Uh oh, Pliners is facing off with Streips on Latvijas Radio 1. The link is here, plays in the Media Player.

There you go again Peter C.  One of these days you should come visit me and I will teach you how to do research. To be a Latvian one does not have to be born in Latvia as that topic has been hashed to death. One does not have to live in Latvia to get copies of Latvian Government and military records from 1923 to 1945. There is a very fine and large collection at the Hoover Institute in San Francisco with many originals. Professor Ezergailis did some of his research there for his books.
Since I am not writing a history book I do not care how his name is spelled for in three of my books it is different. I will add the below paragraph from volume 8 page 339 of the series “Latviešu Karavīrs Otra Pasaules Kaŗa Laikā”
„Visaugstāk pa militārā dienesta kāpnēm Otrā pasaules karā no latviešiem sarkanajās vienībās uzkāpa ģenerālpulkvedis Nikolajs Bērzariņš (dzimis 1904. g. 1. aprīlī Pēterpilī, miris auto katastrofā Berlīnē 1945. g. 16. jūnijā), komandējot armijas. Viņam nopelni arī Berlīnes ieņemšanā, un viņš bija pirmais Berlīnes komandants. Viņa komandētās armijas pirms tam ieņēma arī Rīgu un Varšavu. Bērzariņa godināšanai viņa vārdā nosaukta iela un uzcelts piemineklis Berlinē, un viņa 5. triecienarmijas vīrus un it sevišķi pašu komandieri godina filmā „Pirmais Berlīnes komandants”.”Go argue with Daugavas Vanagiem and straighten them out.
To go on further, from the 2006 Latvian book “Latviešu Karavīrs Zem Krievijas Imperijas, Padomu Krievijas Un PSRS Karogiem” by Igors Vārpa
After Eduards Ramiņš the Rīgas Kājnieku Karaskolas leader disappeared with other members, he was replaced by “Berzarins.
Page 497
Rīgas kājnieku karaskolas kursanti jau kara pirmajās dienās piedalījās kaujās. Rīgas kājnieku karaskolu pakļāva 27. armijas kara padomei. Armijas pavēlnieks ģenerālmajors N. BERZARINS 22. jūnijā izdeva pavēli izveidot vienību cīņai pret vācu gaisa desantiem, ja tādi tiktu izmesti Rīgas apkaimē. Par šīs vienības kodolu kļuva karaskola. Par vienības priekšnieku iecēla karaskolas priekšnieku. Vienībā ieskaitīja arī dažas citas karaspēka daļas. Rezervē palika “poļitruku rota”, kuras galvenais uzdevums bija cīnīties pret diversantu grupām pilsētā. Ar šo pašu pavēli armijas pavēlnieks uzdeva karaskolas kursantiem apsargāt tiltus pār Daugavu. Vienības štābs izvietojās karaskolā.
Page 514
30. jūnijā 24. teritoriālais strēlnieku korpuss saņēma Ziemeļrietumu frontes pavēlniecības pavēli stāties 27. armijas pakļautībā un steidzīgi ieņemt aizsardzības pozīcijas Opočkas un Ostrovas rajonā. 27. armiju komandēja latviešu izcelsmes ģenerālmajors Nikolajs Berzarins.
Just in case you think I am one sided, for my last entry I quote from the book „Reiz Cēlās Strelnieks Sarkanais”  1971 Rīgā.
Page 128
Par izcilu varonību Lielajā Tēvijas karā Padomju Savienības Varoņa nosaukums tika piešķirts Latvijas dēliem — majoram Igoram Andzaurovam, ģenerālleitnantam Nikolajam Bērzarinam, pulkvedim Jānim Bērziņam, kapteinim Aleksandram Blauam, majoram Arsenijam čurilinam, kapteinim Aleksandram Dobkevičam, pulkvedim Nikolajam Dušakam, ģenerālmajoram Jānim Fogelim.
If you need help to educate yourself in other subjects feel free to ask.

Thank you, Courlander. I’ve always felt free to ask. If you scroll up, you can see that I asked a simple question—what’s your source. You answered with some semi-literate rant about traitors, fools, and supposed Latvian army records from 1941 instead of providing a source. I’m delighted that you’ve now provided sources, though they don’t really offer the clarity one might desire. Follow the link I gave to Panzerkampf to get an inkling of why. I well realize that one doesn’t need to be born in Latvia, live in Latvia, or speak Latvian to have some Latvian blood, but having a Latvian grandfather makes one 1/4 Latvian, for instance, and being a “Latvijas dēls” doesn’t necessarily make one Latvian at all. It may well be that Berzarin was rather more Latvian, but you’ve provided no support at all for that, or for his speaking “fluent Latvian,” which contention I find extremely dubious.

Vysu lobu,
/P

Par tēvzemiešiem un latviešu valodu

Un tagad latviskosim domas

Courlander’s Fairytale Gambit

To backout of your fairytale, courlander, I knew Major General Ernest Harmon personally and had sat in his military science lectures. Ernie or Old Gravel Voice, as he was fondly known, served under Gen. George Patton during WWII who himself owed his position to his friend Ernest Harmon for having recommended him to Eisenhower. During his lectures he mentioned that the US Army had been prepared and ready to recover Europe from the Soviets and push Russia back to its borders. It is well known that Patton was one of the first to recognize the Soviet threat and had a very low opinion of them and their abilities.

Harmon enjoyed coming to fencing competitions at Norwich University, where I was the captain of the intercollegiate fencing team. He had been a member of the US Modern Penthatlon team in the 1924 Olympics, where epee fencing was one of the five events. Coincidently Patton had been a member in 1912. Ernie Harmon knew that I was from Latvia and we usually chatted about the war or some other subject of academic nature. One time when he sat next to me he started the conversation (circ. 1963): “Right at war’s end we [the US Army] were prepared to push the Soviets back to their borders.” It was brief, but it confirmed what he had been saying in his lectures. Patton had no intention of going beyond the borders into Russia itself and playing Napoleon.

Gen. Bērzariņš, was a Russified Latvian, whom you mention correctly as Soviet Union’s pointman in Berlin. Here I agree with PC, post # 37, he was never a member of the Latvian army or a citizen of Latvia. In Latvian military history books he gets mentioned at arms length at the best. At the start of the war he already commanded the Soviet 27th Army to which the recently created Soviet Latvian 24th Corps was assigned. Btw what was Bērzariņš complicity, culpability or innocence in the rape of Berlin that went on for three days? He hardly has credentails to measure up to Patton to even dream of pulling off your particular end of the fairytale. He was an unknown and is not a household name in military history books like Gen. George Patton who is a legend. Even Rommel and Gudrian studied Patton’s books on armor warfare.

Courlander, lets say I heard it from the horse’s mouth. What is your source to deny that Patton was prepared to roll against the Soviets?

Tom ~ check Wikipedia on George Patton for a quick and dirty on controversies.

Cheers, Ivars

Aleksej ~ Irene certainly did a bang up job in translating “Dark Night” from the video. It differs quite a bit from your initial three posted poems, which I did translate. The song shows the longing colonists have for their home land Russia much like the trimdies had for Latvia, as they knew that they belonged to Latvia. To the colonists Latvia is not their homeland like Russia unless it becomes part of Russia again. They live in Latvia by default and yarn for the good old days when they were the masters and Latvians the underlings. That would again be the case if Russia conquers Latvia economically via capital ownership of Latvian assets, over powers Latvians politically and undermines them socially and culturally.

Aleksejs comes out swinging: “One of the reasons why your comments earlier would be offensive to anyone whose father, grandfather, brother, or uncle died in that war is because you render their deaths superfluous. A while ago in November, I went to the military cemetery in Riga, Bralu Kapi, where I saw graves of men who died on both sides of the front in the first and second wars. To me, this is what makes it an ideal way of remembering the dead. However, as long as there are people like yourself who say that the Soviet Union basically wasted its time, money and human lives, I’d support a right of people to gather and celebrate May 9 in any way they deem fit. You can play the alternative history games all you want, but it appears to me the Soviet flag is one fo the flags waving about in Berlin. In fact, you could have your picture taken with an actor portraying the Soviet soldier near the Brandenburg gate.”

I’m perplexed at your misleading comment distorting history, “... I saw graves of men who died on both sides of the front in the first and second wars.” The only soldiers buried in the Brāļu kapi from WWI and the struggle for Latvia’s independence are the natives, those associated with the Latvia’s cause, not those who fought against it. There was no other side – Germans, Russians, etc. - no enemies buried here from that period. The only ones resting in Brāļu kapi were the heroes, the ones honored by Latvian people for their sacrifice on behalf of Latvia.

Following WWII, during the occupation only the Soviet side received burial honors. It was exclusive. There was no other side, there were no Legionnaires or Germans buried in Brāļu kapi. Only after 1990 a handful of officers, Legionnaires, had their homecoming and were found a spot in the already over crowded cemetery with row upon row of Cyrilic engraved headstones. There were very few Latin engraved headstones by comparison from that period.

Unlike you, Aleksej: “To me, this is what makes it an ideal way of remembering the dead,” as I walked among the headstones, along the paths and looked up at the statue of the mourning mother I was filled with anger; I felt bitter. I knew that resting in this holy place, once reserved for Latvia’s heroes were soviet criminals who with Stalin’s blessing commited destruction, executions, torture, deportations, rapes against my kin and left the Latvian nation living in fear during the occuption! They tore me away from my dzimtene and that I cannot forget. You’re quite a one-sided sorry son-of-a-bitch to say that my, “comments earlier would be offensive to anyone whose father, grandfather, brother, or uncle died in that war is because you render their deaths superfluous.” Latvians had their backs against the wall, because of deliberate violation of human rights, rights of a soverign nation by the Soviet leadership whom the Russian people failed or did not want to stop from perpetrating crimes against Latvian people. Have any of these relatives of the fathers, grandfathers, brothers or uncles that died needlessly or otherwise during WWII ever thought to petition the current Russian government, the voluntary inheritor of the Soviet mantle, to say one just word, “sorry” to the Latvian people? Have any of these relatives that you feel pity for, taken the initiative to say “sorry” on their own? A simple word would go along way in taking down some walls between the Latvians and Russians. When that happens I will apologize for having said all those mean and nasty things about their fathers, grandfathers, brothers or uncles and to you.

I’ll respond to your other points later when I get around to it. Too many things on the plate.

Cheers, Ivars

In response to Graudiņa kungs’ rare agreement,

There’s a fascinating underside to Courlander’s calling Berzarin a “traitor.” One could perhaps make the case that some who joined the Reds were traitors to their nation (as in “their people,” not “their country,” since they were never citizens of Latvia), though even this would be iffy, to put it mildly (to some, even Jukums Vācietis was a “Latvian nationalist,” just as Ulmanis was a “half-Bolshevik” to the far right… and bear in mind that everyone who fought for liberation was a traitor to the Empire)—but even if Berzarin was 100% Latvian by blood (which hasn’t been shown), he was born in Russia proper and apparently did not consider himself a Latvian (as for instance Alksnis, the Black Colonel, does). Nationality doesn’t matter in this view, only ethnicity does—it makes me think of Roberts’ comments about how dangerous it is to have ethnic Russians in the Latvian Army, to which my response was: what about the innumerable Italian-Americans who fought against Italy in the US Army? Were they traitors? If you follow Courlander’s logic, those Russians and others of other ethnicity who fought for Latvia’s independence in 1918 were traitors to their mother countries, and Latvia is a purely ethnic construct with no political dimension at all. One wonders how states like Switzerland can even exist. Why worry about citizenship then, since it can’t possibly mean anything? And wouldn’t those who fought for either occupier after 1940—unless conscripted—be traitors according to Courlander?

Vysu lobu,
/P

The only soldiers buried in the Brāļu kapi from WWI and the struggle for Latvia’s independence are the natives, those associated with the Latvia’s cause, not those who fought against it.

Here’s my varda bralis, here is divizijas komisars, here is a member of the Latvian Communist Party’s Central Committee, here’s the Unknown Soldier, who died in Gulag, plus many many others. 

Have any of these relatives of the fathers, grandfathers, brothers or uncles that died needlessly or otherwise during WWII ever thought to petition the current Russian government, the voluntary inheritor of the Soviet mantle, to say one just word, “sorry” to the Latvian people? Have any of these relatives that you feel pity for, taken the initiative to say “sorry” on their own?

Just heard Pliners – Pliners – say “sorry” for russification, for deportations, for all the awful things that the Soviet regime led by an ethnic Georgian committed. You should listen to the link provided. Among other things, the occupation of the Baltic states have been condemned by the Soviet parliament before the Soviet Union even collapsed, back in 1989. Would you also call for reparations? How many times a man can say he is sorry before it’s accepted. My personal sorry was posted on SCB list back in 2003, if I’m not mistaken.

But the key is this: you are indeed bitter. No “sorry”, no matter how genuine, is going to take that bitterness away.  Due to the passed time, those who committed and led others to commit those awful crimes against your people have since died. So you just stand there, bitter, directing your supposed righteous anger at sons, daughters, grandchildren of those who hurt you and your fathers. You stand there, wallowing in your bitterness, feeling angry, and no word “sorry” is going to make it better. It is up to you to deal with it as I’m not responsible for any crimes committed by my ancestors (I’m only 33 - heck, I never even had a Soviet passport). And yet, it behooves Russians to remember those who freed their country from the Nazi Germany, from the worst war of the century. And no one’s bitterness is going to take that away. And the more you spit into the deaths of those who died in that war, the more people will flock to that hated monument.

Latvietis, laimīgs padoties

Stock up on cod liver oil supplements, Aleksej. It’s not too late….....................

While reading these latests posts I am reminded of a Dr. Seuss storybook I used to read to my girls when they were small. It deals with obstinancy.  Two Seuss charachters,“grinches” of sort, are facing each other off on a road and refuse to give an inch to let the other pass. In the meantime, an overpass is built over them and life goes on. 
The younger generation in Latvia, Aleksej’s generation, should not be saddled with a collective guilt.  They are the ones building the overpass in Latvia while we in trimda refuse to give an inch.

Forgot to add my thank you to Irena and Aleksej for the translation and video of “Dark Nights’‘.  Irena is right about the feelings of longing for home and loved ones as being universal.

“Sorry” is not a mere word to toss at Latvians after years of withholding even the expression of this word.  At this point, I could care less if anyone is “sorry”—as in a belligerent teen boy blurting out, “I said I was SORRY!  How many times do I have to say SORRY! SORRY! SORRY!”  To be a sincerely sorry Russian for occupation and russification (it was choice to be a russifiying occupant in Latvia and elsewhere in the USSR, genocidally repressing and mistreating native people) is demonstrated by a mature acknowledgment of one’s responsibility in the big picture of the Soviet disaster, rather than pretending that Stalin alone (a Georgian!) occupied Latvia and made you desecrate Latvian graves and call Latvian a useless language as you spoke to every Latvian in your rough Russian, no real student of Lermontov or Pushkin you. 

To be a sincerely sorry old or young Russian in Latvia, you put your energy into building Latvia not undermining it by fifth-columnist behavior, for example, by ignorantly continuing to worship old Soviet victory (and even Stalin) in Latvia— and pressing for Russian rights rather than accepting Latvian-citizen responsibilities.  That means finally learning after half-a-century-plus the Latvian language your old babushka refused to learn because she thought it was just a dog’s language..  You may feel your Russian pain in Latvia but truly understanding the disaster of the Soviet Union experiment at your (parents’, grandparents’) expense as an imprisoned human being while occupying Latvia means letting go of May 9 as a day to celebrate any victory since it was also the beginning of “your” imprisonment as well, thusly expressed also by Yelena Bonner. 

It’s one thing to be thankful that the awful war your own aggressive Russian people (and the aggressive German people) started has ended but that’s not what you’re celebrating on May 9 in Latvia.  Learn to reject your own despots and wars.  Speak out against the new totalitarians and new repression in Russia.

Like heck you’re really sorry.  Just ask Ushakovs about “occupation” in Latvia and see all that “sorry” sincerity.  He has new Russian ideas about occupation, that’s for sure.

Perhaps, to you, ambersun, the word “sorry” is just a word because in the West it is just a word. Everyone uses it, but rarely means it. If you’re familiar with the Russian psyche, you should know that when a Russian tells you he is sorry, he means it. It’s not a form of being nice, because God knows Russians aren’t. Nor is it a form of politeness because - God knows - Russians aren’t. But at least, Russians – everyday Russians – are genuine in their choice of words.

blah-blah-blah…pressing for Russian rights rather than accepting Latvian-citizen responsibilities.

How are those two ideas contradictory to each other, ambersun? Are they like the Glenn Beck Show and the Soviet Story? Why should juxtapose fighting for someone’s rights to someone accepting the citizens’ responsibility? Should the blacks in the US have accepted their citizen’s responsibility rather than fighting for their rights? Why can’t fighting for one’s rights be an integral part of one’s citizenship? Why can’t speaking out against injustice be the embodiment of good citizenry?

You still ramble about the “dog language” - something that I don’t even remember hearing about in the Soviet days though I’m sure some people felt that way. My grandmother hasn’t learned Latvian because she didn’t have to learn it. She grew up here most of her life. On the other hand, I know of one occupier (not an occupant) who learned the language as soon as he moved here in the Soviet days because he felt the need to do so. Are you going to hold my grandmother accountable for the oppressive regime that has been gone for 20 years? Should she - a woman of 8-grade education, who worked menial jobs all her life - be held accountable for committing crimes against humanity? ‘Fraid not.

You still go on about the offense that you feel by watching people expressing their right to peaceably assemble. Fine. I do understand how offensive it is to some Latvians. I do, really. However, here, we’re talking about deaths of family members. If public officialdom spoke more often about people who died in the war on both sides, if more often we remembered not only those who died wearing German uniforms with a Latvian flag patch, but also those other grandfathers and great-uncles, who gave their lives fighting a terrible war, perhaps, we would have been somewhere else. If people here focused on the fact that we live in a political country, in a republic, where rights of citizens are first and foremost respected, then, perhaps, we would have been elsewhere. If the Republic of Latvia could offer Russians here a sense of belonging, or some kind of national identity, then, perhaps, they would have returned the favor.

But what can we expect? Latvians beating in their chest how much they love their country, serving the lip service to the beloved Latvia that finally has been independent for almost 20 years, while at the same time, they stuff their pockets with the people’s money because they’ve tasted the capitalist greed and they want more. How hypocritical is it to say, this is our country which we love’ as one elected and re-elected people like Slesers, for example! It seems to me, I, the non-Latvian, am in deeper pain and regret over the expense scandal regarding the new National Library. It seems to me, I, the non-Latvian, want to hold Latvian officials to a bit of higher standard. Nothing from the Diaspora. No outrage from locals. Nothing. People feel helpless, perhaps, to change anything about them. What kind of responsible citizenry do you expect from those citizens of Latvia, ambersun? Latvians have their country back and they can’t take care of it, it seems. How many threads have been started here on that?

None, I guess. Instead, we have the Fatherlanders who served in every government since 1991 turning education as an issue. Education in Russian, of course, they can’t run on their own accomplishments. So they turn to the enemy that is always here. 

So, please, don’t be preaching to me about the rights of citizenry, ambersun.

Ambersun writes:

“(it was choice to be a russifiying occupant in Latvia and elsewhere in the USSR, genocidally repressing and mistreating native people)”

That’s interesting. Ambersun trying to rehabilitate the USSR? Here I was under the impression that even in country movement from city to city often needed some kind of official approval. Didn’t realize people had a choice.

Andrejs, always learning something new