully-distinct political parties regularly run for office and win elections. Multi-party systems tend to be more common in countries using proportional representation compared to those using winner-take-all elections, a result known as Duverger's law. In these countries, usually no single party has a parliamentary majority by itself (hung parliaments). Instead, multiple political parties must negotiate to form a coalition with a majority of the vote, in order to make substantial changes. Comparisons with other party systems Unlike a one-party system (or a dominant-party system), a multi-party system encourages the general constituency to form multiple distinct, officially recognized groups, generally called political parties. Each party competes for votes from the enfranchised constituents (those allowed to vote). A multi-party system prevents the leadership of a single party from con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold War (1985–1991)
The time period of around 1985–1991 marked the final period of the Cold War. It was characterized by systemic reform within the Soviet Union, the easing of geopolitical tensions between the Soviet-led bloc and the United States-led bloc, the collapse of the Soviet Union's influence in Eastern Europe, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The beginning of this period is marked by the ascent of Mikhail Gorbachev to the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Seeking to bring an end to the economic stagnation associated with the Brezhnev Era, Gorbachev initiated economic reforms (''perestroika''), and political liberalization ('' glasnost''). While the exact end date of the Cold War is debated among historians, it is generally agreed upon that the implementation of nuclear and conventional arms control agreements, the withdrawal of Soviet military forces from Afghanistan and Eastern Europe, and the collapse of the Soviet Union ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
