Hong Kong brings Korea's attention to Baltic States' 1989 protest
Demonstrators with the national flags of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania lock hands during the Baltic Way campaign against the Soviet occupation on Aug. 23, 1989. / Embassy of Latvia
By Yi Whan-woo
The Baltic Way, a major anti-Soviet protest in 1989, is bringing attention in Korea where people in general have little knowledge about the Baltic States — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — and their history.
This is partly because the protest marked its anniversary on Aug. 23, three decades after nearly 2 million people linked hands and formed a chain spanning 670 kilometers across the capitals of the three Baltic States.
To a great extent, this is also because pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, one of Korea’s key trading partners and popular travel destinations, mobilized a fresh demonstration inspired by the Baltic Way last week.
Baltic Way-inspired demonstrators link hands at Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront in Hong Kong on the 30th anniversary of the anti-Soviet protest on Aug. 23. / AP-Yonhap
Korean media outlets covered the news of hundreds of thousands of demonstrators creating a 40-kilometer human chain along Hong Kong’s main train lines on Aug. 23.
The participants braced for another protest, one of many since June, triggered by a controversial extradition bill and fear that it would place Asia’s financial hub further under the thumb of China’s single-party state.
Coincidentally, the Embassy of Latvia in Korea is planning a celebration on Sept. 2 for the 30th anniversary of the Baltic Way.
Being the only Baltic nation to have an embassy in Korea, Latvia’s commemoration is to raise awareness in Korea of the peaceful pro-independence movement that helped in bringing down the Soviet Union in 1991.
The commemoration at the embassy will consist of welcoming remarks by Ambassador Peteris Vaivars, an introductory presentation on the Baltic Way, the screening of a documentary “The Baltic Freedom Way” and talks with representatives from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
“The 670-kilometer-long live human chain was the peak in a series of manifestations during the Awakening or the Independence Movement of the Baltic States,” the embassy said in a press release last week.
The Baltic Way was promoted on the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a secret non-aggression deal between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany that divided Central and Eastern Europe into respective “spheres of influence.”
The 1939 agreement also led the Baltic States to be incorporated into the USSR, following their short-lived independence from the Russian Empire in 1918 and brief annexation by the Nazis afterwards.
Lithuanians join hands during a commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Baltic Way at Cathedral Square in Vilnius, Lithuania, Aug. 23. / AP-Yonhap
On Aug. 23, 1989, people of the Baltics took to the streets, linked hands, flew their banned national flags decorated with mourning ribbons, burned the flags of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and demanded the cessation of the half-century-long Soviet occupation, colonization, Russification and communist genocide.
The human chain was witnessed later in other Soviet-occupied regions, including Kishinev in Moldova, Lviv and Kyiv in Ukraine, and was followed by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, the fall of the Ceausescu regime in Romania and the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.
Estiona had independence restored in 1990 and Latvia and Lithuania in 1991, respectively.
The Embassy of Latvia in Korea called the Baltic Way “one of the most unique expressions of non-violent protest the world had ever seen.”
“The Baltic Way was a significant step towards regaining the national independence of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and a source of inspiration for other regional independence movements,” it said.
In 2009, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognized the historical value of documents on the Baltic Way and added them to the Memory of the World Register.