Turning towards the inland sea? Swedish ’soft diplomacy‘ towards the Baltic Soviet republics before independence

ABSTRACT

The period of relative openness in the Soviet Union from the mid 1980s provided an opportunity for Sweden to establish contacts with the neighbouring Baltic Soviet republics. The political situation on both sides did not allow any direct diplomatic relations, and all endeavours had to be taken with utmost care. While modest at first, even programmatically so, these initiatives served to establish links with the independence movements in the Baltic republics. Besides the Local consular branch of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in Leningrad, often acting without clear instructions from Stockholm, the Swedish government preferred to channel its first contacts with the Baltic republics through its primary institution for cultural and public diplomacy, the Swedish Institute (SI), later supplanted in this role by the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA). In their low profile, these activities can be analysed as early examples of the ‘soft diplomacy’ which have characterized later Baltic-Nordic ‘new regionalism.’. Drawing upon archival materials of the SI, the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and interviews with key actors, this article shows how Swedish outreach to the Baltic republics was probed by Swedish diplomacy under considerable uncertainty of the development in the Eastern Baltic Sea region.

KEYWORDS:

• Baltic republics
• soft diplomacy
• Soviet Union
• Sweden
• Swedish Institute

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Mikael af Malmborg, Neutrality and statebuilding in Sweden; Bjereld and Ekengren, “Cold War Historiography in Sweden,” 143–175; Bjereld, Johansson and Molin, Sveriges säkerhet och världens fred; Glover, “Neutrality Unbound.”

2. Makko, Ambassadors of Realpolitik; for a discussion, see also Mart Kuldkepp’s contribution to this special issue.

3. Halliday, The Making of the Second Cold War; Dalby, Creating the Second Cold War; see also discussion in Bandeiraand Alberto, The Second Cold War Geopolitics and the Strategic Dimensions of the USA.

4. Agrell, ”Strategisk förändring och svensk-sovjetiska konflikter i Östersjöområdet efter 1945,” 217–233, 293.

5. Tunander, Cold Water Politics; Holmström, Den dolda alliansen.

6. In the text, the concept of the ‘Baltic republics’ refers to the three Soviet republics, while the concept of the ‘Baltic states’ refers to the independent Baltic countries. See e.g. Samuelsson, Svensk syn på Baltikums frigörelse 1988–1996.

7. Schori, Minnet och elden: En politisk memoar med samtida synpunkter, 426.

8. email information (2017–06–20), from Bengt T. Ohlsson, secretary October 1986 – October 1988 for the Swedish Social Democratic group in the Nordic Council. Ohlsson remembers that the group was utterly restrictive in any statement related to foreign policy – in particular questions on security policy and relations to the Soviet Union. ’The Finnish reservation’ was still valid. There was evidently a consensus in the Council not to endanger Finland’s sensitive relation to Soviet Estonia and the Soviet Union. But already in September 1989 the former prime minister of Denmark Anker Jørgensen suggested a small group of MP’s from the Nordic Council to visit Moscow and the Baltic capitals in October 1990. Representatives from the Baltic republics participated in the Nordic Councils’ 39^th session in Copenhagen at the end of February 1991. Nordiskt samarbete [https://www.norden.org/sv/information/nordiska-radets-historia]. The efforts of the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers from 1989 to independence are presented in Kharkina, From Kinship to Global Brand.The Discourse on Culture in Nordic Cooperation after World War II, 81–88.

9. Küng, Estland vaknar; Nilsson, Den moraliska stormakten: En studie av socialdemokratins internationella aktivism; Küng, Ett liv för Baltikum: Journalistiska memoarer, for the extent of Swedish Baltic outreach, see Eduards, Sveriges stöd till de baltiska ländernas omvandling 1990–2003; for witness reports on Swedish views at the time, see Lundén and Nilsson, eds., Sverige och Baltikums frigörelse.

10. For further details, see Fredén, Förvandlingar: Baltikums frigörelse och svensk diplomati 1989–1991; Ahlander, Spelet om Baltikum; see also Mart Kuldkepp’s contribution to this special issue.

11. Cf. Ritvanen in this special issue, see also Rausmaa which covers similar – if even lower key – policies in Finland to engage with Estonia using cultural policies through the Ministry of Education. Rausmaa, Kyllä kulttuurin nimissä voi harrastella aika paljon. Suomen ja Viron poliittiset suhteet keväästä 1988 diplomaattisuhteiden solmimiseen elokuussa 1991.

12. The literature on new regionalism is vast. Key texts include Joenniemi, ed., Cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region; Joenniemi, ed., Neo-Nationalism or Regionality: The Restructuring of Political Space around the Baltic Rim; Fredrik Söderbaum and Timothy M. Shaw, eds., Theories of New Regionalism; Hettne, “Beyond the ‘New’ Regionalism,” 543–571; and Warleigh-Lack, Robinson and Rosamond, eds., New Regionalism and the European Union: Dialogues, Comparisons and New Research Directions.

13. For the role in using exchange programmes as an instrument of soft power, see Medalis, “The Strength of Soft Power: American Cultural Diplomacy and the Fulbright Program during the 1989–1991 Transition Period in Hungary,” 144–163.

14. For his pioneering and highly influential account of the concept, see Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics; references on p. 8, 13, 17. See also James Pamment’s overview in Pamment, “Introduction: New Dimensions in the Politics of Image and Aid”, 1–22.

15. Cull, “Public Diplomacy: Taxonomies and Histories,” 31–54.

16. Lindblom, “Still Muddling, Not Yet Through,” 517–526.

17. A study on Swedish public diplomacy, a case study on the Swedish Institute, and focusing on how its public policy has changed over time, is concentrated on the time period after 1991, but contains flashbacks based on interviews with Hans Peter Lepp and Thomas Lundén: Åström, Svensk offentlig diplomati i förändring. En fallstudie om Svenska insitutet.

18. Carlgren, Sverige och Baltikum: Från mellankrigstid till efterkrigsår: En översikt, 59–69.

19. Ibid., 70–84.

20. Runblom, “Baltutlämningen: Aktörer och beslutsfattare,” 87–93; Byström, Utmaningen: Den svenska välfärdsstatens möte med flyktingar i andra världskrigets tid; and Notini Burch, A Cold War Pursuit: Soviet Refugees in Sweden, 1945–54.

21. Oredsson, Offentlig fruktan i Sverige under 1900-talets första hälft; Aunesluoma, Britain, Sweden and the Cold War 1945–54 Understanding Neutrality; Ericson Wolke, “Exodus och underrättelseinhämtning: Det svenska försvaret och Baltikum, hösten 1943–våren 1945,” 83–127; see also Ininbergs, “Det svenska spionaget i Baltikum 1943–1957: En studie av ett fiasko?”

22. Rebas, “Sverigeesternas politiska verksamhet.”

23. For a good discussion of East-West relations in the Baltic Sea Region during the Cold War, see Fredrik Stöcker, Bridging the Baltic Sea: Networks of Resistance and Opposition during the Cold War Era.

24. The SI was originally formed in 1945 as a joint venture between the Swedish state and private organizations, after 1970 a state organization, formally a foundation under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs based on annual government grants.

25. Hildeman, Upplysningsvis. Svenska institutet 1945–1995, 57–58; Åkerlund, “The Impact of Foreign Policy on Educational Exchange: The Swedish State Scholarship Programme 1938–1990,” 401–402, 405–406; and Åkerlund, “The Slow Reunification of Development Assistance and Public Diplomacy: Exchange and Collaboration Activities Through the Swedish Institute 1973–2012,” 143–167.

26. Loit, “Kulturförbindelser mellan Sverige och Estland efter andra världskriget,” 67–68.

27. Interview with Hans Peter Lepp (2017–09–12).

28. Information sheet from the Baltic Institute, Anders Clason’s arkiv Riksarkivet; see also Loit (1988), 58–59.

29. Fredrik Stöcker, “Cracks in the ‘Iron Curtain’: The Evolution of Political Contacts between Soviet Estonia and the Estonian Emigration in Sweden before Perestroika,” 81.

30. Loit, “Kulturförbindelser mellan Sverige och Estland efter andra världskriget,” 80–81, see also Motion till Riksdagen 1985/86:kr279 Hadar Cars m. fl. (fp).

31. Rebas, “Sverigeesternas politiska verksamhet,” 111.

32. Küng (1991), 153–154; Küng, Ett liv för Baltikum: Journalistiska memoarer, 121.

33. For details, see Fredrik Stöcker, “Paths of Economic ‘Westernization’ in the Late Soviet Union: Estonian Market Pioneers and their Nordic Partners,” 447–476.

34. The Swedish word ‘Baltikum’ (also used in German) stands for the spatial area of the Baltic states without clear delimitation, sometimes (but not here) including the Russian exclave oblast’ of Kaliningrad. It will be used untranslated in this paper. For details, see the discussion in Holt, Stockholms skandinavistsymposium: Två rapporter: ’Hur nordiskt är Baltikum’ och ’Svensk kultur sedd utifrån’.

35. Interview with Dag Sebastian Ahlander (2017–12–09); see also Ahlander, Spelet om Baltikum, 30.

36. Ingegerd Grundstedt, PM 1986–03–01.

37. SI board meeting minutes for September 26, 1985 § 3. Riksarkivet: Svenska institutet: Styrelsprotokoll med bilagor.

38. Interview with Birgitta Dahl and Enn Kokk (2017–12–12); see also Dahl, I rörelse. Minnen från ett innehållsrikt liv, 120–122.

39. Schori, Dokument inifrån: Sverige och storpolitiken i omvälvningarnas tid, 123.

40. Bekeris was responsible for the Swedish handling of the CSCE-process and in an interview in Svensk Tidskrift December 1986 by Levi Mauritzsson, Bekeris was asked if CSCE documents could be used in creating possibilities for the peoples of Baltikum to increase their reach beyond the borders. While pointing to the CSCE as a promotor of confidence, he denied any rapid changes for the better. The acceptance of the CSCE process was inserted into the preamble of the Swedish Institute exchange programmes with the Soviet Union and other states. Mauritzsson, ”Samtal med Ilmar Bekeris,” 471–477.

41. Utrikesdepartementet 1986–03–10, Promemoria 3, Anders Clason’s arkiv Riksarkivet.

42. See note 36 above.

43. Utrikesdepartementet memo concept 1986–05–03, Riksarkivet: Anders Clasons arkiv.

44. SI board meeting minutes for December 4, 1986 § 3. Riksarkivet: Svenska institutet: Styrelsprotokoll med bilagor.

45. My translation. Loit, “Kulturförbindelser mellan Sverige och Estland efter andra världskriget,” 68; Riksarkivet: Svenska Institutet: Avtal med Sovjetunionen.

46. See Hildeman, Upplysningsvis. Svenska institutet 1945–1995, for two insightful studies of the public diplomacy efforts in the context of SI:s institutional history and Swedish foreign and trade policy, see Glover, National relations: Public diplomacy, national identity and the Swedish Institute 1945–1970; and Åkerlund, Public diplomacy and academic mobility in Sweden: The Swedish Institute and scholarship programmes for foreign academics, 1938–2010.

47. SI board minutes, February 3, 1987, attachment 3. Riksarkivet: Svenska institutet: Styrelsprotokoll med bilagor.

48. SI board minutes, August 24, 1987. Riksarkivet: Svenska institutet: Styrelsprotokoll med bilagor.

49. SI board minutes, October 21, 1987. Riksarkivet: Svenska institutet: Styrelsprotokoll med bilagor.

50. SI board minutes, December 9, 1987. Riksarkivet: Svenska institutet: Styrelsprotokoll med bilagor.

51. Thomas Lundén’s notes.

52. Besides the formal meetings, the large Swedish delegation – which included MFA ambassador and SI board member Bo Heinebäck, plus SI heads of division Sonja Martinsson Uppman (culture) and Thomas Lundén (education) – also visited libraries, art institutions, the singer stadium and Tartu University. SI board minutes, February 2, 1989. Svenska institutets arkiv.

53. Lönnell, Kultur-, informations- och akademiskt utbyte med BALTIKUM. The Government Proposition 1994/95, Sveriges samarbete med Central- och Östeuropa mentions that in 1989 the Government iniated a Swedish program for co-operation with Central and Eastern Europe, of one billion Crowns. ‘The progress of the Baltic independence movements opens for a forceful Swedish support.’ SI is mentioned as responsible for expert exchange, cooperation within higher education and research, and cultural contacts. (Regeringens proposition 1994/95:160, 15). In the Proposition 1997/98:70 Att utveckla ett grannlandssamarbete Sveriges utvecklingssamarbete med Central- och Östeuropa år 1999 2001, the first program initiated in the autum of 1989 is mentioned as having its centre of gravity on the development of knowledge, which was judged to have the greatest strategic importance in relation to the amount of money granted.

54. See note 51 above.

55. SI board meeting minutes, April 18, 1989. Svenska institutets arkiv.

56. Sandler’s visit to the Baltic states in 1937 was one of the few indications of a Swedish political interest in the area in the inter-war period. See Lundén, “The dream of a BaltoScandian Federation,” 21–28.

57. Dahl, I rörelse. Minnen från ett innehållsrikt liv, 219–222. See also Dahl’s witness report p. 20–23 in Lundén and Nilsson, eds., Sverige och Baltikums frigörelse.

58. The first beneficiary of these scholarship was Lithuanian archaeologist Vytautas Kazakevicius, Svenska institutet: Forskarstipendienämnden minutes February 27, 1990. The reason for Lithuania being the first republic to make use of the scholarship seems to be the May 17, 1989 Agreement concerning cooperation in the field of science and education between Uppsala university and Vilnius University, which caused SI officer Thomas Lundén to inform Vilnius University in a letter of October 13, 1989 about the new opportunity (copies in SI archive).

59. SI board meeting minutes, October 13, 1989. Svenska institutets arkiv.

60. SI 603. Svenska institutets arkiv.

61. SI 600/30–34. Svenska institutets arkiv.

62. SI board meeting minutes, February 1, 1990; Svenska institutets arkiv. See also Schori’s own account of the aims, background and outcomes of this visit in Schori (1992); Schori (2014).

63. SI, Budget och verksamhetsplan 1990/91 (Budget and Activity Plan 1990/91).

64. Budgetpropositionen 1989/90:100. See also Sveriges stöd till de baltiska ländernas omvandling 1990–2003, Bilaga Statsmakternas riktlinjer, Sida (2004), 130–132.

65. The details of the transfer of money was discussed between BITS represented by Marika Fahlén and SI at a meeting on August 21. SI was asked to request the money with reference to the government letter of June 21. Thomas Lundén’s notes.

66. Horm, Med glimten i ögat, 62.

67. Eduards, Sveriges stöd till de baltiska ländernas omvandling 1990–2003, 19.

68. SI board meeting minutes, August 23, 1990 §4. Svenska institutets arkiv.

69. The protocol was issued in both Swedish and Lithuanian, entitled Protokoll över samtal angående svensk-litauiskt samarbete på kulturområdet i samband med ett besök i Vilnius av en svensk kulturdelegation den September 10–12, 1990.

70. Information to the Swedish delegation after Schori’s speech. Thomas Lundén’s notes.

71. SI research committee minutes, September 20, 1990 §4; see also SI board meeting minutes, November 13, 1990 §5. Svenska institutets arkiv.

72. Krister Wahlbäck, political scientist and diplomat, served in the Swedish Embassy in Helsinki 1986–1991. His book Baltisk Befrielse – Svenska insatser för friheten Stockholm: Jarl Hjalmarson Stiftelsen, 2012 is mainly about the period after the Baltic independence, but, he refers to Finlands particular interest in Estonia, but also to the special concerns in handling official relations to the Soviet Union and to Sovet Estonia. (Wahlbäck, 2012, 16ff). In his witness statement (Lundén & Nilsson, 2008) he refers to a case during Lithuania’s declared independence (of March 11, 1990) where at a meeting prime minister Harri Holkkeri by coincidence was placed next to Lithuania’s Kazimiera Prunskiene, risking to be pictured next to her. The situation was soon remedied, but afterwards, Wahlbäck asked a Finnish colleague from the Foreign Ministry about why the situation was so sensitive. The answer was that a independence of the Baltic states historically never was in Finland’s interest, because of the geopolitical pressure then put on Finland in the Bay of Finland (Lundén & Nilsson, 38f). Fredén (2004, 260) also refers to a Finnish hesitation towards a rapid process towards independence. See also Bergman, ‘Adjacent Internationalism. The Concept of Solidarity and Post-Cold War Nordic-Baltic Relations, Cooperation and Conflict’.

73. Iceland recognized Lithuania’s independence on February 11, 1991.

74. email information (2017–06–20), from Bengt T. Ohlsson then political expert in the MFA. However, Denmark in December 1990 and Sweden in January 1991 allowed Baltic information centres to open in each capital (see e.h. Kharkina, 2013, 79, note 222, based on Must “The Formation of Estonian Diplomacy: the Estonian Foreign Delegation in Stockholm in 1918 and the Estonian Information Office in Stockholm in 1991,” 8. At the same time, the Nordic Council of Ministers opened Information offices in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius (see Kharkina, 2013, 86f).

75. For details of the Danish involvement, please see Lars Grønbjerg’s article in this special issue.

76. SI board meeting minutes, November 13, 1990 §7. Svenska institutets arkiv. The office was eventually not opened until the final independence of Lithuania in 1991 and it was not associated with the SI. The idea was mentioned in the Protocol on Swedish-Lithuanian cooperation within the cultural field signed in Vilnius on September 1990, saying the practical aspects would be studied. The MFA and SI had different ideas about the planned activities, while Lithuania did not except anything else than a diplomatic representation, which was bluntly rejected by Moscow. See Ahlander, Spelet om Baltikum, 230–233.

77. Lundén, Problem med studieutbyte med Baltikum [Problems with studies exchange with Baltikum].

78. Lönnell, Kultur-, informations- och akademiskt utbyte med BALTIKUM.

79. Budgetproposition 1990/91:100, Bil.10, 210.

80. SI, Budget och verksamhetsplan 1991/92 (Budget and Activity Plan 1991/92). Svenska institutets arkiv.

81. SI, Svenska institutets verksamhet i Östeuropa.

82. Slips of incoming mail and telex, Svenska Institutets arkiv.

83. Lundén, Problem med studieutbyte med Baltikum [Problems with studies exchange with Baltikum], 25.

84. Balanced evaluations of the Swedish policy 1986–1991 under conditions of utter uncertainty are made by Fredén (2004, XXII, 241–248) and by Hans Ohlsson and Krister Wahlbäck (in Lundén and Nilsson, Sverige och Baltikums frigörelse).

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Thomas Lundén

Thomas Lundén is emeritus professor of human geography at Södertörn University and former director of its Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, CBEES. His latest book is Pommern - ett gränsfall i tid och rum (Pomerania - a border case in time and space), Lund: Lund University 2016 and his scholarship includes articles in political and social geography, border interaction and the history of geopolitics and Baltic relations, e.g. ‘Geopolitics and religion – a mutual and conflictual relationship. Spatial regulation of creed in the Baltic Sea Region’, International Review of Sociology: Revue Internationale de Sociologie, vol. 25:2, July 2015, 235-251 and ‘Border twin cities in the Baltic Area – Anomalies or Nexuses of Mutual Benefit?’ in Twin Cities Urban Communities, Borders and Relationships over Time, eds John Garrard and Ekaterina Mikhailova, New York & London: Routledge, 2019, 232-245.