(“Nationalist”) Latvians were heartened when Latvian authorities announced plans to potentially deport some 10,000 Russian-speakers who chose Russian citizenship/passports following the restoration of independence but have failed to meet residency language requirements since. With a September 1st deadline for compliance looming, they were equally disheartened when the government backed down in late August over denunciations of “hard-line” measures. Affected individuals now have another two years’ grace period to complete their studies and pass their exam.
At the moment, four accountants of the Daugavpils Education Board have been fined for not knowing Latvian sufficiently well. For now, they still have their jobs, but have to demonstrate language competency by November. From a societal perspective, as of September 1st, 129 schools and 136 kindergartens teaching in Russian have been mandated to convey education only in the state language, Latvian. Such actions have fomented denunciations by well-meaning rights activists, Kremlin trolls, and the Russian-speakers affected who, from my perspective, have enjoyed the fruits of their consequences-free self-imposed apartheid Russian privilege bubble for longer than Latvia’s first years of freedom between WWI and WWII.
It is not some innocuous bubble that is being pierced, however. Nor is this the first time Latvian language policy has been denounced. Under the pre-WWII Ulmanis regime, instruction was also standardized to be conducted in Latvian. Prior to that, national/ethnic minorities had the right to run their own schools in their own languages as long as state-mandated curriculum requirements were met. In the era of “Latvia for the Latvians,” standardization was decried as ethno-nationalist oppression; regarding prior instruction in Hebrew by its Jewish minority, the policy is portrayed today as a touchstone of pre-WWII Latvian anti-Semitism.
False. Anti-Semites denounced Latvia as a “Jewish country” for the positive view and role of Jews in society. Latvia was the only European country to ban anti-Semitic literature. Latvia served as a transit country for Jews fleeing Nazi Germany after other countries had closed their borders.
Ulmanis understood that the future economic prospects of a country the small size and population of Latvia in which not even Latvians learned in and spoke the same version of Latvian were severely constrained unless and until the Latvian language and school instruction were standardized. The impetus had nothing to do with so-called ethno-nationalism. It was a simple matter of economic survival and growth.
Once again, over eight decades—a lifetime—later, Latvian language “policy” is not about oppression of a minority but about progress of society as a whole, including, ironically, improving the circumstances of those impacted by and most vehemently opposed to the policy.
Mainstream media have trodden out accounts of elderly women lining up to take their language proficiency tests when their potential deportation was first announced, distraught that they “have no other place to go” if they fail and are expelled to their chosen country of citizenship. But the imagery of heartless Latvian nationalism run amok dissipates when you do the math. Someone 80 years old today was 48 years old when the USSR recognized Latvian independence on September 6th, 1991. Spending more than three decades not learning enough of the local language to get by is a choice. Choices eventually have consequences.
The societal choice to indulge Russian apartheidism also has consequences. Some months ago, I learned that employees at LIDO, a wildly popular buffet-style restaurant that I myself have frequented over the years on visits to Latvia—and with unbecoming salivating anticipation, conducts its employee meetings in Russian because their Russian employees don’t know Latvian. As a result, someone who does not know Russian has no career path at LIDO: lacking Russian fluency, you can’t even become a food station supervisor. Thus, there is now an entire generation of Latvian 20-30 year olds who don’t speak Russian (the language of the last occupier and centuries-old existential threat) who have no career prospects across a wide range of establishments and businesses which are “Latvian” in name and image, but are Russified under the covers.
Latvia of the first independence was cosmopolitan. Most Latvians were multi-lingual: my mother was fluent in Latvian and German (and still remembered smatterings of grade school Russian), my father in Latvian, German, and Russian. And they both learned English in the post-WWII refugee camps to prepare for starting over in their post-war life. The point is not that they were some ilk of conformist polyglots, rather, that in committing to learn the language of their new country they opened up economic opportunities for themselves and, in turn, subsequently contributed to the material success of their employers and society.
The situation for Latvia today is no different. Individual and societal economic prosperity demands standardization of communication. And the answer to that in a Western-facing Latvia is not the Russian language. Indeed, Putin’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine has turned Russia into an international pariah, and the learning of Russian in its neighboring states into an anathema.
It is well past overdue for Latvia’s non-Latvian speakers to make the choice and join mainstream society.
We wrote to the Apollo Group, 51% stake-holders in LIDO (since 2021), to inquire about their employee language policy. We will notify you of and share any reply we receive here.