The Baltic States in the historical discourse of the west: the narrative of the new Cold War
ENThe Baltic States – former captive nations, now – members of the European Union and NATO – find themselves on the different side of the figurative wall in the current security setting, where the deteriorating Russian-Western relations are occasionally defined as the New Cold War. The aim of this paper is to discuss the construction of this historically-charged narrative and how it has been contextualized in the past to be defined as the New Cold War. I argue that the narrative of the history, especially the 20th century and its wars, totalitarian regimes, and the Cold War experiences, is still present in the way the Western identity is constructed and is especially evident in the discourse of the Baltic States. Carrying out the poststructuralist discourse analysis, I aim to disclose the constructions through which the historical discourse of the Cold War is contextualized in the wider discourse of Baltic-Western relations. Keywords: Poststructuralism, The Baltic States, international relations, discourse, security studies.
