The Baltic area was and still is a zone of productive trade relationships. Here various language groups – Teutons, Slavs, Balts, and Finno-Ugrians – lived together since time immemorial; in the Middle Ages, but in part not until the early modern period, these groups developed into states and nations (Eastern Europe, with map). What bound them together was trade, which as early as the 8th century was based on exchanging finished goods from Western Europe for raw materials from the North and East. Between the 13th and 16th centuries, trade and politics were dominated by the cities and …