PolandPoland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of 38 million and is the fifth-most populous member state of the European Union. Warsaw is the nation's capital and largest metropolis. Other major cities include Kraków, Gdańsk, Wrocław, Katowice, Łódź, Poznań, Szczecin and Lublin.
Baltic languagesThe Baltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively or as a second language by a population of about 6.5–7.0 million people mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Europe. Together with the Slavic languages, they form the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European family. Scholars usually regard them as a single subgroup divided into two branches: Western Baltic (containing only extinct languages) and Eastern Baltic (containing at least two living languages, Lithuanian, Latvian, and by some counts including Latgalian and Samogitian as separate languages rather than dialects of those two).
LatviaLatvia (ˈlætviə , ˈlɑːtviə ; Latvija ˈlatvija; Latveja; Lețmō), officially the Republic of Latvia (Latvijas Republika, Latvejas Republika, Lețmō Vabāmō), is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the Baltic states. It borders Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, and Belarus to the southeast and shares a maritime border with Sweden to the west. Latvia covers an area of , with a population of 1.9 million. The country has a temperate seasonal climate.
EstoniaEstonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia. The territory of Estonia consists of the mainland, the larger islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, and over 2,200 other islands and islets on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, covering a total area of .
RussiaRussia (Rossiya, rɐˈsjijə), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world by area, its vast landmass stretching over the easternmost part of Europe and the northernmost part of Asia. Russia extends across eleven time zones and shares land boundaries with fourteen countries. It is the world's ninth-most populous country and Europe's most populous country. The country's capital and largest city is Moscow.
Hanseatic LeagueThe Hanseatic League was a medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central and Northern Europe. Growing from a few North German towns in the late 12th century, the League expanded between the 13th and 15th centuries and ultimately encompassed nearly 200 settlements across seven modern-day countries, ranging from Estonia in the north and east, to the Netherlands in the west, and Kraków, Poland, in the south.
BelarusBelarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Covering an area of and with a population of 9.2 million, Belarus is the 13th-largest and the 20th-most populous country in Europe. The country has a hemiboreal climate and is administratively divided into six regions. Minsk is the capital and largest city; it is administered separately as a city with special status.
Grand Duchy of LithuaniaThe Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that existed from the 13th century to the late 18th century, when the territory was partitioned in 1795 among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Empire of Austria. The state was founded by Lithuanians, who were at the time a polytheistic nation born from several united Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija. The Grand Duchy expanded to include large portions of the former Kievan Rus' and other neighbouring states, including what is now Belarus, Lithuania, most of Ukraine as well as parts of Latvia, Moldova, Poland and Russia.
UkraineUkraine (Ukraina, ʊkrɐˈjinɐ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which borders it to the east and northeast. It also borders Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; and Romania and Moldova to the southwest; with a coastline along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to the south and southeast. Kyiv is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Kharkiv, Dnipro and Odesa. Ukraine's official language is Ukrainian; Russian is also widely spoken, especially in the east and south.
Lithuanian languageLithuanian (lietuvių kalba ljɪɛˈtʊvjuː kɐɫˈbɐ) is an Eastern Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is the official language of Lithuania and one of the official languages of the European Union. There are approximately 2.8 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 1,000,000 speakers elsewhere. Around half a million inhabitants of Lithuania of non-Lithuanian background speak Lithuanian daily as a second language.
BaltsThe Balts or Baltic peoples (baltai, balti) are an ethno-linguistic group of peoples who speak the Baltic languages of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. One of the features of Baltic languages is the number of conservative or archaic features retained. Among the Baltic peoples are modern-day Lithuanians and Latvians (including Latgalians) — all Eastern Balts — as well as the Old Prussians, Yotvingians and Galindians — the Western Balts — whose languages and cultures are now extinct.
Baltic statesThe Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term, which currently is used to group three countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea are sometimes referred to as the "Baltic nations", less often and in historical circumstances also as the "Baltic republics", the "Baltic lands", or simply the Baltics.
EuropeEurope is a continent comprising the westernmost peninsulas of Eurasia, located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with both Africa and Asia. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east. Europe is commonly considered to be separated from Asia by the watershed of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea and the waterways of the Turkish Straits.
European Convention on Human RightsThe European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by the then newly formed Council of Europe, the convention entered into force on 3 September 1953. All Council of Europe member states are party to the convention and new members are expected to ratify the convention at the earliest opportunity.
Cold WarThe Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term cold war is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported opposing sides in major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based on the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their roles as the Allies of World War II that led to victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945.
GulagThe Gulag was the government agency in charge of the Soviet network of forced labour camps which were set up by order of Vladimir Lenin, reaching its peak during Joseph Stalin's rule from the 1930s to the early 1950s. English-language speakers also use the word gulag in reference to each of the forced-labor camps that existed in the Soviet Union, including the camps that existed in the post-Lenin era. The full official name of the agency changed several times. The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union.
Baltic SeaThe Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 10°E to 30°E longitude. It is a shelf sea and marginal sea of the Atlantic with limited water exchange between the two, making it an inland sea. The Baltic Sea drains through the Danish Straits into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, Great Belt and Little Belt.
World War IIWorld War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries, including all of the great powers, fought as part of two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. Many participants threw their economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind this total war, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources.
SwedenSweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, Finland to the east, and is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridgetunnel across the Öresund. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic country, the third-largest country in the European Union, and the fifth-largest country in Europe. The capital and largest city is Stockholm. Sweden has a total population of 10.
PrussiaPrussia (ˈprʌʃə; Preußen, ˈpʁɔʏsn̩, Old Prussian: Prūsa or Prūsija) was a German state located on most of the North European Plain, also occupying southern and eastern regions. It formed the German Empire when it united the German states in 1871. It was de facto dissolved by an emergency decree transferring powers of the Prussian government to German Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932 and de jure by an Allied decree in 1947. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, expanding its size with the Prussian Army.
