Aleks wrote:

Heck, even the deportations commemorated today in 1949 were committed by zealous Latvian communists...

Three objections.

Though there were many Latvians (ethnic Latvians and/or Latvian nationals) who collaborated, the same Diena article you are quoting says this:

Lielākais vairākums drošības darbinieku bija iebraucēji no Krievijas vai arī Krievijas latvieši. Tas tāpēc, ka drošības un iekšlietu tautas komisariāti bija saformēti un apriņķos arī amati sadalīti vēl pirms Sarkanās armijas ienākšanas Latvijā. Tikko armija ienāca Latvijā, tai sekoja jau saformētās čekas rindas.

“Ledainā elpa”

Ethnic Latvians and Latvian nationals are not the same thing; most of the Latvians from Russia were never Latvian citizens. I won’t parse what ethnicity might mean to some others here, but in terms of nationality—many of the “Latvians” who live in infamy were Soviet nationals and “more Russian than the Russians.”

Secondly, the deportations were planned and directed from the Kremlin, which is in Russia. Here are the directives—ain’t a one of them written in Latvian. The deportations took place at the same time in Estonia and Lithuania, too—I don’t think you can blame Latvians for that.

Thirdly, the deportations had a genocidal character, whether one concentrates upon the class aspect or not; they broke the back of the Latvian nation and opened the gates for Russification. 41 084 ethnic Latvians were deported today 59 years ago. Russians? 772. Between 1935 and 1959, the number of Latvians in Latvia went down by 174 775. The number of Russians rose from 206 499 to 556 400. The Latvian decline was actually even larger, since about 10 000 Letts from Russia settled in occupied Latvia.

I have a post about “the Surf” at my blog.

Vysu lobu,
/P

Objecting, Peteris Cedrins wrote - 25 March 2008 03:05 AM

Though there were many Latvians (ethnic Latvians and/or Latvian nationals) who collaborated, the same Diena article you are quoting says this:

Lielākais vairākums drošības darbinieku bija iebraucēji no Krievijas vai arī Krievijas latvieši. Tas tāpēc, ka drošības un iekšlietu tautas komisariāti bija saformēti un apriņķos arī amati sadalīti vēl pirms Sarkanās armijas ienākšanas Latvijā. Tikko armija ienāca Latvijā, tai sekoja jau saformētās čekas rindas.

“Ledainā elpa”

I don’t doubt that for a fact. And my statement needs not to be interpreted to say that Latvians alone deported Latvians. Not so. Is it not true that there were many Bolshevik sympathizers among ethnic Latvians when the Red Army rolled in in 1940? The regime used them to accomplish its goals, certainly. Some did it willingly for the bright communist future, or whatever, believing in an idea that “a chambermaid could rule the world.” It’s also a fact that very few prominent Latvians followed the example of Lithuania’s Kreve (first appointed to the Soviet government, disillusioned, backed out, escaped to the West).

Peteris Cedrins continues - 25 March 2008 03:05 AM

Ethnic Latvians and Latvian nationals are not the same thing; most of the Latvians from Russia were never Latvian citizens. I won’t parse what ethnicity might mean to some others here, but in terms of nationality—many of the “Latvians” who live in infamy were Soviet nationals and “more Russian than the Russians.”

There’s no statistics to that differentiation, so I don’t see how exactly it would relevant. That same, Alfons Noviks, for example, was an ethnic Latvian from Latvia, no?

Peteris Cedrins adds number dos - 25 March 2008 03:05 AM

Secondly, the deportations were planned and directed from the Kremlin, which is in Russia. Here are the directives—ain’t a one of them written in Latvian. The deportations took place at the same time in Estonia and Lithuania, too—I don’t think you can blame Latvians for that.

Absolutely not. However, perhaps as Waffen veterans were willing to be used by the Nazi regime (the creation of the Latvian legions was written in what language incidentally?), ethnic Latvians on the Soviet side are likewise were willing to be used by the Bolshevik regime. This, alone, makes it as an awful, terrible part of our history.

Peteris Cedrins goes on - 25 March 2008 03:05 AM

Thirdly, the deportations had a genocidal character, whether one concentrates upon the class aspect or not; they broke the back of the Latvian nation and opened the gates for Russification. 41 084 ethnic Latvians were deported today 59 years ago. Russians? 772. Between 1935 and 1959, the number of Latvians in Latvia went down by 174 775. The number of Russians rose from 206 499 to 556 400. The Latvian decline was actually even larger, since about 10 000 Letts from Russia settled in occupied Latvia.

I don’t buy the genocide argument for a moment. Yes, the majority deported were Latvians who were not deported merely because of their nationality. Looking at the those same documents, you’ll notice that the Soviets deported any one who was deemed a threat to the Soviet way of life, any anti-Soviet element - be it a Latvian nationalist yearning for the return of the independent Latvia, or a land owner who is unwilling to give his land to the collectivization efforts, or a Latvian soldier, official, or whatever. It was done regardless of their ethnicity – in a similar way the Stalin purges of the 1930s took place in Russia. Many Russians over there suffered at the hands of their own government merely because they peeped an independent thought. Among the deported, there was a large number of Latvians largely because the large number of Latvians were deemed as unfriendly toward the Soviet policies.

Aleks(ejs)

Is it not true that there were many Bolshevik sympathizers among ethnic Latvians when the Red Army rolled in in 1940?

Absolutely untrue. There were 1600 members and 1200 candidates for membership in the Party when it held its Ninth Congress in late 1940—and that was triple the membership that there was in June. The occupation administration was heavily Russian and Russian Latvian. There were very few Bolshevik sympathizers in Latvia—because the deep-seated social problems had been taken care of, in essence, and the hardcore Bolsheviks had left when they lost their little fiefdom, becoming Russians. As Stranga put it—a few isolated, impoverished pockets in Latgallia were somewhat Red. Even Stalin was surprised by how few Bolsheviks languished in the prisons.

There’s no statistics to that differentiation...

Of course there are. Even in terms of ethnicity, the fact is that the Party was dominated by non-Latvians even in exceedingly Latvian areas, like Kuldīga. In 1953, for example, ethnic Latvians composed 29,2% of the Latvian Communist Party. In Rīga in that same year—one in five were Latvian. Of 31 Committee instructors, 2 were Latvian. That’s back when Latvians were a distinct majority.

I don’t buy the genocide argument for a moment. Yes, the majority deported were Latvians who were not deported merely because of their nationality. Looking at the those same documents, you’ll notice that the Soviets deported any one who was deemed a threat to the Soviet way of life...

Your view is darkly ludicrous, sorry. First of all, the so-called kulaks couldn’t join a kolkhoz. They were kept around so long as they were needed: Bija arī noteikums: turīgo zemnieku — kulaku — artelī uzņemt nedrīkst. Tāda sistēma saglabājās, kamēr kolhozi bija mazi. Vēl pirms kara Staļina paustā direktīva vēstīja, ka kulakus nedrīkst izsūtīt, kamēr nav “kolhozu, kas dos labību kulaku saimniecību vietā”. [1]

Latvia had a primarily Latvian society—and that included minorities to a greater or lesser extent; the first wave of deportations took more Jews per capita than anybody else, for example. The point, in other words, was to take those leaders of society who were, as you say, “deemed a threat to the Soviet way of life.”

This is explicitly genocidal. You can say that they took the leaders of the communities and those who were well off—that’s perfectly true. Then you can say that the yellow areas of the map were poor—also fairly true. But in the end, what was done was a chopping off of the heads of every community—those 772 Russians (note how they are a lot fewer per capita—no reason to deport dirt farmers) were what, exactly? Wouldn’t you expect most communities in Latvia, and most heads, to be Latvian?

I used the word “backbone”—this is a nation-state. To deport “nationalist families” and successful farmers means to deport Latvians, obviously; this is Latvia, isn’t it?

As far as you are talking about intent—why and how would it matter on a practical level? Kalnbērziņš said that the rural proletariat was pleased about the deportation of the kulaks—do you know anybody who was pleased? The result was and is quite clear—the fabric of society was ripped apart by Russians, and Latvia was largely Russified.

It is unutterably inane to pretend that this was not genocidal—in the final equation, Latvians almost became a minority in Latvia, and Sovietization was inextricably linked to Russification.

As you pointed out to me this morning, Latvia’s Russian language papers don’t even mention what happened today in 1949. Why do you think that is?

Vsego khoroshego,
/P

I looked through photos of the 1940s Latvia. What particularly struck me was photo number 4 - large crowds gathered to greet the Red Army which crossed the Soviet-Latvian border in June 1940 - greeting them with flowers, as a friendly military force as if it had come to protect them from the outside enemy. It’s mind boggling.

I still find that there were enough Bolshevik sympathizers among people with Latvian last name found to form a new Soviet government after the occupation. That same Kalberzin, both Lacises, for example.

The differentiation I referred to, Peteris, is the one between Latvians from Russia and Latvians from Latvia as members of the party in general and those who actively participated in the deportations of 1949. Since no statistical data exists, I consider your point moot, really.

If the number of 772 Russians who were deported as part of that wave isn’t sufficient enough for you to consider it a genocide of the Russians by the Russians, consider this. According to data from Soviet archives, published in 1990, 1,803,392 kulaks were sent to labor colonies and camps in 1930 and 1931 from Russia. Books say that 1,317,022 reached the destination. The remaining 486,370 may have died or escaped. So you’re compelled to consider that what Soviets were doing in Latvia in 1949 was indeed a genocide, not the violent, brutal, bloody, cruel class struggle, you’d have to consider that those ethnic Russians who died at the hands of the Soviet government for whatever reasons along with their relatives are also victims of the genocide.

And the fact that you seemingly discard 772 Russians as part of that deportation negates all the importance of the history lesson you want to convey. Honestly, it’s no wonder that such an attitude would cause any Russian newspaper to regard it as an ethnic Latvian event and avoid any commemoration, or mention in the press. You yourself suggest that it’s a Lett tragedy, why would the Russian newspapers show any interest in it?

Latvians did not become the minority in the country immediately following the deportations. Yes, it was the first step, but it’s not the ultimate goal of the deportations. The goal was to get a hold of the power in the country. And considering that no more mass deportations took place after 1949, you’d be hard pressed to provide evidence that suggests that because of deportations, Latvians ended up being a minority in their country. The Soviet policy of Russification isn’t just deportation and the policies themselves evolve. The Soviet Russification policies under Stalin very much differed from those under Brezhnev or Khruschev.

I consider the deportations a national tragedy that ought to be remembered each year in the country, but I don’t think it’s a genocide.

Aleksej, this doesn’t have to do with any of the threads, but I was just checking your blog, ‘All About Latvia’ on my computer (PC) and also tried it on a Mac with the same results.  A blank page, saying ‘Hacked by Ghost61-UyuSsman l Hackshow.U.S.  Hack Bir Show’dur.’ I was wondering what was up and just wanted to let you know.

Irena

If the number of 772 Russians who were deported as part of that wave isn’t sufficient enough for you to consider it a genocide of the Russians by the Russians, consider this. According to data from Soviet archives, published in 1990, 1,803,392 kulaks were sent to labor colonies and camps in 1930 and 1931 from Russia...

In 1930 and 1931, Latvia was a free country with a halfway decent democracy. That’s the profound difference, just as it is today—kulaks in Latvia did pretty well at the time. Everybody was quite delighted to get out of Russia; as Akuraters put it, the Bolsheviks merely continued ancient Russian tradition—prison, gallows, graveyard.

Of course I don’t consider it “a genocide of the Russians by the Russians”—because it was a genocide perpetrated against the Latvian nation, some few Russians included, by the Soviets, who were and are mostly Russian (I’ll step back from this in certain instances, sometimes, but I’m sure you know the words: Союз нерушимый республик свободных / Сплотила навеки Великая Русь!).

And the fact that you seemingly discard 772 Russians as part of that deportation negates all the importance of the history lesson you want to convey. Honestly, it’s no wonder that such an attitude would cause any Russian newspaper to regard it as an ethnic Latvian event and avoid any commemoration, or mention in the press. You yourself suggest that it’s a Lett tragedy, why would the Russian newspapers show any interest in it?

I don’t see how I discarded anybody. The Republic of Latvia is the Latvian nation-state—that’s how it came about, and that is what it is and always will be. It is as Latvian as Israel is Jewish, to turn a phrase. That does not make “non-Latvians” in Latvia “second-class citizens” in any way—it is to say that this must be the home of the Latvian people; we don’t got no other home, sorry. It is also the home of other people, obviously—but if you have such trouble identifying with the titular nation, I really don’t know what to suggest. Again—yes, obviously, this was primarily a Latvian tragedy. Even if I were to exalt those 772, the fact is that Latvia got more Russian and less Latvian, until Latvians were made to feel like our own country was not ours.

I have no intention whatsoever of discarding people on the basis of ethnicity—but… get real, please. We’re friends, and I know that you yourself are regularly shocked by how little many (in my view—most) Russophones have to do with Latvia.

Nationality is another matter. Most Russians know little or no Latvian, deny history, hate this country (or are apathetic enough to cheer the hatred of a vociferous core), etc. Being pathologically tolerant (Ludmila Azarova’s phrase), we say—davai! I try to be pathologically tolerant myself. But I can’t stand inane distortions. Latvia was occupied, colonized, Russified, etc.—that’s a simple fact, and there is no way you are going to get around that fact.

Vsego khoroshego,
/P

Peteris, I’m not getting around the facts. Latvia was occupied, colonized and Russified. You won’t find me denying any of these facts. Ever.

What I am suggesting though is that the 1949 deportations are a tragedy for the people of Latvia.

The only reason I posted the numbers from the 1930s Russia was because it was an extension of the Soviet Stalin policies. By the time the tanks rolled in Latvia, by the time trains were packed with well-off and leaders of the community, Soviets have had a good practice on their own people. The technique and, I believe, the goal was the same in both cases - to subjugate people to the Soviet authorities, to tell people who’s the boss and what the rules are. Soviets and Russians ruled with a mighty hand - they didn’t understand anything else. If you suggest that in Latvia’s case it was genocide, then it ought to be considered a genocide in the Russian case, as well, especially considering the large numbers of those killed and murdered. The dictatorship of the proletariat is a brutal thing.

The Soviets couldn’t particularly stand any kind of nationalism, including the Russian one, at the dawn of the Bolshevik movement. The Bolshevik organizations were seen as “international” at its core to bring forth the world revolution. The Soviet Union was supposed to be the beginning of the World Union of the Socialist Republics, as it’s stated in its inaugural declaration in 1922. It is the reason why ethnic Latvians who left Latvia after the Bolsheviks coup were no nationalists. Heck, the Georgian Great Leader was not a Russian nationalist. The culture was not ethno-centric, for example. The culture, including genuinely Russian religion were cast aside. The Bolsheviks were building a new world.

You quoted the Soviet anthem, I’ll quote the so-called revolutionary song.

“Мы наш, мы новый мир построим - кто был ничем, тот станет всем”

(We’ll build our own, new world, whoever was nothing will become everything.")

What pushed the Russian nationalism to the agenda was the World War II. It was that infamous Stalin’s toast, in which he thanked the Russian people for the sacrifices in the war. You know it better than me, Peteris. So if the 1949 deportations are considered part of that Russification efforts, it’s unclear what to do about the two deportations in 1941 four years ahead of the Stalin’s toast. I’d agree that the first steps toward Russification have already taken place - Russian was immediately instituted as the obligatory language in all schools, etc.

As I mentioned to you privately, the graver efforts of Russification and what would have led to the death of the Latvian nation were the large influx of the Russian-speaking workers. While local population was learning Russian, the new-comers were not learning Latvian. That is explicit Russification. Sending “bad” people to Siberia is a display of power and an example for others that people ought to be afraid of the Soviet authorities, that times have changed.

I don’t see how I discarded anybody.

But you did. In our conversation, you discarded them as insignificant because Latvia is Latvian nation-state. They do not matter to this country because of their different nationality. The deportation is a genocide against the ethnic Latvians - it appears to have no place for ethnic non-Latvians.

I’ve read through Zatlers speech and nowhere did I find a single mention of people of other ethnicities that were subjected to the deportations. Why? Are they thrown out? Do they not matter as much in this sēru diena because they were not ethnically Latvian? Are they not being remembered today?

The Republic of Latvia is the Latvian nation-state...that does not make “non-Latvians” in Latvia “second-class citizens” in any way—it is to say that this must be the home of the Latvian people; we don’t got no other home, sorry.

What does it make non-Latvians, Peteris? What does it make people like myself, whose ancestors are buried here to the fifth generation?

I don’t find it hard to identify with the titular ethnicity. I understand the hardship, the pain, the tears, the deaths. I try to understand the history. I’m loyal to this small swathe of land - living in both information spheres at the same time. And yet, what am I as a non-Latvian, Peteris?

Irena - 25 March 2008 10:49 AM

Aleksej, this doesn’t have to do with any of the threads, but I was just checking your blog, ‘All About Latvia’ on my computer (PC) and also tried it on a Mac with the same results.  A blank page, saying ‘Hacked by Ghost61-UyuSsman l Hackshow.U.S.  Hack Bir Show’dur.’ I was wondering what was up and just wanted to let you know.

Irena

Yeah, having a bit of problems there. Am working on them.

I guess Peter C. was less busy than I. On my trip I took along the book “Stalin and his Hangmen"ISBN 0-375-75771-6 to read in between games , airport or flight times. I finished it and now will start the book “KĀRLA ULMAŅA DZĪVE” by Dunsdoris to see why Peter C. has a fixation about him.
As some of the posts here and on another thread the subject came up about the deportations. In the book about Stalin, it details all of the deportations and who was in charge. The Baltic deportations were not the first or last.
Also in 1941 1,500,000 ethnic Germans on the left bank of the Volga river were deported to Siberia.
In 1943 using U.S.A. Lend Lease Studebaker trucks, 69,267 Turkic Shepards of the NW Caucasus were deported to Kazakhstan where 40% died.
In 1943 150,000 Buddhist Mongols were deported to the far north and their homland erased from the maps.
In 1944 459,486 Chechens and Ingush were deported but many others escaped to the mountains and their homeland still exists today.
If you follow the author’s writings he states that Stalin around 1949 had a mental deterioration that affected the deportations and murders. He started many pogroms but changed his mind just before implementation began many times.
If today the records of Stalin were to be opened , it would show that he surpassed Hitler in murder but was not as bad as Mao in China.
I suggest this book for anyone wanting to see the evil people who jumped for Stalin and how and why they did it. It mentions Latvians but it shows that they “followed orders” rather then giving them.

Labdien, Aleks et al.,

Some meandering musings down the lines of argument, from where we left off…

It is the reason why ethnic Latvians who left Latvia after the Bolsheviks coup were no nationalists. Heck, the Georgian Great Leader was not a Russian nationalist. The culture was not ethno-centric, for example. The culture, including genuinely Russian religion were cast aside. The Bolsheviks were building a new world.

As in some of the other debates we’ve had, I would ask that we define “nationalism” and ponder its implications. Imperialism is usually shot through with nationalist, nationalizing ideas. As Rayfield writes in the book Courlander is reading, a group of Georgian historians that was summoned to the Kremlin in 1950 was puzzled by Stalin’s use of pronouns: “They the Russians, don’t appreciate...” “You, the Georgians, have failed to mention...” Rayfield: “If the Russians were ‘they’ and the Georgians ‘you’, then what nationality was ‘I’ or ‘we’? [...] Stalin had discarded one ethnos without acquiring another: should not citizenship of a socialist society transcend ethnic affiliation?” Stalin directed the destruction of his own nation-state.

In another thread—on the same subject, really—I quoted Aleksei Kara-Murza:

The imperial principle dominated, and it was Peter who made this happen. He brought communal structures into the table of ranks, subordinating them to the interests of the empire. And I think that Chubais is right that Communist identity recreated these structures: instead of Orthodoxy there was Communism, instead of the imperial table of ranks there was the hierarchy of Party committees, and the new Soviet collectivism took a variety of forms. What I can’t say is how one can call this a violation of Russian tradition-it was a continuation of Russian (rossiiskii) tradition. These traditions were winding down, and the Bolsheviks had to use force to maintain this old imperial logic. . . . Don’t say that there is a fundamental conflict between pre-revolutionary and Soviet Russia-the latter actually represents an attempt to forcibly continue this system. . . .

“The Search for a New Russian National Identity”

This comes before the above in what Kara-Murza is saying:

The [...] thesis has to do with the question of what it is that makes Russia possible, what held it together?. . . . I think that there are three forms of integration that hold the community (obshchnost’, sotsium) together:

(1) As an ethnocracy (etnokratiia), where the ethnic sign has a unifying power. . . .

(2) The second way is through state service, through a vertical status hierarchy. We are close because we are on the same professional ladder and we both have the same boss at the top. It’s integration by means of service and power.

(3) The third principle is more contemporary. It’s a horizontal integration through the reconfiguring (obustroistvo) of territories and cultures, based on the principle of the nation-state (politicheskaia natsiia). On the one hand, it’s half-ethnic, because the nation is partly an ethnic construct. On the other hand, the nation is built to a significant degree on horizontal ties, while the imperial principle involves a vertical structure.

These three principles are of course not mutually exclusive, but at any given moment, one will dominate. I think that my colleague Chubais correctly names the three identity principles that, when taken together, made Russia possible before the Revolution: Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality. Which is the most important? Religious theoreticians, at least the liberal ones, all agree that while the wish was for the principles of Orthodoxy and Orthodox communities (pravoslavnye obshchiny) to guide the nation, in practice it is the imperial principle that has been decisive. It subordinated the church to itself, made the church part of the state (ogosudarstvil tserkov’). 

The war, and Stalin’s famous toast, weren’t the beginning of the “Russianness” of the Soviet Empire; Walter Kolarz, in Communism and Colonialism, wrote that “the idea of the vanguard role of the Great Russian people existed in a mild form even in the early years of Soviet power” and became more pronounced in the 1930s, when “a vigorous Russian national spirit was infused into Soviet history-writing, literature and art.” The war meant taking the mask off, basically—as Kolarz puts it, the Soviets reached the conclusion, perhaps reluctantly, that equality could exist “only in the Orwellian sense that some nationalities are more equal than others.” Writing in 1964, Kolarz notes that the Russians were inordinately represented in the ruling stratum—every 19th Russian, 27th Ukrainian, 28th Belarusian, 40th Latvian, 42nd Estonian, 44th Uzbek and Tajik, and 56th Lithuanian was a member of the CPSU. 54,5% of the population was Russian—but 65% of schoolchildren attended Russian
schools, whilst 78% of newspapers and 82% of books were in Russian. The “great international tongue” was Russian, not Latvian.

[To be cont’d...]

[Cont’d.]

By 1952, Anna Pankratova published The Great Russian Nation, in which it is helpfully explained that every conquered people ought to be grateful, since without conquest they might not have come into contact with the Great Russian culture.

As you know, Aleks, Russian has two different terms for “Russians”—русские and россияне. Latvian has only one term for Latvians (one can use “krievzemieši” for россияне). One can make the distinction when referring to the people, as we often do—“latviešu tauta” rather than “Latvijas tauta,” “the people of Latvia” instead of “the Latvian people,” or one can attempt neologisms like “latvijieši” (an abortion of a word, really). This isn’t uncommon. Swedes from Finland, now referred to as Finland Swedes, have also passed through bracketed terms like “Finlanders.”

What I am suggesting though is that the 1949 deportations are a tragedy for the people of Latvia.

True. But it was also a tragedy for the Latvian people. You can complain that the President seemed to focus on the nationality (and we can parse how, when and why “nationality” might differ from “ethnicity”—and arrive at complex answers, always, unless pushing a point or numbed by a numbing oversimplification)—but you’d have it a little backasswards, wouldn’t you, since it seems that the Latvian Russian press (or should that be “Latvia’s Russian press") doesn’t find the tragedy worth mentioning (okay, none of us have checked Vesti...).

Honestly, it’s no wonder that such an attitude would cause any Russian newspaper to regard it as an ethnic Latvian event and avoid any commemoration, or mention in the press.

Backasswards, Aleks—are all Russians nincompoops, or what? If they’re such “people of Latvia,” I’m sure they could find it in themselves to mention those 772 of their people without my imprimatur, no? Curiously, though, that rarely happens—Gospodin Mitrofanov, who hails from a prominent Daugavpils family that prospered prior to the occupation, is instead out celebrating Soviet Victory Day, as per his comments at my blog. Why is that?

A possible answer, I think, is that attachment to the so-called “political nation” is a lot weaker than attachment to the ethnic nation. This stands to reason—the political nation has existed de facto for less than four decades, in a sundered pair of two.

In doing some translations for certain arms of the government, I was told to deemphasize “Latvian food” in favor of “food from Latvia.” This isn’t a lack of understanding of English, in which the “Latvian” is often “of Latvia”—it’s the sickest form of political correctness in some sense. All cuisines take a lot from everywhere—pelmeņi, even, are not Russian (at least according to Little Smoke, the word is Komi-Zyrian, Fenno-Ugric). In some sense, šašliks could be called a Latvian food—Tatars, being Muslims, weren’t into pigs. Food changes, and becomes what it is in a space of time, in a place. 

Melety Kallistratov, murdered after the Soviet invasion—the foremost Russian politician in Latvia, elected to all four Saeimas—spoke Russian in Parliament. Most of the Jews in Daugavpils, murdered during the Nazi occupation, were Russophones. The leaders of those communities were leading members of the political nation.

I don’t see how the time-line and layering work with you—you’re not an Old Believer, and you have chosen to identify yourself as a Russian despite the fact that you are half Latvian. I have no problem with your doing so—identity, or self-identification, should be up to the individual.

What does it make non-Latvians, Peteris?

Isn’t that mostly up to you? What obstacles does Latvia place in your path to flourishing as a minority—even a “nationalizing minority”? You have more advantages than most any minority has. As to between-spaces—those are necessarily narrow, methinks, because you cannot abandon an ethnos for no ethnos at all in a nation-state. It’s a lot easier to do that in an empire. Even if I were to agree to your terms and interpretation, and say that the Soviets transcended ethnicity—it would be, even then, a non-ethnicity trying to destroy a nation-state. The language of the occupiers was Russian. Many people call the period “krievu laiki” for a reason, don’t they?

Vysu lobu,
/P

Peteris,

Apologies for intermittent silence. I have gotten sick with Russian nationalism and needed to lay down.

First, a couple of thoughts on the definition of nationalism for the sake of this discussion. The way I understand it - nationalism is a political theory that sets up one’s nationality or ethnicity as of first importance. The way I’d use a phrase “Latvian nationalist” would mean that an ethnic Latvian is of primary importance above any other nationalities. A right of a people to self-determination – a common political practice at the time of the Bolshevik revolt – would be an extension of nationalist ideas largely because it’s a practice where one’s ethnicity is the determining factor.

Second of all, a couple of thoughts about revolutions and principles. Attitudes and opinions towards all sort of controversial things evolve from a time leading up to the said change and immediately following the change in the political structure to the time a decade or so following the change. You know that better than I as it is the case in Latvia, for example, where the revolutionary attitudes of the Atmoda and the dawn of restored independence were replaced with pragmatism 18 years later.

So I think for the original Bolshevik ideas of nationalism, it doesn’t suit well to quote Stalin in 1950 or analyze what the Soviet Union became, rather you’d need to focus on the intent and the driving forces of the Soviet Union in its infancy.

So, if the Soviet “Russianness” existed before 1930s in a mild form, it would be hard to tell how they differed from other groups that existed in Russia immediately following the 1917 revolt. There were more nationalistic groups which were part of the Duma, for example. Slavophiles were always around. Hardly any of them were Bolsheviks.

It’s hard to be a Russian nationalist government at the time of the Civil War when Russians are fighting Russians. If anything the White movement in Russia was more ethnocentric on preserving the Russian way of life - Czar and Empire—than the Reds. Bolsheviks believed the Civil War to be a class struggle first and foremost where nationality does not matter. They believed in Russia as the cradle of the working class revolution that would spill it into the rest of the world, which had little to do with nationality and everything to do with class. The old maxim “Proletariat of all countries, unite!” is a call again based on the class and underscoring the international fervor of the movement. The declaration of the formation of the Soviet Union is drenched with its international fervor - splitting camps into capitalist and socialist, underscoring the international flavor of the class struggle.

I’ll translate the last part, since I cannot find an English translation:

Наконец, само строение Советской власти, интернациональной по своей классовой природе, толкает трудящиеся массы советских республик на путь объединения в одну социалистическую семью.

Finally, the very fabric of the Soviet authority, international in its class nature, forces workers of the Soviet republics to unite in one socialist family.

Even the national anthem you quoted didn’t become an anthem until 1944 in the middle of World War II as the people were defending their Motherland and when the Russian nationalism again became the cornerstone of the Soviet policy. From 1917 to 1944, the Soviet Union’s official anthem was The Internationale. Listen to the lyrics (I’ll turn into ambersun for a moment and bold the relevant parts):

Arise, you branded by a curse,
You whole world of the starving and enslaved!
Our indignant intellect boils,
Ready to lead us into a fight to the death.
We will destroy this world of violence
Down to the foundations, and then
We will build our new world.
He who was nothing will become everything!

CHORUS:  |: This is our final
and decisive battle.
With the Internationale
the human race will arise. :|

As the name and the text suggests the Soviet national anthem was international in its nature. You can listen to it if you’d like.

The core belief of the early Soviet Union was the class struggle, not the nationalism. In fact, nationalism in a way I defined it was deem capitalist and un-Soviet. And this is why I am suggesting that the deportations of the people of Latvia in 1949 (as well as 1941) were a tragedy, but not a genocide. It was part of the class struggle, not the effort to destroy a nation.

[continued]

Part Deux

The Latvia’s Russian press plays up on the mood of some ethnic Russians here. Even naturalized citizens don’t exactly subscribe to Latvian patriotism. And if, for the last 17 years, the tragedy of ethnic Latvians was the underscoring sentiment during the commemorative days, why should Latvia’s Russian press get involved? Why should Latvia’s Russians get involved likewise?

To my question what it makes non-Latvians, you said, “Isn’t that mostly up to you?”

Well, hang on there. Let’s look at the context in which my question arose.

The Republic of Latvia is the Latvian nation-state...that does not make “non-Latvians” in Latvia “second-class citizens” in any way—it is to say that this must be the home of the Latvian people; we don’t got no other home, sorry.

So my question in this context is: what does it make non-Latvians? You’ve suggested that it doesn’t mean they’re second-class citizens, but I’m curious to know in this concept of Latvia as the Latvian nation-state, what does it make non-Latvians who are citizens of this state. So, I don’t think you’ve answered the question. What has saddened me greatly was your suggestion that I am a guest here, which in some way could be interpreted as the second-class citizen. Or a stranger among the indigenous people even though my family had lived here for generations. In turn, it solidified my being Russian as the current dominating identity. But it may change.

As an afterthought –

War is a terrible thing. It makes you take sides and decide whether you’re “with us or with the terrorists.” It creates best patriots and nationalists. When two airplanes hit the World Trade Center, for example, Americans felt patriotic because their country needed them. Flags became ubiquitous. Many young men and women joined the military as a direct result of the most horrific attack on the American soil. Tragedy breeds patriotism.

The War of 1812, not the American one, but rather the French invasion of Russia of 1812, made a decisive mark on the Russian national identity lasting until 1917. It was that search for the national identity that gave birth to classics of the Russian literature, prompting the search for Russian soul among thinking Russians. The Russian nationalism, or Russo-centric flavor of the Empire is evident in literature and music. Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, for example, is ridden with themes of Russian patriotism around the Czar, the Fatherland and Russian folk music. It was during that time the ideology of Moscow as the Third Rome was cemented.

Napoleon conquered burning Moscow, but he didn’t conquer the country, or won the war. The crushing defeat of the French forced the Russian aristocracy to switch from French as the lingua franca at the time to their native Russian. It was difficult for some. The Patriotic War of 1812 as it’s known in Russian launched the search for national identity through the movement of the Decembrists and, culminating in the February Revolution of 1917.

Similarities between the Patriotic War and the Great Patriotic War – or rather the Napoleonic invasion of Russia and World War II – are striking. Hitler too came close to Moscow. The people again were to decide what they were going to do – to burn the city or defend it. They defended it. It was during the war that the internationalist flavor of the Soviet Union of the 1917 revolution evolved into a pure Russian nationalism and thus, Stalin made the kind of toast that he did. 

This book I’m reading “A cultural history of Russia,” puts it this way:

“With one last desperate effort the Germans were pushed back from the city’s gates – a spot still marked today by a giant iron cross on the road from Moscow to the Sheremetevo airport. It was not the Soviet capital but Mother Moscow which was saved.”

And what happened as a result? The national anthem was changed. The new Russo-centric national anthem was first broadcast on January 1, 1944. The Third International was dissolved in 1943, directly as a result of the war. The internationalist mood of the proletariat in the Soviet Union gave way to the Russo-centric union. And it was then, the international flavor of the country transformed into the Russian one. It was at that time when the Soviet Union turned into an Empire, replacing religion with communism.

Interesting ruminations, Aleks—though they don’t really counter what I’ve said, which I guess is good because it leads to discussion (unless you think you meant to oppose what I said). “National” and “ethnic” twine and divide at different points in different ways. American (US) nationalism, for example, is mostly not ethnic. Some nationalisms are or were closely tied to religions (in Ireland, in Québec, in Tibet...). Nationalisms change, esp. when there’s a possibility of developing a political nation. Narrow, ethnic, Catholic, anti-Semitic nationalism in Québec is mostly passé, for example—in fact, the Quiet Revolution was partly an abandonment of those robes, so in a sense the success of the nationalism is also its opening up. It becomes more inclusive. Even so, look at what Parizeau said when the kārtējā sovereignty referendum failed—the nation was defeated by “money and the ethnic vote.” Perhaps he’d had one coup de vin too many, and it was non-PC enough to lead to his departure from stage—but it was also quite true, I think. Minorities mistrust nationalism—for good reason, often. Some then tend to gravitate towards empire. They’re then resented—also for good reason.

I still think you are going completely backasswards when you write things like this: And if, for the last 17 years, the tragedy of ethnic Latvians was the underscoring sentiment during the commemorative days, why should Latvia’s Russian press get involved? First of all, I know that’s totally untrue—most of the people in the deportees’ association here in Daugavpils, for example, are Russophones. In this sense it’s not a matter of ethnicity but of nationality—so they find a rock and carve the words for the aizvestie. Should it be a bilingual rock?