The attention is drawn upon the function DOWNLOAD. It contains historic (end of the 18th century, some even older) general and district maps of Livonia, old Estonia and the island of Oesel/Kurre Saar (now: Saaremaa) which may be used, exclusively, for purely private or non-commercial matters.
The foundations of the small countries at the Eastern side of the Baltic Sea, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, since a couple of years members of the EU, are severely hit by the financial and economic crisis.
In spite of this fact, their needs are of little or no interest for the information media. Internationally, they are of too little weight to generate attention. An additional reason: No big scandals or disasters can reported from them.
The erosion in the economies, in the societies, at the social level and in governmental matters happens without noise. Tjhe poor, espeically those who were supported - modestly but safely - by the collective institutions of the Soviet system, are dying silently and early.
Self-sufficiency, on the basis of own rural activities - all three countries have strong rural back-grounds and many, especially those who did not belong the favourites of the Soviet empire, may possess a town flat - continues to play a far more important role than in the Western European industrial countries.
Those whose survival is protected by the self-sufficiency economy feel decreasing or even missing money income but - in contrast to those who formerly were protected by the system, do not perish.
The self-sufficient have no eyes for the precarious situation of the poor old in the townships. There is little solidarity with the poor. One reason is that they are considered as an unwanted heritage from the now gone occupants.
Each of those who can be counted among the better-off is struggling, form the morning to the night, for the needs of to-day and to-morrow, for himself and for those who are closest to him. The crisis has increased the efforts to earn income.
Civic spirit and acting for the common weal are still considered as habits from an unknown, far away world.
The convergence between the neu EU countries in the East with those which are called the old EU is difficult, especially because the citizens of the countries which, only a short period ago, joined the EU, have not yet understood that they have to re-habilitate the civic society supporting virtues and institutions which were lost during the Second World War.
This situation, among other deficiencies, causes immense difficulties to materialize EU support programmes because they are under the assumption that truly native non-governmental bodies (NGO) in the fields of social welfare, community or regional economy development are in place. Budgets are not the problem but appropriate projects.
In view of all this, the Baltic Sea Foundation draws the attention on Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
There is a rich documentation, most of it in German language, to be found in the German language part of this web-site. A complete translation into English is actually beyond the possibilities of Baltic Sea Foundation.
Only one, the first, document is in English. It was adressed (in July, last year) to Haapsalu (Estonia) College, a branch of Tallinn University, containing a proposal for a discussion forum on possible ways out of the crisis. The College committed the mistake, to address exclusively financial sector specialists. These did not react positively because their sole aim is to win new funds to be able to continue – right or wrong – as before, Alternative approaches, especially such which aim at supporting society or civic communities, is far beyond what they can imagine or what they intend.
Nevertheless, the foundation has applied the lesson learned from this frustrated first step. It saw that back-ward looking has to organised before solutions for the needs of our days and for the future can be envisaged.
The writer of these lines interviewed university historians in Estonia, Lativa and Germany (all of them listet in the German version of the web-site) and wrote a sketch for using the written heritage of the most prominent scholarly society in the Baltic region for drawing from it orientations for the solutions of the problems of to-day and to-morrow.
It is the LIVONIAN COMMON WEAL AND ECONOMIC SOCIETY (German original name: LIVLAENDISCHE GEMEINNUETZIGE UND OEKONOMISCHE SOZIETAET) which was erected in the times of the French Revolution (1792). It was re-habilated after sufferings during the Napoleonic wars and transferred at the end of the first decade of the 19th century to the Livonian university town of Tartu (Dorpat), from where it operated – through good and bad times – until 1940.
The historians, unanimously, welcomed the proposal. But at the same time, they argued that among them, no economic history specialist can be found. Nevertheless, they would like to co-operate with a group of practicians and searchers with the necessary back-ground.
After this, a concise, frank and sharp paper was prepared, after pre-liminary exchanges, for the German-Baltic Parlamentarians Groups of the German Federal Parliament and that of the Land of North Rhine-Westalia which intends to mobilize, with the help of one or the other of the members of these groupings, intellectual collaboration from appropriate bodies in the Rhenanian or the Westphalian region. Nothing has happened so far. The major impediment – certainly – is the actual electoral campaign for the new Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia. In spite of this, the paper was useful for other contacts.
Finally, the President of the Republic of Estonia was addressed with a (well documented) request to open the access to public or private authorities of his country and of neighboring Latvia. The President’s office answered, some weeks ago, that the President would abstain from interfering with governmental and non-governmental bodies; he proposed that the foundation should address the government of his country; this has been done (with full documentation); an answer has not yet arrived.
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