The windswept Curonian Spit, on the Baltic Sea, affords a choice spot for reflecting on the turbulent twentieth century. It is part of Kaliningrad, Russia’s western exclave, though Lithuania possesses its northern end. From this spot, the mind naturally turns to the complexities of history, and the darkening geopolitics of our time.
From Klaipeda, Lithuania’s port city, it is accessible only by ferry. The narrow land strip, like the Baltic states as a whole, has witnessed the rise and fall of many empires, Nazi and Soviet ones not least. I found myself wandering on it during a research trip to the Baltics, investigating Soviet-era secularism and anti-religious repression. I learned a lot on these topics, but, more generally, I was impressed by Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia’s plucky spirit of independence, the dire hardships their peoples’ have experienced, and their informed disquiet about Putin’s Russia today.
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