When I think of August 23, I am immediately reminded of the words “Bunda jau Baltija”[1] (“The Baltics are Waking up”) and I see the portrait of my great grandfather who died in a GULAG camp in 1943. For someone who grew up in independent Lithuania, the Black Ribbon Day has multiple layers of meaning.
In Lithuania, August 23 marks both an empowering act of liberation – the Baltic Way of 1989 – and a premonition to mass killings, repression, and the loss of statehood that began with the onset of the Second World War and the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of 1939. Since 2009, the day – often referred to as the Black Ribbon Day – has held a dual official title: “European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism” and “Day of the Baltic Way”. It marks the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (also known as the Hitler-Stalin pact) in 1939, whose secret protocols divided Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence.
In the Baltic states, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is often seen as the event that turned the country into what Timothy Snyder so aptly called the “Bloodlands”. In history textbooks, August 23 is portrayed as the trigger point for the start of Second World War – launching the Nazi and soviet invasions of Poland, the first soviet occupation followed by a loss of independence and statehood for Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, subsequently enabling the Holocaust in this region. The secret protocols that accompanied the pact divided Europe into spheres of influence and condemned the Baltic states to 50 years of Soviet occupation.
The adoption of the Declaration of the European Parliament in 2008, on the proclamation of August 23 as European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, and a subsequent resolution calling on its implementation in 2009, were hailed as a success by many Central and Eastern European politicians and former anti-Soviet or anti-Communist dissidents. The focus on victims of both Stalinism and Nazism – though controversial from a perspective of Holocaust-remembrance – was a significant political recognition, shedding more light on the communist crimes and repressions that had often been overlooked in the public discourse of many Western or Southern European countries.
In Lithuania alone, the first Soviet occupation of June 1940 – June 1941 led to the mass arrest of around 9,000 Lithuanian political figures, civil servants, military or law enforcement officers. June 14, 1941, marked the first mass deportation of around 23,000 Lithuanian citizens to GULAG camps in the Arctic and other parts of Siberia. This day is commemorated separately as the Day of Mourning and Hope (Gedulo ir vilties diena). During the Nazi occupation from June 1941 to 1944, the Nazis and their local collaborators brutally killed close to 200,000 Lithuanian Jews (almost 95% of the total Jewish population), dotting the Lithuanian landscape with around 200 mass killing sites. The second Soviet occupation, which began in 1944, veered into a decade-long period of armed resistance and repression, sometimes casually called the “war after the war”. Depending on different estimates, close to 50,000 people went into the forests to join the armed anti-Soviet resistance (or to escape forced military conscription into the Red Army); over the course of 1944 to 1953, at least 20,000 perished. In the same decade, the Soviet authorities nationalized wealth, forced farmers to collectivise against their will and deported over 130,000 people, deporting whole families without right to return.
Because of this, August 23 was also a date of consolidation for the Lithuanian independence movement in the late 1980s. It was chosen as the date for the first public anti-Soviet protest in Vilnius in 1987. While the 1987 event was still modest and attended by only a handful of dissidents, as the Soviet Union seemed more and more unstable, the 50th anniversary of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact in 1989 grew into the Baltic Way – a live human chain of over two million people joining hands across the three Baltic states along the 670 km road from Vilnius via Riga to Tallinn (or vice versa).
Not only was this a powerful display of the scale of resentment against the Soviet Union as well as support for independence of the Baltic states, but it was also a logistical feat in a time without internet or smartphones – especially given the fact that the decision to organise the event was made only on July 15, slightly more than a month in advance. Residents of each larger town or region were assigned a specific kilometer range along the Vilnius-Tallinn road where they were supposed to join the event. Local organizers in each town tried to pre-arrange buses and other transportation, which, at the time, when all enterprises were owned by the Soviet state, was not guaranteed. Throughout the day, information about traffic jams or available spaces along the road was broadcasted on the radio. People came from across the country with their families. Participation exceeded all the organizers’ expectations, and massive traffic jams emerged around the main road, with thousands of people unable to reach the designated spot for the official 7 pm commemoration.
Stories about the Baltic Way, often rich with comical details about ‘not reaching the right spot’ or ‘finishing all the sandwiches before even getting there’ have become a staple topic for nostalgic memory-sharing in the family circle. It has almost become a matter of pride for people to say: ‘I’ve also been there’. The event has also been widely commemorated, both officially and unofficially. Multiple crosses or memorial stones were built along the road, and annual commemorative events were held along the route long after the original flashmob. Every year, multiple documentaries replay the same historical footage of flowers being dropped from tiny airplanes onto people neatly lined up on a highway. And of course most people in the Baltic states recognise the first chords of “Bunda jau Baltija” (Lithuanian.) / “Atmostas Baltija” (Latvian) / “Ärgake, Baltimaad” (Estonian) – “The Baltics are Waking Up” – a trilingual song written specifically for the event.
Even though the actual restoration of independence of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia was far from certain, the Baltic Way demonstration – with such massive participation – was an important milestone that strengthened the national independence movements in all three states.
In some ways, the more recent, live and empowering memory of the Baltic Way has both supplanted and reinforced the memory of the tragic date it was meant to commemorate – transforming what marked the beginning of subjugation under brutal political regimes into an empowering act of liberation.
[1] “Bunda jau Baltija”[1] (Lithuanian.) / “Atmostas Baltija” (Latvian) / “Ärgake, Baltimaad” (Estonian) – is a trilingual song by Boriss Rezniks created for the “Baltic Way” in 1989.
