Dear Organisers and Participants of the Baltic Way, Dear Participants of the Conference, Dear Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I
I warmly congratulate all of us on our common celebration to mark the 30th anniversary of the Baltic Way.
Today we have a genuine reason to celebrate and assemble to share memories, judgments, and reflections. At that time, the Baltic Way was a political innovation that had not yet been attempted, and it has led to the fact that we are gathering here today at a conference in a free and independent Latvia.
II
The Baltic Way was a testimony of our shared destiny with Estonia and Lithuania. The Baltic Way was a manifestation of the will of the state of all three Baltic nations.
We, the Balts, had a clear goal of restoring national independence and historical justice, freedom and a better life for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. We had an unwavering will to achieve this goal, and we did it.
After the Baltic Way, the world came to know us again as courageous and confidence- strong Europeans, who began to crumb the Iron Curtain that separated all of us from a democratic and united Europe.
III
The Baltic Way was our way of returning to Europe by reminding of the duty to restore historical justice and calling to build Europe as our common home.
A belief in the rule of law and justice in international relations inspired the Baltic Way by rejecting power-based order and immoral agreements of superpowers at the expense of small countries.
The Baltic Way is our duty and responsibility to stand up whenever and wherever for the values that we shared thirty years ago when joining our hands in an indestructible handshake.
The Baltic Way was the beginning of the end of the Soviet totalitarian regime. It was the last major confrontation between the regime that had existed before and the aspirations for freedom, which represented the aspirations for democracy among the Baltic nations.
Soon after the Baltic Way, an attempt to strangle or eliminate this movement followed, but the Soviet totalitarian regime was no longer so strong by then. As soon as it showed its weakness, one can say that the Baltic Way already marked the collapse of the Soviet Union, which proceeded soon.
The Baltic Way thus marked not only the collapse of the Soviet Union or the totalitarian regime but also the victorious march of European freedom and democracy that began shortly after that, including the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Today we face other new challenges for democracy, but we are still a democracy capable of developing and defending itself in the new situation.
We believed in the international law-based world order and a united Europe as the common home of all democratic nations then, we believe now, and we shall believe as long as the Republic of Latvia and a free Europe exist.
IV
We also must record our Baltic story in the shared historical memory of Europe. I think it is a great task for Baltic historians, European historians, and those engaged in the policy of historical memory to ensure that our common European historical memory is well-balanced and provides a decent place for the historical experiences of the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe including the Baltic Way as a very important constituent of this experience.
I would like to call for a deeper and broader exploration of the unique process of restoring the independence of the Baltic States and our experience in the transition from the inferiority to totalitarian occupation to an independent and democratic country governed by the rule of law.
V
To conclude, I would like to remind you that I am here this afternoon to talk about the new challenges.
Those of us who were a part of the Baltic Way then have won this independence, but independence and democracy must be constantly upheld. This is not a one-time exercise. Even nowadays, we have new challenges, new threats, also new perspectives, which we will also discuss during this conference.
I wish you all many interesting and new insights!
