ENIt is possible to distinguish between the three extralinguistic factors of stylistic peculiarities of a national language, i. e. space (social environment and native land), time (history of the nation and of linguistic community) and national character (national singularity and mentality). These factors are interdependent. Space and time are direct factors; they have influence on style through the national individuality. The paper reviews the influence of time (history) upon stylistic distinctiveness of the two Baltic languages. The following phenomena are discussed in the paper: 1) the origins of functional styles; 2) the peculiarities of development of literary languages; 3) the distinctive manifestations of language etiquette; 4) the stylistic peculiarities of fiction. The review of the historical factor enables us to raise the hypothesis: that on the axis of the bookishness/colloquialness the neutral style of Latvian language is closer to the pole of bookishness than the neutral style of Lithuanian language.