Exactly 50 years later, on 23 August 1989, approximately two million people joined hands across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Their peaceful demonstration, known as the Baltic Way, transformed a date associated with secret diplomacy and imposed division into an expression of solidarity and historical remembrance.

The date is now commemorated by European institutions as the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of All Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes. It invites Europe to remember not only governments, treaties and ideologies, but also the individuals and communities whose lives were destroyed or permanently altered.

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact - The pact and its secret protocol

The public part of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact committed Germany and the Soviet Union not to attack one another for ten years. The secret protocol went considerably further by assigning territories to German and Soviet spheres of influence.

Finland, Estonia and Latvia were placed within the Soviet sphere, as was Bessarabia, then part of Romania. Poland was to be divided along an agreed line. Lithuania was initially placed largely within the German sphere but was subsequently transferred to the Soviet sphere under the German–Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty of 28 September 1939.

The states and populations affected by these arrangements were not represented in the negotiations.

Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. The Soviet Union invaded from the east on 17 September. By the end of that month, the two powers had partitioned the country. The Soviet Union subsequently attacked Finland and, in 1940, occupied and incorporated Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania while also taking Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.

The pact did not cause every crime or territorial change that followed, but it removed the immediate danger of conflict between Germany and the Soviet Union and facilitated their separate expansion into territories covered by their agreements. It remained in force until Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941.

Distinct histories of persecution

The European Day of Remembrance encompasses victims of different regimes, periods and systems of persecution. These histories should be commemorated together without being treated as identical.

The Holocaust was Nazi Germany’s systematic attempt to annihilate Europe’s Jewish population. Six million Jewish people were murdered. Nazi Germany and its collaborators also persecuted and murdered Roma and Sinti, people with disabilities, Polish and Soviet civilians, prisoners of war, political opponents, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of other targeted groups.

Stalinist rule produced its own structures of state violence, including political executions, imprisonment, forced collectivisation, deportations, forced labour in the Gulag and the suppression of political, religious and cultural life. Its victims came from numerous nationalities and social groups across the Soviet Union and territories under Soviet control.

These systems differed in ideology, intention, chronology and methods. Serious remembrance must recognise those differences. Commemorating their victims on the same date should not imply that all crimes were interchangeable or that the distinct character of the Holocaust can be absorbed into a general history of repression.

The purpose of a shared commemoration is not to establish an equivalence between regimes. It is to affirm that every victim deserves recognition and that each history must be examined on the basis of evidence.

The Baltic Way - "Chain of Freedom"

On 23 August 1989, exactly the fiftieth anniversary of the pact, people formed a human chain connecting Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius. The Baltic Way extended approximately 600 kilometres across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Organised by the principal national movements in the three Baltic republics, the demonstration drew international attention to the secret protocol and expressed demands for national rights and independence. It was remarkable both for its scale and its peaceful character.

The Baltic Way did not by itself secure independence, which the three states restored during the political transformation of 1990–1991. It nevertheless became one of the defining civic demonstrations of that process. UNESCO subsequently included documentary records of the Baltic Way in its Memory of the World Register.

The event also changed the symbolism of 23 August. A date on which powerful states had negotiated over the futures of smaller nations was reclaimed by citizens asserting their right to speak about their own history.

The development of a European commemoration

The international commemoration of 23 August developed gradually. During the 1980s, émigré communities from Central and Eastern Europe organised Black Ribbon Day demonstrations in North America and elsewhere. Similar acts of remembrance later appeared within the Baltic republics, culminating in the Baltic Way.

Following the enlargement of the European Union in 2004, the historical experiences of Central and Eastern European member states gained greater prominence in European discussions about remembrance.

On 2 April 2009, the European Parliament adopted its resolution on European conscience and totalitarianism. It called for 23 August to be proclaimed a Europe-wide day of remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, to be commemorated “with dignity and impartiality.” The observance was reaffirmed in a further parliamentary resolution in 2019.

The resolution represented an important political commitment, but it did not impose a uniform culture of remembrance upon every European country. Responsibility for commemorative policy largely remains with individual states, and the meanings attached to 23 August continue to differ across Europe.

The day has also generated scholarly and political debate. Some critics fear that placing different regimes within one commemorative framework can obscure historical distinctions or relativise the Holocaust. Others argue that the experiences of societies subjected to Stalinist rule were long insufficiently represented within Western European narratives.

These concerns should not be dismissed. They demonstrate why remembrance requires careful historical language rather than simplified comparisons.

Preserving lives beyond the statistics

The scale of twentieth-century persecution requires the use of numbers, but numbers alone cannot convey what was lost. Behind every statistic was a person with a family, profession, language, home and imagined future.

Archives, museums and memorial institutions therefore perform more than a documentary function. By preserving letters, photographs, testimony, official records and personal possessions, they restore individuality to people whom persecuting regimes reduced to racial, social or political categories.

Families also remain essential custodians of memory. A photograph, a name, an inherited letter or a story repeated between generations may preserve an experience that never entered an official archive.

As the number of surviving witnesses diminishes, historical education becomes increasingly important. Its purpose should not be to transfer guilt to later generations. It should teach students how evidence is established, why different societies remember the same period differently, and how individual experiences fit within broader historical processes.

Narratives of Power: Memory Politics in Europe and the Contemporary World

The questions raised by 23 August are also central to Narratives of Power: Memory Politics in Europe and the Contemporary World.

The programme examines how historical narratives are constructed and communicated through scholarship, education, museums, monuments, commemorations, cultural institutions and family memory. It considers why certain experiences become central to public consciousness while others remain less visible.

Studying memory politics does not mean suggesting that historical truth is relative. Documented evidence must remain distinct from distortion and denial. The purpose is to examine how established facts are selected, framed and transmitted and how those choices influence collective identity and relations between communities.

Europe does not possess a single historical experience. A responsible culture of remembrance must therefore make room for different national and personal histories without turning suffering into a competition or imposing an artificial equivalence between distinct crimes.

A date with two legacies

The meaning of 23 August developed through two contrasting events.

In 1939, the date became associated with an agreement in which powerful states divided territories into spheres of influence. In 1989, it became the date on which citizens across three nations joined hands to recover suppressed history and express their aspirations peacefully.

The European Day of Remembrance brings these legacies together. Its lasting value will depend upon historical precision, respect for the distinct experiences of victims and the preservation of evidence for future generations.

A shared day of remembrance does not require Europe to adopt a single interpretation of its past. It requires something more disciplined: the willingness to preserve the record, acknowledge differences and ensure that individual lives are not lost behind the narratives of states and ideologies.