Table Of ContentBridging the Baltic Sea
THE HARVARD COLD WAR STUDIES BOOK SERIES
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Bridging the Baltic Sea: Networks of Resistance and Opposition during the
Cold War Era
Lars Fredrik Stöcker
Bridging the Baltic Sea
Networks of Resistance and
Opposition during the
Cold War Era
Lars Fredrik Stöcker
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Contents
Preface vii
Introduction xi
Abbreviations xxvii
1 Entangled Histories in Northeastern Europe 1
2 The Topography of Resistance and Opposition around the
Baltic Rim, 1939–1949 21
3 “Cold Warfare” at the Edge of the Iron Curtain 67
4 In Search of a Common Language 121
5 The Transnationalization of Opposition around the Baltic Rim 161
6 From Individual to Mass-Based Opposition 211
Conclusion 283
Appendix 303
References 311
Index 341
About the Author 349
v
Preface
I was still an undergraduate when I first learned about Sweden’s role in the
intricate web of international support for the Polish Solidarity movement;
not only during the so-called “legal period” of post-war Poland’s first inde-
pendent trade union, but also after December 13th, 1981, the memorable day
when General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared war on his own people by impos-
ing martial law. During an internship at the Polish Institute in Stockholm in
fall 2003, while translating wall charts from Polish to Swedish for an exhibi-
tion on the topic of official and unofficial Swedish support for Solidarity, I
became fascinated by the astonishing dynamics of transnational opposition to
Soviet-type Socialism that developed in the wake of the turbulent events in
Poland. The idea of writing this book, however, emerged first several years
later in Berlin. Aiming to explore the overall dynamics of Cold War politics
in neutral Sweden and the peculiarities of East-West relations around the Bal-
tic rim, I decided to broaden the geographical and chronological framework
of the project which, in the end, turned into a first attempt to write a historical
synthesis of the Cold War in the Baltic Sea Region.
This book revisits a rather peripheral borderland of the European Cold
War theater that has not received much attention in the literature on Europe’s
post-1945 history. Yet, the Baltic Sea Region was, as will be shown, far
from being a “backwater” of international politics. The focus on the political
activities of Poles and Estonians who had escaped their war-torn and crisis-
ridden homelands to Sweden highlights a so far still underexplored aspect of
Cold War politics that played out underneath the surface of official East-West
relations and international diplomacy. Based on largely unexplored archival
collections of individual activists and Polish and Estonian political organiza-
tions in Sweden, this book tells the story of their dedicated struggle against
the status quo behind the Iron Curtain in changing geopolitical conditions.
vii
viii Preface
Reconstructing the constantly shifting strategies of Cold War Sweden’s larg-
est political diasporas in their attempts to bridge the ideological front line that
isolated them from their nearby homelands, the following chapters illustrate
how Polish and Estonian émigrés coped with geopolitical realities, how they
envisioned political change, and how they contributed to accomplishing it.
Drawing on the ongoing historiographical debates about the extent and forms
of interaction and exchange across the blocs, this book explores, on the one
hand, the specificity of political, economic, and cultural relations between the
Nordic neutrals and their opposite coasts. On the other hand, the study aims
to shed light on how diaspora-homeland relations played out on both sides
of the Iron Curtain, and how transnational dynamics of political opposition
affected change on a local, national, and international level. This book thus
touches upon an array of questions that are vital to understanding a present
marked by the formation of countless new diasporas due to unprecedented
waves of forced migration.
The luxury of having been able to spend five years on full-time research
and writing depended on the generosity of the institutions that funded me. A
research grant of the German Historical Institute in Warsaw financed an ini-
tial three-month period of archival research in Poland. The German founda-
tion ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius awarded me a PhD scholarship
within the program “Germany and Her Eastern Neighbors—Contributions to
European History,” which secured the funding for another year of research
in Warsaw. The grants and tuition fees during my time as a PhD candidate at
the European University Institute in Florence were covered by the Swedish
Research Council, which enabled me to spend my formative years as an early
stage researcher in an intellectually highly stimulating—and breathtakingly
beautiful—environment. I am also grateful to the Estonian Institute for spon-
soring my participation in two summer courses in Estonian language and cul-
ture at the universities of Tartu and Tallinn and for the award of an Estophilus
grant, which contributed to covering the costs of my year-long research stay
as a visiting PhD student at Tallinn University. The Natolin European Center
awarded me a Paderewski grant and hosted me on the beautiful campus of
the College of Europe in the park of Natolin Palace during a shorter research
stay in Warsaw.
At least as important as the material support was the intellectual advice and
encouragement I received throughout the years. First of all, I would like to
thank my supervisor Philipp Ther, whom I have known since my undergradu-
ate days, for many years of guidance and support. This book would never have
been written without his enthusiasm for the project, his inspiring comments,
and the fact that he taught me to be more pragmatic. I am also indebted to
Kiran Klaus Patel and Federico Romero for the thorough screening of chapter
Preface ix
and thesis drafts and their very detailed response. In their capacity as mem-
bers of the defense committee, Juhana Aunesluoma and Karsten Brüggemann
offered valuable feedback that facilitated the conversion of the thesis into a
book. Needless to say, the list of supporters is significantly longer. Discus-
sions with professors and fellow researchers at the European University Insti-
tute have contributed to shaping this book as much as the critical remarks and
comments I received at numerous international conferences and workshops.
I am deeply indebted to my interview partners, who shared their personal
memories, offered their own interpretation of the phenomena I was study-
ing, and helped me to put my archival findings into perspective: Mirosław
Chojecki, Józef Lebenbaum, and Marek Michalski in Poland, Heiki Ahonen,
Tunne Kelam, Lagle Parek, Eve Pärnaste, Vardo Rumessen (†), Vello Salo,
and Enn Tarto in Estonia, as well as Aleksander Loit, Jaak Maandi, Enn
Nõu, Jakub Święcicki, and Ryszard Szulkin in Sweden. Their interest in
my research and willingness to contribute to the project has been an invalu-
able asset. I would also like to thank other contemporary witnesses for their
insights, among them Grzegorz Gauden, Halina Goldfarb, Marju Lauristin,
Juhan Mägiste, Leonard Neuger, and Helga Nõu.
The staff at various archives and libraries in Florence, Stockholm, Tallinn,
Warsaw, Budapest, Gdańsk, and Tartu formed a small army of helpers. I am
especially grateful to Joanna Michałowska at the Opposition Archive of the
KARTA Center for her assistance and support which went beyond the usual.
My thanks go also to Alanna O’Malley, Luisa Panichi, and Jonathan Fitchett
for having been efficient, reliable, and flexible proofreaders of draft versions
of the manuscript. Finally, I would like to thank Mark Kramer and the editors
at Lexington Books for guiding the manuscript through the review and ac-
ceptance process and the press’s outside reviewers for advice and comments
that helped me in transforming the draft manuscript into a book.
The five years I spent thinking, researching, and writing on the topic of
oppositional networks around the Baltic rim hold a treasury of impressions,
memories, and inspirations. I am privileged to have met people who came
to play an important role in my life in the places I used to call home during
this period, Warsaw, Florence, and Tallinn; three very different cities that
surprised me each in their own way. But even an academic nomad needs
a constant in his life. Thus, I want to take this opportunity to express my
gratitude for the love, unconditional trust, and moral and practical support I
have always received from my parents, Anna Christina Dagnell-Stöcker and
Werner Stöcker. It is to them I dedicate this book.
Lars Fredrik Stöcker
Vienna, September 2017
