The Baltic States between the two world wars became one of the main centers of Russian emigration. Riga, Tallinn, and Reval welcomed tens of thousands of refugees fleeing from the revolution and the Civil War. Russian newspapers were published here, gymnasiums, publishing houses, and Orthodox parishes operated. The Riga printing house "Gramatu Draugs," numerous periodicals, and literary associations created an enclave of old Russia preserved on the Baltic shore.

Everything changed in the summer of 1940. The Red Army entered the three Baltic states in June, and in August they were incorporated into the Soviet Union. For Russian emigrants who had fled from Soviet power, the arrival of the NKVD meant catastrophe. People who had once served in the White Army, belonged to emigration organizations, or published "anti-Soviet" literature were automatically categorized as "enemies of the people."

Arrests and deportations began. An order prescribed sending former officials of the state apparatus to Kazakhstan and the Kirov region, but the repressions affected far more than just them. Emigrant intelligentsia, officers, priests, editors, and booksellers were among the first deported in June 1941. Later, in March 1949, a new mass deportation was organized, affecting about 90,000 people sent to remote areas of the country.

Fates varied. Some managed to flee to the West before the arrival of Soviet troops, joining the Paris or Berlin diaspora. Many perished in camps and special settlements. The vibrant Russian cultural life of the Baltic States in the 1920s and 1930s was almost completely destroyed: publishing houses closed, libraries were dispersed into private hands, and the fates of those who believed they had found a safe haven here were severed. Only rare publications remain from an entire layer of emigrant culture.