LITUANUS LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES   Volume 12, No.1 - Spring 1966 Editor of this issue: Thomas Remeikis ISSN 0024-5089 Copyright © 1966 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.

www.lituanus.org

BRIEF NOTICE:
Juri G. Poska ed., PRO BALTICA (Stockholm, 1965)

This collection of essays on the Baltic question was published in honor of the late Estonian diplomat and statesman Kaarel K. Pusta (1883-1964). The essays, written in English, French, Estonian, Norwegian, Swedish and German are arranged alphabetically by their authors' names. The cast of authors is an international one: Turkish, Polish, Lithuanian, Swedish, French and Estonian. 

In a publication of this kind, some repetitions are unavoidable, especially as regards the designs of the Big Powers for domination of the Baltic Sea area. A regrettable omission is the absence of Mr. Pusta's birth and death dates. (He was born on February 29, 1883, in Narva, Estonia, and died on May 4, 1964 in Madrid, Spain.) 

The weightiest and the longest essay was authored by Colonel Jean Chabanier, a Frenchman. He very ably surveys the events in the Baltic States since 1940: the occupation, genocide, deportations, Russification, etc. In conclusion he emphasizes the hypocrisy of the United Nations pnd the silence of the Big Western Powers, which owes its origin to the fact that "... Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians are neither Negroes, nor Arabs, nor Papuans, and their lands harbor neither copper, nor uranium, nor oil." 

Of special interest is also the article by the noted political scientist Malbone W. Graham, Professor of Political Science at the University of California, about the progress of the idea of the recognition of the Baltic States in American diplomacy. The author vividly depicts the extent to which the notion of an "indivisible" Russia exercised a hold on the minds of many American diplomats as well as the electoral stratagems of the Republican and the Democratic parties. (For more details, see excerpts from his article in "Notes and Comments" of this issue of LITUANUS [Postscript on US Recognitin of the Baltic States in 1922]). 

Other more important articles are: "Toward the Baltic Entente — the Initial Phase" by Edgar Amderson of San Jose State College, Calif.; "Power Politics on the Baltic" by Bronius J. Kaslas of Wilkes-Barre College, Pa.; "Sowjetrechtsforschung ausserhalb des Ostblocks" by Dietrich A. Loeber, Referent am Max - Planck Institut fur auslandisches und internationales Recht, Hamburg.