Exiles and Constituents: Baltic Refugees and American Cold War Politics, 1948- 1960

This dissertation explores the complicated relations between Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian postwar refugees and American foreign policymakers between 1948 and 1960. There were seemingly shared interests between the parties during the first decade of the Cold War. Generally, Eastern European refugees refused to recognize Soviet hegemony in their homelands, and American policy towards the Soviet bloc during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations sought to undermine the Kremlin’s standing in the region. More specifically, Baltic refugees and State Department officials sought to preserve the 1940 non-recognition policy towards the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States. I propose that despite the seemingly natural convergence of interests, the American experiment of constructing a State-Private network revolving around fostering relations with exile groups was fraught with difficulties. These difficulties ultimately undermined any ability that the United States might have had to liberate the Baltic States from the Soviet Union. As this dissertation demonstrates, Baltic exiles were primarily concerned with preserving a high level of political continuity to the interwar republics under the assumption that they would be able to regain their positions in liberated, democratic societies. American policymakers, however, were primarily concerned with maintaining the non-recognition policy, the framework in which all policy considerations were analyzed. I argue that these two motivating factors created unnecessary tensions in American policy towards the Baltic republics in the spheres of psychological warfare as well as exile unity in the United States and Europe. Despite these shortcomings, I argue that out of the exiles’ failings was born a generation of Baltic constituents that blurred the political legitimacy line between exiles who sought to return home and ethnic Americans who were loyal to the United States. These Baltic constituents played an important role in garnering the support of the United States Congress, starting in the 1950s, but became increasingly influential after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, despite the seemingly less important role Eastern Europe played in the Cold War. The actions of the Baltic constituents not only prevented the Baltic question from being forever lost in the memory hole of history, but actually created enough political pressure on the State Department that it was impossible to alter the long-standing policy of not recognizing the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States.

Kun kumous vie kodin : Suomeen paenneet venäläiset 1917-1927

Marjo Haimila

Das Landgut Monrepos in Finnland. 1804 / von Ludwig Heinrich von Nicolay.

Front.: port. of L. H. v. Nicolay by Auguste Maurin. -- Plates by J. Jacottet illustrating Monrepos and surroundings. -- Ornamented pages. -- Paperback.

Das Landgut Monrepos in Finnland. 1804

Ludwig von Nicolay (1737-1820) oli Strassburgissa syntynyt oppinut, Venäjän hovin kotiopettaja, sittemmin salaneuvos ja Venäjän tiedeakatemian presidentti, tieteen ja taiteen suosija. Von Nicolay hankki itselleen Viipurin lähellä sijaitsevan Monrepos'n kartanon vuonna 1788. Yhdessä erään ystävänsä kanssa hän kokosi kartanoonsa merkittävän, 1700-luvun valistuskulttuuria kuvastavan kirjaston, jonka von Nicolayn jälkeläiset lahjoittivat ensimmäisen maailmansodan aikana Helsingin yliopistolle. Kartanon puistosta von Nicolay kehitti maineikkaan, englantilaistyylisen maisemapuiston. Hän kirjoitti puistosta runoteoksen Das Landgut Monrepos 1804 (St Petersburg 1806), jonka hänen poikansa Paul julkaisi uudelleen vuonna 1840. Tähän teokseen liitettiin ranskalaisen taiteilijan Jean Louis Jacottet'n puistoa esittäviä litografioita, jotka pohjautuivat tanskalaisen Christian Ferdinand Christensenin akvarelleihin.

Das Landgut Monrepos in Finnland. 1804.

Ludwig von Nicolay (1737-1820) oli Strassburgissa syntynyt oppinut, Venäjän hovin kotiopettaja, sittemmin salaneuvos ja Venäjän tiedeakatemian presidentti, tieteen ja taiteen suosija. Von Nicolay hankki itselleen Viipurin lähellä sijaitsevan Monrepos'n kartanon vuonna 1788. Yhdessä erään ystävänsä kanssa hän kokosi kartanoonsa merkittävän, 1700-luvun valistuskulttuuria kuvastavan kirjaston, jonka von Nicolayn jälkeläiset lahjoittivat ensimmäisen maailmansodan aikana Helsingin yliopistolle. Kartanon puistosta von Nicolay kehitti maineikkaan, englantilaistyylisen maisemapuiston. Hän kirjoitti puistosta runoteoksen Das Landgut Monrepos 1804 (St Petersburg 1806), jonka hänen poikansa Paul julkaisi uudelleen vuonna 1840. Tähän teokseen liitettiin ranskalaisen taiteilijan Jean Louis Jacottet'n puistoa esittäviä litografioita, jotka pohjautuivat tanskalaisen Christian Ferdinand Christensenin akvarelleihin.

A northern summer; or travels round the Baltic, through Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Prussia, and part of Germany in the year 1804 : by John Carr, esq.

Dedicated to: James Mackintosh.

Das Landgut Monrepos in Finnland. 1804

Author: Ludwig Heinrich von Nicolay.

„Und frei erklär' ich alle meine Knechte“ : Höflichkeit als Ausdruck sozialer Utopie in Schillers Drama Wilhelm Tell.

My dissertation is an interdisciplinary study of the relationship between the Swiss peasants and nobles in Friedrich Schiller’s play Wilhelm Tell (1804). Changes to this relationship are of particular interest. Communication in the play is examined via a micro-analysis based on Penelope Brown’s and Stephen C. Levinson’s theoretical framework Politeness: Some universals in language usage. (1978, 1987). Brown and Levinson distinguish between positivepoliteness and negative-politeness strategies and their distinction is useful for my argument, since they claim that the use of positive-politeness strategies reflects the speaker’s intention to minimize the distance between the interlocutors (Brown and Levinson 1987: 103). Negative-politeness strategies, by contrast, result in social distancing (Brown and Levinson 1987: 130). In accordance with Brown’s and Levinson’s theory, it can be argued that the distribution of positive-politeness and negative-politeness strategies reflects changes in the distance between the fictional interlocutors as representatives of their social classes in Wilhelm Tell. The analysis of the communication in the play highlights that existing conflicts within the social groups are resolved and replaced with solidarity (cf. ‘Claim ’common ground’ and ‘Claim in-group membership with H’) before the peasants and noblemen appear on stage simultaneously in III, 3. In the scene in question, Geßler forces Tell to shoot the apple off his son’s head. Although both nobles and peasants are present, they do not communicate with each other. Thus, communication between the social classes occurs for the first time in IV, 2. This scene is crucial with regard to the changes in the relationship between the social classes in the play. The younger generation, with Rudenz as a representative of the nobility and Melchthal as a representative of the peasants, break with the prevailing conventions and initiate a new type of cooperation based on mutual helping and equality in the right and the duty to protect the country from the violent oppressors representing Habsburg (cf. ‘Convey that S and H are cooperators’, ‘Claim reflexivity’ and ‘Claim reciprocity’). The linguistic analysis reveals the crucial role of the Swiss nobility in the development of the social utopia, as well as the non-contribution of Wilhelm Tell. In fact, Tell never communicates with the Swiss noblemen. The role of the nobility and the role of Wilhelm Tell are further investigated in a comparison between Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell and four of Schiller’s historical sources. These sources, which contain earlier, non-dramatic versions of the establishment of the Swiss Confederation, are the following: Kronica von der loblichen Eydtgnoschaft compiled by Petermann Etterlin (1507), Gemeiner loblicher Eydgnoschafft Stetten Landen vnd Völckeren Chronik wirdiger thaaten beschreybung (1548) written by Johann Stumpf, Chronicon Helveticum of Aegidius Tschudi (the publication of Iselin from 1734 and 1736) and Johannes von Müller’s Geschichten schweizerischer Eidgenossenschaft (1786). Thecomparison sheds light on the fact that both Tschudi and von Müller emphasize unity among the Swiss and cooperation in their attempt to defeat the enemy. However, Schiller has reinforced the role of the nobility in the cooperation. In addition, the comparison between Schiller’s play and the historical sources reveals profound differences with regard to the role of Wilhelm Tell. In all of Schiller’s sources, Tell is present at Rütli, whereas he is absent from Rütli in Schiller’s play. In the play in general, Tell is conspicuously separated from the other peasants. Explanations of my linguistic results, which correspond to the above mentioned differences between the roles of the figures in Wilhelm Tell and the depictions in Schiller’s sources, are found by comparing the path of Schiller’s Swiss towards an egalitarian perspective with the kind of social evolution depicted by the German philosopher Johann Benjamin Erhard in his essay Über das Recht des Volks zu einer Revolution (1795). Aiming at considering Schiller’s social utopia within the larger cultural framework of the German response to the French Revolution, the comparison suggests that both authors depict the need for social change in terms of a change in social hierarchies (Erhard 1970: 95-96, cf. Foi 2005: 225). Erhard’s essay thus helps explain the political intention of Schiller’s play to keep the ideals of the French Revolution as crucial aims but profoundly change the means towards freedom and equality. In his attempt to claim the political resistance of the nobles and peasants as just, however, Schiller sacrificed the figure of Wilhelm Tell. Guilty of the murder of Geßler, Tell was no longer suitable for the righteous revolution imagined by Schiller (cf. Bloch 2008: 215 and Schulz 2005: 228). This explains Tell’s absence in the Rütli scene, his isolation in the plot, as well as his non-contribution to the social utopia. Together, the linguistic analysis and contextualisation of Schiller’s play support my hypothesis that Wilhelm Tell describes a process of change in the relationship between peasants and nobles. The interdisciplinary approach to the topic proved to be fruitful for all areas of the research involved.