All the children born in 1989 turned a quarter century old this year. When they entered the world, the Soviet Union was coming apart at its seams. For most of their sentient lives, there has been no “Evil Empire.” The enemy of their youth turned on an axis that ran from Iran and Iraq to North Korea and lacked a unified ideological center. 1989 is the year the Berlin Wall fell. Many of us still remember televised images of men and women dancing in the streets waving champagne bottles, while others pounded at the graffiti-spattered cement with sledgehammers and pickaxes. President Obama visited Poland in 2014 in an echo of a Bush Senior’s presidential visit to then-Soviet Warsaw 25 years earlier. Yet, it was one of many countries he could have chosen: 1989 was host to many lesser-known yet no-less-historic moments. On August 23, 1989, some two million people held hands across Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in a massive pro-independence demonstration they called the Baltic Way. Lithuania went on to be the first satellite state to formally declare independence from the Soviet Union. The first nation to declare independence from America’s archenemy of the day, and most Americans couldn’t tell Lithuania from Lichtenstein, or Lesotho, for that matter. That was as true in 1989 as it is today. Authoritarianism seemed to be under attack from all sides in 1989. Some of those struggles dominated headlines for days, while others barely rated a paragraph on the page six world briefs. A coup in Paraguay overthrew the 35-year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. More than a million Chinese students took to Tiananmen Square in Beijing to demand freedom and democracy. Aung San Suu Kyi was put her under house arrest by the Burmese military junta in 1989. Her political party won the next year’s election, but the generals declined to hand over power. Though Suu Kyi was eventually freed and elected to parliament, but military still holds the reins of power in a country we now call Myanmar. The Evil Empire was already beginning to turn on its axis in 1989. Thomas Friedman won the National Book Award for nonfiction that year for From Beirut to Jerusalem, a book that is as resonant today as it was then. Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses climbed the New York Times bestseller list and became a cause célèbre when octogenarian Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death. Khomeini would die only a few months later. Yesterday America formally ended its “combat mission” in Afghanistan, thirteen years after we first arrived. In 1989 it was Soviet tanks and Red Army troops that were marching out of Afghanistan after their own nine years of failed war. Back then the Soviets were fighting against the mujahedeen. The same mujahedeen that we armed back then, who went on to join merge with Taliban. In fact, 1989 is the year a militant group was founded in the region that called itself “The Base,” or Al Qaeda in Arabic. At least one of its members is known to have attended a meeting in Oklahoma City in December that year. Even as America’s official enemy abroad was in transition in 1989, here in the US young people ages 16 to 24 were participating in the labor market at their highest rate in history: nearly 76 percent of them either had a job or were looking for work. In 2014 the labor participation rate for that age group is almost the lowest in history, at only 60.5 percent. About 13 percent of Americans lived below the poverty line back then. Today, it’s closing in on 15 percent. Median household income right now buys $4,417 less than what could back in 1989. A gallon of gas cost about $0.90 at the pump in 1989, which would be $1.71 in today’s money. The national average hit a high of $3.76 a gallon this past June, but after falling dramatically for weeks is around $2.30 right now. Despite it all we were happy then, and we’re happy again today. In 1989, Bobby McFerrin’s upbeat ditty "Don't Worry Be Happy" took the Grammy for Song of the Year. Twenty-five years later, people around the world made fan videos for another “Happy” song by Pharrell Williams. But were we all so happy? Also on the charts that year was a very different expression of the 1989 zeitgeist: N.W.A.’s groundbreaking gansta rap album, Straight Outta Compton. Twenty-five years later, Hollywood is ready to make the movie, starring... Paul Giamatti? Just as N.W.A. was making waves across the radio dial, a little girl whose mother would call her Amethyst was conceived in Australia. She would grow up to be Iggy Azalea and have a number one rap hit on the Billboard charts in 2014. A company called Time, Inc. merged with Warner Communications in 1989 to create the largest media company in the world at that time, becoming perhaps the most hated 25 years later. This year, Time Warner spun off the 91 year old eponymous magazine that started it all, leaving it to twist in the stock market winds. History is a hall of mirrors where the precedent of one event is the antecedent of another. It’s easy to get lost in a maze of dates and references that cross-reference each other. A quick search online will give you list after list of events by year, but which dots should we connect? The Big Data evangelists might say they can build an algorithm to find the answer. But will their answer give us meaning? When the organizers of the Baltic Way selected August 23 as the date for their 370-mile human chain in 1989, that wasn’t a random choice. They were reaching back fifty years to mark the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact where Stalin and Hitler quietly divided up Eastern Europe between themselves. You’ve may never heard of the Baltic Way or the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, though both of them changed the world. As 2014 comes to a close, take a moment to remember what happened in 1989, the events you lived through and the ones you never knew. They tell us as much about the world we live in today as the one we will live in for the next 25 years.
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My essay on how I did research on Lithuania and its history for Love Songs of the Revolution is now available at Necessary Fiction.
There's a small town, a brown dog, mushrooms, an English-Russian dictionary on disarmament and much more. Click to read the essay now. It's exciting to see my book set in Lithuania getting some attention from a newspaper in the Baltic region. The Baltic Times is an English-language paper based in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, with offices in Riga, Latvia, and Vilnius, Lithuania. They've just run a terrific review by Jonathan Brown of Love Songs of the Revolution. Brown is an Irish journalist based in Nablus who writes about Palestine and the Baltics. He's also a periodic editor at The Baltic Times. Brown read the book through the lens of its historical and political context, which is what sets his review apart. A pivotal event in the novel is the massive Baltic Way demonstration that took place on August 23, 1989. Few people outside of the region are familiar with the demonstration and its historical importance. Brown describes it this way: "The Baltic Way triumphed because a multitude of voices became one. United by song, hands, and political ambition, the Baltics formed an immutable force for peace and independence." He calls the book a "Soviet whodunit," and writes about how, at the end of the Cold War, the West viewed and even exoticized the East: "What compelled journalists in droves to the Baltic States and Eastern Europe after independence and the fall of the Soviet Union? Certainly, there was a voyeuristic allure in lifting the veil or 'curtain.' Mostly though, wasn’t it about seeing a world where the West’s political morals were turned upside down? Wasn’t it about seeing a world where corruption goes unchecked, the bad guys don’t go to jail, and the good guys lose out? It’s exactly this political climate that Mauldin coolly and impressively puts on display in 'Love Songs.'" While covering the politics, Brown also gets to the poetics. What more can an author hope for from any reader? "Entanglements aside, the mystery slides sleekly from one suspense, emotional pang, or clue to another, ensuring impeccable timing and delivery. In this, Mauldin’s prose and poise equals that of the highest calibre mystery writing. The book calls to be picked up, even if it’s put down. Poetic gems glitter throughout. Mauldin is sensitive to detail and nuance, her prose is always vivid and alive." Reviews have been coming in for Love Songs of the Revolution. Of course I think you should read the book, but you don't have to trust me. Ask these fine people: Vilnius might as well be a character, for Kudirka's relationship with the city is romantic, sensual, and redemptive. When Kudirka finds the body of his murdered wife, he grieves her death, calling her "beloved," which is also the way he repeatedly describes the city, "my beloved Vilnius," "my beloved city," "like an old lover." Both his wife and home are his lovers, and Kudirka seems to perform a bit of psychological displacement by trying his best (which isn't very good) to help the independence movement happening in Vilnius in order to allay his guilt over having been a fairly pitiful husband. Kirdurka admits as much, realizing that "if I believed in nothing else, perhaps I could believe in that. If Vilnius was to be an epicenter of a great uprising against the Soviets, then I had to be part of it. For Natalie, if not for myself" and "Vilnius [was] the only lover I'd ever been faithful to." This devotion and romance for his home is his redeeming quality, and it is the thing that pulls us through to the end of the narrative. However, the narrative is not the end of the story. In fact, what happens after Kudirka's memoir is where Mauldin's real genius shows itself. All this changes when Martynas’ wife is murdered. The authorities are reluctant to investigate. He learns that his wife had secrets. He feels compelled to search for the truth. He becomes embroiled with revolutionaries, criminals and spies. All this against the backdrop of Vilnius, a city alive with political and cultural change, a city he writes about with all the passion of the exile. by Goodreads reviewer Kate Vane Solid take on the suspenseful thriller, suitably twisty, takes place in Lithuania in the late 80s, which gives (as is its aim) an intimate and relatable feel to big seemingly cold themes of political unrest and espionage. by Goodreads author Leo Robertson The good natured self-loathing of the main character is explained by the surprising twists introduced in the second portion of the book, where the story takes an unexpected and delightful turn. Overall, Mauldin's masterly prose, ability to create extraordinarily believable characters and brilliant insights into power dynamics, writ large and small, make her an author to watch. by Amazon reader L. Lueders
When the Lithuanian national football (soccer) team lost in a 0-1 game to Bosnia-Herzegovina on October 13, they lost their chance to vie for the 2014 World Cup. They were part of Group G in the qualifying rounds. Greece was the other Group G team that made it to Brazil. None of the three Baltic nations has ever qualified for the global football championship finals. The Lithuanian national team is currently ranked number 106 in the world, just below Iran and the Central African Republic, but above Ethiopia and Kenya. Lithuania has won the Baltic Cup ten times since its inauguration in 1928. Unfortunately, the Lithuanian football league may be better known for something else: corruption. A survey of players by Transparency International (TI) last year found that one-fifth of all football players know or suspect they’ve played in fixed matches. Fully 15 percent of all football players admitted they’ve been approached to fix a match. More than half the football players surveyed believe it’s a common practice, but the majority of them don’t think it’s important. TI ran an educational campaign called “Staying Onside” from 2013-14 against corruption in football. The Lithuanian chapter of TI participated, along with Germany, Greece, France, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal and the UK. One of its major goals was to get national football leagues to work and cooperate with their local anti-corruption bodies. According to TI, one major cause of corruption in sports is when players or officials gamble or otherwise find themselves in financial problems. Robert O’Conner at the well-respected AFR football blog puts a much of the blame on a mix of weak labor laws and low private investment in Lithuania's local clubs. Employment law in that country still hasn’t come out of the Soviet shadow, leaving professional athletes uncertain of their legal rights. At the same time, the transition from state to private support for football has left the league underfunded. These problems aren’t unique to Lithuania. Neither is the problem of match-fixing. But those shenanigans pale in comparison to rampant corruption in the International Olympic Committee and in football’s global governing body, FIFA. If you haven't yet, watch John Oliver’s rant on FIFA. And here's a timeline summarizing the most recent allegations that Qatar bought off FIFA officials in order to get the 2022 World Cup. Football in 120 heat, what could go wrong? At least there will be beer when "the beautiful game" arrives in Qatar. If you look at a map of the Baltic region, you might notice a funny little piece of land sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland that isn't marked with a country name. That's Kaliningrad (Калининград in Russian), also known as Königsberg when it was under German rule for many years. It's a small piece of land that was was the scene of bitter fighting during World War II and eventually ended up as part of the Soviet Union. During the Soviet era Kaliningrad was never integrated into one of its neighboring Soviet states. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, it remained disconnected part of Russia. Today it's a port city of about a million people, where Russia houses its Baltic Sea fleet. It's Russia's only ice-free port in Europe, and Russia is serious about its ports. Some analysts believe one big reason Russia has remained steadfast in its support of Syria's murderer-in-chief Bashar al-Assad is because he lets them use the port of Latakia, which gives Russia access to the Mediterranean Sea. In the past few weeks, Lithuania has reported several incidents of Russian ships interfering with Lithuanian ships in the Baltic Sea. Lithuania has submitted a formal complaint in the form of a "diplomatic note" to the Russian ambassador. Amid today's heightened tensions between Russia and Ukraine, this harassment is getting careful scrutiny. This month also marks the 42nd annual Baltic Operations exercise (BALTOPS 2014) where military forces from the US, NATO and eleven other countries get together in the Baltic Sea and flex their muscles. It's primarily a naval exercise, but the US Air Force is participating as well. It would appear that the US is just as serious about its own ports in foreign locales. At the same time, the US Army is leading Saber Strike 2014, ground exercises in locations across Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, involving 4,700 military members from ten NATO countries. Here's the official Army-issued tri-fold brochure: All three Baltic countries - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - are members of NATO.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says these NATO maneuvers are hostile and intended as a threat to Russia, who in response has launched her own military maneuvers in the region. NATO and the Americans say these are longstanding annual festivities, not tied to recent events. Then again, while in Poland last week, President Obama a billion dollar "European Reassurance Initiative" to increase US troop presence in the region. The name is as polysyllabic and professorial as our president. Maybe if he'd given it a shorter name with more hard consonants and better imagery (think Saber Strike!) he might have better luck getting it through Congress. BALTOPS, not so much. Sounds like a brand of cheap candy. Perhaps what's most interesting about these military maneuvers is how little coverage they're getting in the American press. A Google news search generates any number of pieces expressing outrage from outlets like Russia Today, ITAR-TASS and Voice of Russia. Searches for BALTOPS and Saber Strike at the New York Times generated zero results. The same search at the Washington Post generated one AP story about Canadian participation. Even the Huffington Post didn't deliver. Not enough Kardashians? As in 1989 and as in 1939, world history is playing out in the Baltic nations while no one watches. While doing research on Lithuanian culture for Love Songs of the Revolution, I came upon a YouTube video that changed everything for me. Fuzzy images from a massive demonstration in 1989 are overlaid with a rock anthem whose words I couldn't understand, but whose meaning couldn't be more clear.
The Baltic Way was a major milestone in the Singing Revolution that swept the three Baltic nations in the late 1980s and ultimately led to their independence. No one knows exactly how many people showed up in the streets that day, but estimates run between one and two million people across the three countries.
Music and especially mass singing festivals have long played a major role in Baltic political movements. The rock anthem being sung in 1989 is "The Baltics are Waking Up," written especially for the Singing Revolution, in all three languages. The recording is sung by leading singers from each country:
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Baltic Way. It's an amazing story and a historic moment in European history. We in the West know about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in China, both of which happened the same year, but have never heard about the Baltic Way. Once I learned about it, I knew it would have an important place in my novel. There on he streets of Vilnius in 1989, the crowds holding hands around them and singing for their freedom, the lives of Martynas and Indre are irrevocably changed. |
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