In the end all roads lead to the sea.

Lora Beloivan

The sea connects the countries that it separates.

Alexander Pope

The sea is a mystery per se. It is where the world of the living meets the world of the dead.

Koji Suzuki

Ancient geographers gave the name of Oceanus Sarmaticus (Sarmatian Ocean) to the boundless expanse of sea to the north of the inhabited world. The name was related to numerous and diverse barbarian tribes — the Sarmatians. That view of the future Baltics as a severe wild world, the origin of various cruel peoples, was long-lived. In the early Middle Ages, the land in the north, beyond the sea, was called vagina nationum — ‘the womb of nations’. The Goths, whose expansion ended the rule of the great Roman Empire, came to Europe from the north. From there the Vikings arrived, who shook the world with their raids in 8th—11th centuries and participated in the creation of a number of future European countries from England to Rus’.

In 1075–1080 Adam of Bremen first called that sea Baltic in his History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen (...) Christian missionaries and crusaders came to replace the Vikings. The 12th and 13th centuries saw the dramatic northern crusades, leading to the conquer of the Baltic and Finnish tribes who had lived there from the earliest times, and the establishment of the Swedish Kingdom and the Teutonic Order. They moved eastward in the endevour to test the limits of their advance. The force to stop them would be the Novgorodians, who penetrated the region from the other side by spreading Orthodoxy among Karelian tribes and developing the basin of the Neva, Lake Ladoga, and the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland. Symbolic of the Rusian advance into the Baltics was the foundation by Yaroslav the Wise of the Yuryev fortress at the Emajõgi River (future Dorpat, Tartu) in 1030.

The struggle for the Baltic coasts unfolded in the 13th century. The cross and swords decided the nations’ destiny. By the 14th century, the areas of control of the Teutonic Order, the Swedish Kingdom, and the Novgorodian Land were more or less certain. When the level of military confrontation reduced, the new factor — the trade — began to influence the region development. The Hansa came. The traders proved to be stronger than warriors. According to some scholars, the peculiar Baltic world-economy was created in the 15th century, i.e. the triangle «Livonia — Veliky Novgorod — Pskov». The time of military orders came to end, leaving behind the idea of crusades. All pagans were christened, all borders defined. The Teutonic Order lost its meaning, while the role of commercial towns was growing. After the defeat of the Prussian branch of the Teutonic Order by the Kingdom of Poland in 1525 and the subsequent secularization of the Order, the Duchy of Prussia became the Polish king’s vassal. Only Livonia — rich, but small and weak in comparison to the power-gaining Scandinavian and East European states — remained from what used to be the German ‘lord of the Baltics’.

Politics hate vacuum, and while some actors become weak, others enter the historical scene. In 16th century, new forces started ‘the war of the Livonian succession’ — the partition of Livonia between stronger enemies. They were Sweden, which in 1523 gained independence from the Kalmar Union (formed by Denmark, Norway and Sweden in 1397), the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in union with the Kingdom of Poland, and the Tsardom of Rus, which annexed Veliky Novgorod (1471) and Pskov (1510). Denmark also wanted its share of the ‘Baltic cake’, seeking compensation for the lost territories after the end of the Kalmar Union, as did the Holy Roman Empire, which considered Livonia to be its province. Similar processes — the forced annexation of ministates to major monarchies — took place in Europe in 15th—16th centuries (e.g., the Italian wars of 1494–1559). The Livonian war of 1558–1583 (the conventional name for a series of Baltic wars of the second half of 16th century) took place in the Baltic region. The Baltic world’s appearance changed. Following the dissolution of the Teutonic Order (1561), the merger of Lithuania and Poland into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569), Russia’s partial loss of the Baltics by 1581, the Swedish kingdom established its dominance in the region for almost 80 years. By the Treaty of Stolbovo of 1617, Russia lost the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland and the Neva estuary. The new page in the Baltic world’s history would open only in the early 18th century when Russia would triumphantly return to the Baltic coasts in the times of Peter the Great.

We welcome you, dear readers, on the virtual tour about the Baltic places of memory.