Introduction Chapter I: The Background Story
On the 1st June 1934, the representatives of Baltic States met in Riga, the capital of Latvia, where they should discuss top-priority business, most importantly how to strengthen current positions of their states on the international political scene. This meeting has the biggest priority in the history of these three states, it had even bigger importance than meeting in 1918 about territorial claims between them after the First World War.
Three presidents of these small, but still existing and willing to struggle for independence, countries met in Vidzemes Knightly House, where Latvian parliament (Saeima) normally holds a meeting, exactly at 14:00.
The building of Latvian Saeima
“Today we shall discuss improving mutual relations between our states and ways of strengthening our positions on the international scene. Have you got any ideas on how to improve our situation?”, said Konstantin Päts, the current head of Estonian State.
“Well, maybe we should form a trade union between our states. Also creating military alliances between our countries would make us look stronger, especially in the eyes of our biggest threats to our people: Soviet Union and Germany!”, replied Alberts Kviesis, his contrary from Latvia.
“Kviesis, with all respect to you, I find your idea somewhat insufficient, almost ridiculous.” The authoritarian president of Lithuania, Antanas Smetona, has spoken.
“This situation requires a daring action!”
“What situation? Our countries are prospering. There is not even a war going on in the world! Maybe with the exception of the Chinese civil war, which is already raging for some time.” Kviesis seemed angered by such behavior just a little.
“Don´t be a fool. This won´t last for long. Look at Hitler in Germany and his, how does is he call them, “volunteer” forces? They are a group of fanatics willing to blindly follow his orders. I bet he already has a few hundreds of thousands of them.”
“I have to agree with you, but how about Soviet Union and Stalin? I think they pose a much bigger threat for us than Hitler, who is trying to get on good terms with us.” mentioned Päts.
“Oh yes, Stalin and his Bolsheviks. He still believes the Baltic States are a bunch of rebels, who torn of his great Motherland! I share your concern, but how are we able to defend against such a power-hungry demagogue with tens of millions of men willing to die for him?”
Suddenly all three men have immersed into deep taught. How to protect three small countries against such threat without outright joining any faction to preserve their independence? All three men wanted to burst out their ideas at the same time after a good while of thinking. They let Kviesis to talk first.
“Gentlemen, I´ve found out only one rational solution. We shall formally merge our states into one union, acting as a one state, having common politics, military and trade while preserving our independence of each state. Do you agree with me or do you have any doubts?”
Päts and Smetona were stunned by the cool-headiness of the statement Kviesis just made. Actually, they were all thinking about the same thing, but Kviesis gathered the guts to say it first.
“Whoa, well... It seems like the best solution, although we might have some trouble implementing it, I´m sure citizens of our states will surely understand the situation we´re at and why we made this decision. Now, under which name shall we call this union? For myself, I vote for “Greater Lithuania”, that would be the best name for it in my opinion.”
Now the discussion has taken a childish direction, where our three wanted to name the union by their state, completely disregarding there are also two other states creating it. After initial variations of their states, Smetona has come with a fair idea of naming the union “
Lathuania”. Kviesis agreed to this, but Päts completely refused it, since the ending “nia” was shared by both Estonia and Lithuania, therefore the Estonia might not be as sovereign as it seemed from the union´s name. Smetona argued by that Estonia has the smallest industrial capacity of all three states, so its importance in the union might not be so significant, but when Päts said Estonia won´t be a part of a union, where she´ll be oppressed, he gave up and they all went finding more suitable name.
After an hour of discussion about the name (which taken more time than any other subject they discussed), the simple name of “Baltic Union” was found as the best compromise, together with this flag, where Päts (luckily) forgot to mention it does not contain anything from the Estonian one, all three men went to their homes, thinking about politics and public referendum which shall be discussed on the next meeting.
A prototype of the Union´s flag
P.S. You wanted narration? Choke on it!
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