"The Baltics: Nationalities and Other Problems" The Baltics area is fraught with cross ethnic mergings, conquerings by different groups, and control by both small groups like the Teutonic and Livonian knights and by larger entities like the nations of Sweden, Poland, and Russia during the roughly eight centuries of Baltic history. There is no ideal way to depict these very diverse groups of people and areas, so this is an attempt to first look at the area as a whole as it developed, in the briefest kind of way, then shoot forward in time to examine each of the three Baltic countries separately prior to World War II