Strategic Frames: Europe, Russia, and Minority Inclusion in Estonia and Latvia. By Jennie L. Schulze. Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. xxii, 394 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Figures. Tables. $31.95, paper.

study. Unfortunately, some minor points of criticism are necessary. Sweden recognized the annexation of the Baltic states de jure and not only de facto, as Stöcker insists (7). Soviet military bases were established in the Baltic states three months before the Finnish Winter War, so the Baltic governments could not try to avoid the fate of Finland as the author claims (21). He also has problems putting the events between the Soviet occupation and annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into the right order (23, 27–28). Russian troops left Lithuania in 1993 and it was not the Red Army leaving in 1994 (15). To better understand the scale of the mass flight in 1944–45, it would be helpful to mention the number of inhabitants in each of the Baltic Sea countries. The first chapter offers an historical overview of the entangled histories of northeastern Europe. The second chapter deals with resistance and opposition from 1939 until 1949, including the experience of German occupation. At the time, Sweden served as an important center for Estonian and Polish resistance, although after the war many measures failed to resist the Soviets. The Soviets were only able to repatriate a tiny fraction of the Estonian and Polish refugees to Sweden. The third chapter covers the Cold War era in the 1950s. Émigrés attempted to collect information from behind the Iron Curtain, intelligence operations from both sides occurred, and radio stations like Voice of America broadcast programs in east European languages. Across the “Sea of Peace,” first encounters occurred with tourists and émigrés traveling to their homeland. The next chapter describes how those encounters intensified, for example, with a regular ferry connection between Helsinki and Tallinn, and a generational change softened the anticommunist stance of the exiles. The fifth chapter deals with the transnationalization of the opposition in the region in the 1970s. The smuggling of books and information intensified, even technical equipment for Polish samizdat was smuggled into the country. The author stresses the huge differences in the conditions in Poland and Estonia and is able to integrate the larger picture into his narrative. The last chapter covers the last decade of socialism and how individual opposition turned into large-scale protest. Stöcker identifies major differences between his two cases: while Poland employed a strategy of negotiation, Estonia opted for anticommunism to overcome the regime. Thoughtful conclusions round up the text. Overall, it is a great achievement to cover half a century of such diverse cases in a readable way. Some minor flaws should not shed negative light on this monograph.