For teachers · Eesti keeles

Teaching the Baltic Way

A ready-to-teach 45-minute lesson about the human chain of 23 August 1989, built around the free interactive map on this site. Nothing to install and no sign-up: you need a screen, a projector and this page.

Ages 12–18History, social studies, civics
45 minutesSix short parts, easy to trim
Four languagesEnglish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian
FreeWorks in any modern browser

Print this lesson plan. The printed version lists every link in full. For the classroom wall, there is an A3 poster (PDF) with the route, key numbers, a timeline and a QR code to the 3D flight.

What students will learn

What happened on 23 August 1989, and why that date was chosen.
How the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 and its secret protocol shaped the fate of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
How about two million people organized a peaceful protest across three countries without phones or the internet, and what came of it.

The lesson, step by step

5minutes

1. Warm-up: how long is 675 km?

Ask the class to guess how far the chain stretched. Then lay the real chain over your own town, at true scale.

Example: the chain laid over New York →

Open the menu and choose How long was it? to search for your town. From New York, for example, the far end lands out in the Atlantic, east of North Carolina.

10minutes

2. Why 23 August?

Open the History section and walk through the maps for each era: independence in 1918, the pact of 1939, the Soviet occupation of 1940, and the years that followed.

Open the History section →

On 23 August 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a treaty. A secret protocol divided Eastern Europe between them. The next year the Red Army occupied all three Baltic countries. Fifty years later to the day, people stood in a line from Tallinn to Vilnius to say: we know about the secret deal, and we want our countries back.

Point out the mass deportations of 1941 and 1949 on the timeline. Many families in the Baltic countries, and in Baltic communities abroad, were shaped by them.

10minutes

3. Fly the chain

Play the four-minute flight from Tallinn to Vilnius. It pauses at twelve stops with a photograph taken that day and a moment from Estonian Radio's live broadcast.

Start the flight →

Split the class into three groups, one per country. Each group notes one detail from its own stretch to share in the discussion: a place, a number, a photograph.

8minutes

4. How did they do it?

There were no mobile phones and no internet. People found their place in the chain through radio, newspapers and word of mouth. Two features help students picture this:

Pass the word. Along the Estonian stretch, the word “Vabadus” (Freedom) was passed from mouth to mouth. Watch it travel to the Latvian border.
Open Pass the word →
Stand anywhere. Pick any kilometer of the chain and see where you would have stood and roughly how many people stood around you.
Stand at kilometer 300 →

10minutes

5. Discussion

Why do you think the organizers chose a human chain rather than a march or a rally in one city?
The protest lasted only fifteen minutes. Why could fifteen minutes matter so much?
Three days later, the Soviet Communist Party denounced the chain on national television. Four months later, the USSR Congress of People's Deputies admitted the secret protocols existed and declared them invalid. What changed, and why?
The chain was completely peaceful. What are the strengths and limits of non-violent protest?
In 2013 about 1.6 million people formed the Catalan Way, and in 2019 the Hong Kong Way borrowed the idea. Why do ideas like this travel?

2minutes

6. Exit ticket: the quiz

Finish with the short quiz, as a class on the projector or on students' phones.

Open the quiz →

Short on time? Parts 1, 3 and 6 make a 20-minute lesson on their own.

Key words

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact: The non-aggression treaty between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, signed on 23 August 1939.
Secret protocol: A hidden part of the pact that divided Eastern Europe between the two powers and placed the Baltic states in the Soviet sphere.
Occupation: Control of a country by a foreign army. The Red Army occupied Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in June 1940.
Deportation: Forcibly moving people out of their homeland. Tens of thousands of Baltic families were sent to Siberia in 1941 and 1949.
Popular Front, Sąjūdis: The mass movements in Estonia (Rahvarinne), Latvia (Tautas fronte) and Lithuania (Sąjūdis) that organized the chain.
Singing Revolution: The peaceful movement of 1987–1991 in the Baltic countries, named after the mass song festivals of 1988.
Restoration of independence: Lithuania on 11 March 1990, Estonia on 20 August 1991 and Latvia on 21 August 1991.

Homework and extension

Ask at home. Students with Baltic roots can ask parents or grandparents where they were on 23 August 1989, then mark the place on the map at the end of the flight.
Read the whole story. The story page has every stop, 40 archive photographs and a full timeline, ready for research or an essay. An Estonian version is also available.
Compare. Students research the Catalan Way (2013) or the Hong Kong Way (2019) and compare their aims and outcomes with the Baltic Way.

For Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian schools

The interactive map works in all four languages, which makes it a good fit for weekend heritage schools abroad. Estonian schools can use the Estonian version of this lesson plan. Add lang=et, lang=lv or lang=lt to any link on this page, or use the language switch in the top corner of the map. For example: the quiz in Estonian, in Latvian or in Lithuanian.

Sources

The facts on this site come from the Estonian History Museum, Vabamu, the Popular Front Museum of the Latvian National History Museum, Lithuania's official portal lithuania.lt, ERR's radio archive and UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. The full list is on the story page. Archive photographs are from Wikimedia Commons, each credited with its photographer and license.