The Baltic States in the Political and Legal Thought of Pavel N. Miliukov During the Civil War in Russia of 1917–1920

Abstract

The primary research objective of the article is to study Pavel Nikolaevich Miliukov’s (1859–1943) understanding of the status of the states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia during the Civil War in Russia from 1917 to 1920, focusing on Miliukov’s political and legal beliefs. As the leader of the Kadet Party, Miliukov had advocated the reconstruction of Russian statehood as close as possible to the 1914 borders, which excluded the existence of the independent Baltic states separately from Russia. The above considerations provide grounds for claiming that Miliukov’s political and legal thought in this period was based on strong nationalism. In this sense, Miliukov, seeing the national awakening among the nations of Central and Eastern Europe, actively tried to oppose these processes.