Balticum

A blog on the Baltics and the post-Soviet geopolitical space

Historic Rīga skyline

Category: Latvia

Latvia’s “oppressed” Russians

By

On June 11, 2022

In Latvia, Post-Soviet geopolitics

I recently wound up in a still-ongoing Twitter argument about Kosovo, its history, and whether Serbs or Albanians have the more indigenous claim. Serbs are adamant Kosovo is Serbian land, that Albanians are interlopers. Indeed, that Albanians did not even exist as a people until the Ottoman Empire created them. (We note that if language is culture, Albanian is thought to be a millennium older than Serbian.)

The discussion inevitably descended into whataboutism. Who was I to discuss Kosovo when Latvians oppressed Russians?

You’re lying [that Russian propaganda about Latvia’s oppression of Russians is lies]! What Russian propaganda? When I was in Latvia a couple of months ago, Russians are literally second-class citizens. Not only that, they fear for their lives and must not say anything against the policies of your government. And then Putin is a dictator? and In Russia everyone has the same rights and we are allowed to criticize the government. [translated from Serbian]

More troubling than this false Russian narrative is that more than 30 years after fully restoring sovereignty, Latvians must learn Russian order to have any career opportunity. Even the LIDO restaurant chain conducts employee meetings in Russian because Russians still refuse to learn Latvian—and Latvians indulge them.

Our mailer editorial from September 2004 could have just as easily been written yesterday. From our archives:

Editorial, September 3, 2004

I read Boris Kagarlitsky’s thoughts on “A Common Baltic Future” [read article here] with great interest. I found, however, that they share a fundamental flaw with much of the analyses disseminated about the “problem” of Latvian Russians: that the Latvian nationalists fear the application of EU objectivity and norms because it will stop their abuse of Latvian Russians. That is the basis of Mr. Kagarlitsky’s alleged “paradox.”

Indisputably, Latvian nationalists look to EU membership to re-affirm the Baltics’ western European heritage—even under czarist Russia, the Baltics exercised a considerable degree of autonomy and remained western in outlook. A fundamental point which Mr. Kagarlitsky misses, however, is that Latvian nationalists also look to the EU for objectivity regarding the situation of Latvian Russians. They seek an effective counterbalance to Russia’s wide-ranging and ceaseless assault on the Baltics, from the Duma’s jingoistic pronouncements on human rights violations—the Baltics’ treatment of Russians is apparently more evil than the Russian army’s practice of exploding Chechen bodies to prevent identification—to the Duma’s resolutions that the Baltics joined the Soviet Union voluntarily and legally—and that to suggest otherwise is an anti-anti-fascist—i.e., Nazi—lie.

The true paradox is that Russia, as self-appointed proxy for Latvian Russians, does not seek EU objectivity. It rejects outright any objectivity that fails to fit its anti-Baltic agenda. The OSCE position on the validity of Latvia’s language laws is clear and indisputable; that position is now under frontal assault: Russia and its more oppressive CIS partners, in a joint declaration, recently took the OSCE to task for pointing out their human rights violations—the aforementioned exploding bodies, widening suppression of a free press, et al.—while turning a blind eye to atrocities committed daily in Estonia and Latvia.

Indeed, Mr. Kagarlitsky takes up Russia’s “blind eye” argument in his direct assertion that the Baltics are not being held to EU standards: “attempts by the Latvian government to drastically reduce the availability of Russian-language instruction in public schools flagrantly contradicts European norms,” and, “if the interests of minorities were a concern for Western politicians, Latvia and Estonia would not have been admitted to the EU until they had brought their laws in this area into line with European norms.” This EU-Baltic axis “consipiracy theory” plays well in domestic Russian politics and international posturing, but it is no more than Russian misdirection and misinformation taking on the guise of veracity by way of endless repetition.

If one scrutinizes minority language schooling within the EU, there is no simple declaration demanding such; rather, one finds a formalized process for preserving the languages of centuries-extant indigenous minorities evaluated and executed on a case by case basis. (In Latvia, this could apply to schooling in Liv or Latgalian.) Regardless, there is nothing in Latvia’s language policies which precludes Russian cultural instruction in Russian. As a parallel, I was born and grew up in New York, but attended Latvian school on the weekend, studying grammar, literature, history, and geography in my parents’ native language. Conversely, my parents learned English in order to fully participate in the life-blood of their new home.

And therein lies the true crux of the issue. The situation is not one of Latvians systematically attempting to wipe out the Russian language and culture—even every one of my relative says “Davai!” for “Okay!” It’s not the preservation of Russian that is at issue, it is Latvian Russian refusal to learn Latvian. There is a minority of Latvian Russians who:

  • continue to hold the Latvians and Latvian language in utter disdain;
  • continue to believe that Soviet preferential treatment of Russians versus Latvians is a natural state of entitlement;
  • and that denial of that entitlement is oppression.

When Russian journalists held their worldwide convention in Latvia in August, 2000, to discuss the state of Russians abroad, they expected to hold Latvia—the global epicenter of Russian minority abuse—accountable to the world. Instead, even Duma politicians in attendance freely admitted that what they found was far different from what Russian pronouncements and Latvian Russian “rights-advocates” had led them to expect.

Put bluntly, the refusal to learn Latvian by segments of its Russian minority is not a defiant act of Russian cultural preservation. It is a blatant effort to perpetuate perceived Russian supremacy through denial of the Latvian state. And therein, perhaps, we find the true motivation of the Russian Duma in its endless denouncements of the Baltic “situation”: its collective weltschmerz over how things are—independent autonomous Baltic states—and how it wishes they were—continued Soviet/Russian domination and state-paid vacations for Duma members to Jūrmala, the Latvian Riviera.

Boris Kagarlitsky (Russian: Бори́с Кагарли́цкий; born 29 August 1958) is a Russian Marxist theoretician and sociologist who has been a political dissident in the Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia. He is coordinator of the Transnational Institute Global Crisis project and Director of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements (IGSO) in Moscow. Kagarlisky hosts a YouTube channel “Rabkor,” associated with his online newspaper of the same name and with the IGSO. (Russia declared Kagarlisky and IGSO as “foreign agents” in 2021). [per Wikipedia]

MEMBERS of Latvia’s Russian minority take part in a rally on June 2 to protest against the imposition of Latvian as the main teaching language in minority schools.—AFP

Boris Kagarlitsky’s “Common Baltic Future”

By

On September 3, 2004

In Latvia, Russians in Latvia

I read Boris Kagarlitsky’s thoughts on “A Common Baltic Future” [read article here] with great interest. I found, however, that his appraisal shares a fundamental flaw with much of the analyses disseminated about the “problem” of Latvian Russians: that Latvian nationalists fear application of EU objectivity and norms because it will stop their abuse of Latvian Russians. That is the basis of Mr. Kagarlitsky’s alleged “paradox.”

Indisputably, Latvian nationalists look to EU membership to re-affirm the Baltics’ western European heritage—even under czarist Russia, the Baltics exercised a considerable degree of autonomy and remained western in outlook. A fundamental point which Mr. Kagarlitsky misses, however, is that Latvian nationalists also look to the EU for objectivity regarding the situation of Latvian Russians. They seek an effective counterbalance to Russia’s wide-ranging and ceaseless assault on the Baltics, from the Duma’s jingoistic pronouncements on human rights violations—the Baltics’ treatment of Russians is apparently more evil than the Russian army’s practice of exploding Chechen bodies to prevent identification—to the Duma’s resolutions that the Baltics joined the Soviet Union voluntarily and legally—and that to suggest otherwise is an anti-anti-fascist—i.e., Nazi—lie.

The true paradox is that Russia, as self-appointed proxy for Latvian Russians, does not seek EU objectivity. It rejects outright any objectivity that fails to fit its anti-Baltic agenda. The OSCE position on the validity of Latvia’s language laws is clear and indisputable; that position is now under frontal assault: Russia and its more oppressive CIS partners, in a joint declaration, recently took the OSCE to task for pointing out their human rights violations—the aforementioned exploding bodies, widening suppression of a free press, et al.—while turning a blind eye to atrocities committed daily in Estonia and Latvia.

Indeed, Mr. Kagarlitsky takes up Russia’s “blind eye” argument in his direct assertion that the Baltics are not being held to EU standards: “attempts by the Latvian government to drastically reduce the availability of Russian-language instruction in public schools flagrantly contradicts European norms,” and, “if the interests of minorities were a concern for Western politicians, Latvia and Estonia would not have been admitted to the EU until they had brought their laws in this area into line with European norms.” This EU-Baltic axis “consipiracy theory” plays well in domestic Russian politics and international posturing, but it is no more than Russian misdirection and misinformation taking on the guise of veracity by way of endless repetition.

If one scrutinizes minority language schooling within the EU, there is no simple declaration demanding such; rather, one finds a formalized process for preserving the languages of centuries-extant indigenous minorities evaluated and executed on a case by case basis. (In Latvia, this could apply to schooling in Liv or Latgalian.) Regardless, there is nothing in Latvia’s language policies which precludes Russian cultural instruction in Russian. As a parallel, I was born and grew up in New York, but attended Latvian school on the weekend, studying grammar, literature, history, and geography in my parents’ native language. Conversely, my parents learned English in order to fully participate in the life-blood of their new home.

And therein lies the true crux of the issue. The situation is not one of Latvians systematically attempting to wipe out the Russian language and culture—even every one of my relative says “Davai!” for “Okay!” It’s not the preservation of Russian that is at issue, it is Latvian Russian refusal to learn Latvian. There is a segment of Latvian Russians who:

  • continue to hold the Latvians and Latvian language in utter disdain;
  • continue to believe that Soviet preferential treatment of Russians versus Latvians is a natural state of entitlement;
  • and that denial of that entitlement is oppression.

When Russian journalists held their worldwide convention in Latvia in August, 2000, to discuss the state of Russians abroad, they expected to hold Latvia—the global epicenter of Russian minority abuse—accountable to the world. Instead, even Duma politicians in attendance freely admitted that what they found was far different from what Russian pronouncements and Latvian Russian “rights-advocates” had led them to expect.

Put bluntly, the refusal to learn Latvian by segments of its Russian minority is not a defiant act of Russian cultural preservation. It is a blatant effort to perpetuate perceived Russian supremacy through denial of the Latvian state. And therein, perhaps, we find the true motivation of the Russian Duma in its endless denouncements of the Baltic “situation”: its collective weltschmerz over how things are—independent autonomous Baltic states—and how it wishes they were—continued Soviet/Russian domination and state-paid vacations for Duma members to Jūrmala, the Latvian Riviera.

We are our greatest resource

By

On January 1, 2000

In Latvia

The history we are taught is not a chronicle of achievements, but a chronology of conquests. Anglo-Saxon England arises with William the Conqueror in 1066. A century later, Latvia arises with the invasion of the Knights of the Sword and the eventual promotion of the Bishopric of Riga (1186) to an ecclesiastical state under Bishop Albert in 1201—a date Latvians know as intimately as the English know 1066.

For the eight centuries afterwards, the Baltics—and Latvia in particular—sat at the crossroads of regional and global superpower greed and fear, a perpetual battleground over trade and security interests.

Our folk songs spring from this history. One war-bound youth consoles his betrothed not to weep, another sings a cheerful goodbye to his homeland. A battle survivor speaks of blood-red skies dawning and of soldiers’ sorrows. An orphaned girl sings fondly of her parents; a young boy plays soldier. Latvians do not sing of growing old and gray.

In the late 1500’s, a traveler wrote that between Riga and Tartu (Estonia), “no cock was left to crow, no dog was left to bark.” After the bloody Russian capture of Riga in 1710, annexing Livonia, historians estimate a mere 90,000 Latvians were left alive.

Yet, always, love of duty prevails over war; love of life prevails over death. Through this maelstrom, Latvians have doggedly and unceasingly clung to their language, their culture, and their homeland.

The “call home” is a power every Latvian knows. At the end of WWI, a Latvian battalion inside Soviet Russia found themselves stranded—faced with surrender—when Latvia declared independence. They marched to the Pacific and circumnavigated the globe to get home.

Our first millennium was one of tribalism. Our second millennium was one of servitude. What of our third millennium?

The fractious ineffectiveness of Latvia’s first modern independent government was no accident. The cohesion of focus on the goal of freedom dissipated once independence came. Through his vision and selfless dedication, Kārlis Ulmanis provided the unity of purpose that allowed Latvia to achieve remarkable progress.

Once more we have freedom, and seemingly, once more, our sense of purpose appears dissipated. It is with remorse that we watch Latvian legislators pass laws to put profit into their own pockets. Recall the easing of the tariff on imported sugar—as Latvian business profits rose, Latvian sugar beets rotted in fields to be plowed under. In America, at the end of the Civil War, these people were called “carpetbaggers.”

The biggest industrial investment in Latvia’s history will be a pulp mill. What better metaphor for grinding up Latvia’s riches—leaving the waste, exporting the wealth? (What of the corruption pulp logging has already engendered?) If lumber were harvested, milled and finished, and then either exported or further manufactured into products—adding Latvian ingenuity and labor—that would generate prosperity for a far larger citizenry and serve a greater good. As it stands, Latvia’s “gold” is being refined and taken away, while we are left with nothing but dross and some tax revenue.

What empires did for nearly a millennia we now supplicate business to do freely. Political independence means nothing if we subvert it into economic dependence. Latvia will not rise from the profits of free enterprise “trickling down” to its people and to the state—Latvia will rise only if the interests of the people and the state come before those of individuals and businesses. Latvia will not rise as a “service” or “transit” economy (the economic collapse in Russia has brought home the frailty of that plan)—Latvia will rise only if it produces agricultural and manufactured goods imbued with the truly unique added value of Latvian creativity and industriousness. This behavior cannot be legislated; it must come from the heart—out of love of duty, as our folk songs teach us.

No culture has a richer treasure trove of folk designs and patterns. No culture has produced or preserved as many ancient songs, stories, ballads, and sayings. Linguists now believe Latvian may be the oldest surviving Indo-European language—making Latvian the oldest of any of the surviving modern European cultures.

Politicians toss out Latvianized English to appear erudite; as one pontificated on TV, my relatives told me they knew him personally and he was “dumb as a boot.” They don’t vote anymore because “they’re all like that.” University professors demand Latvianized English by grading it higher than Latvian—you can’t get an “A” without it. We have nurtured and preserved our heritage through centuries of repeated near extinction—at times through the acts of a single individual. Are we so full of ourselves that we now have the insolence to jettison our heritage to indulge academic and intellectual foppery?

The creativity, the vitality, the tenacity of the Latvian people is like no other. Notwithstanding my Swedish blood and Silvija’s Polish and Lithuanian blood, we are completely Latvian. Every Latvian is a testament to the power of this cultural identity. Even as foreign powers waxed and waned across the Latvian landscape, their subjects—Poles, Lithuanians, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, Russians, Germans—saw the true value of the land, its people and culture, and chose to settle there; through the generations, their progeny, too, became proud heirs to the Latvian heritage.

Let us open ourselves to our history, our culture—our heritage. In the next millennium, let us use all the means at our disposal to ensure that the world once again knows of Latvia. Let Latvia and its leadership work diligently and unceasingly to capitalize on the most valuable, the most potent, the most productive of all its resources—Latvians themselves. There can be no greater purpose—nor greater or more lasting reward.

Page 2 of 2

Previous

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén