THE BALTIC WAY
THE SOVIET STORY of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania begins in August 1939. German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov came together to sign the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which granted their respective countries partitioning and annexation power over several Eastern European nations. Nazi Germany split Poland with the Soviets, and the Baltic states went to the USSR.
Decades of brutal Soviet rule would follow. On the 50th anniversary of the pact’s signing, the nationalist movements of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania decided to issue a collective call for independence. They organized the Baltic Way—a continuous human chain comprised of 2 million people, spanning 675 kilometers, traversing the three nations in a display of solidarity and
