I don’t intend to discuss different types of nationalism in Quebec, or Timbuktu. Each country is different. But I think in cases of Russian and Latvian nationalism, it would be exactly as I defined it - setting up a nationality above others.

if the sentiment for ethnic Latvians was supposedly underscored… who underscored it, and why and how?

It’s right there in the official name of the commemoration and in the official rhetoric. You know Dr. Z’s speech better than I. Genocide is part of the equation. Genocide of ethnic Latvians - that is all. Even you yourself appear to suggest that 772 Russians are just a short change. Insignificant. So what can you say about the official position?

No one expects a bilingual rock. But, perhaps, the president could mention the national minorities who also suffered; he could have underscored the fact that people of different nationalities suffered from the hands of Stalin, including those deported on March 25, 1949. But he didn’t. Why do you think that is? Perhaps, because for the nation-state where ethnic Latvians take the priority, it’s not important to acknowledge other ethnicities....

Had he mentioned it, I’m quite certain it would have made the Russian-language press the following day.

The UN definition of genocide refers to to the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group"… national or ethnical, Aleks. The 772 Russians were Latvian nationals, no?

I’m sorry the term so offends you—but this is actually illustrative of a lot, I s’pose. Like I said—if you have such trouble identifying with the nation, I don’t know what to suggest. The nation is a “Latvian thing”? Is this a chicken or egg question?

I am very sorry that Latvian nationalism prevents Russians from marking the deportation of Russians (Jews, Gypsies, filthy Lithuanians, whatever) from Latvia! We are terribly oppressive, throwing obstacles up on your path to the European culture. Woe is me.

/P

The point of deportation was not to destroy a national group – rather to control it. I’ve explained before it was the class struggle. In fact, Stalin openly called for extermination of the kulaks as a class back in 1930s. I can give you an exact reference, if you’d like. The efforts didn’t get to Latvia until its forceful incorporation into the Soviet Union. The UN definition doesn’t include the intent to destroy a class, does it?

The term “genocide” doesn’t offend me in the least. It explains though why Russian-language press isn’t in a hurry to splash it on the front page. Having said that, I’ve found your statements about non-Latvians Latvian citizens being guests here most offensive.

And sarcasm really is a poor defense. Ask ambersun.

On the national question, I have no problem with some nationals (ethnics) being more equal than others. The way I see it if Latvia is to survive then all of the people of Latvia have a stake at developing and maintaining a Latvian national identity. This doesn’t mean that a any citizen of Latvia (regardless of nationality) is more equal than another. Simply means that the only nationality in Latvia which should take precedence over others is Latvian. I have no problem with hyphenated identities, but a Latvian-_____ identity is up to the _____ to maintain.
Aleks, I think you are splitting hairs. It would be nice if Latvian-Latvians were to care as much about 772 (or the 4, or the 1114) as much as they care about 41,084, but it would also be nice if the Latvian-Russians cared about 41,084 (or the 4, or the 1114). Objectively speaking which side do you think has longer to travel to get to the center? I know my answer.

Andrejs

Sure, I’m splitting hairs. This is our national past time. But in a country where the ethnic lines are drawn pretty vividly and where the question of national minorities is relatively hot, it would have been a nice inclusion to make, don’t you think? But then again, one doesn’t expect any statesmanship from the good doctor, so it shouldn’t be surprising.

English is rather vague, which Latvian (latviešu-latvijas) did you mean when you said, “the only nationality in Latvia which should take precedence over others is Latvian?” Don’t have a problem if it’s Latvijas, which is the identity that ought to be developed and maintained by all people of Latvia. Russians are developing their own national identity here and yes, they probably have a longer way to go compared to ethnic Latvians (all the more reasons why a statesmanlike remark would have helped).

I’ll take this in detail as soon as I can—but I want to respond to this “guests” thing. Guests are treated well, y’know. The political (ethnic, national) lines rarely make an appearance. My mother-in-law, who spent considerable quality time in the Gulag, has absolutely no problem with Russians, the Russian language, the Russian culture, or anything like that. She has a lot of respect for Old Believers, even—like the Poles, they mostly sided with this nation when we recovered our independence. So if you want to get into bigotry—it’s a complex thing, and the fact is that Latvians do not hate people for being Russian. Is that different from hating those Russians who would impose Russian upon us? Yes, it is.

If you’re not guests—what are you? Last I checked, the percentage of Russians fluent in Latvian was in the teens. Sarcasm? Excuse me, but the fact that your own papers don’t want to talk about what happened to the Russians who flourished in an independent Latvia is indicative of your problem. What I am getting from you is that you want to blame Latvians for this problem. I don’t see it that way at all, and that’s based on plenty of personal experience.

Making you feel like you’re part of this nation is not our responsibility, Aleks. Leaving an opening is. The opening is actually there, and always has been. But do please show me how the Latvian Russian language press condemns Kabanov, Gilman, Pliner, et al. If you’d like to turn the tables—um, Pliner has a blog hosted by Diena. You can get all huffy when one speaks of the genocide against the Latvian people. This is Latvia, the Latvian nation-state. I don’t see a need for atkāpes in every speech. If Russians in Latvia feel excluded when people talk about Latvian tragedies, they need more expensive psychiatric care than we do. What you refuse to address is the fact that most Russians do not identify with this state. You would like to blame the state for that. But you know very well that that’s a crock—I’d hate to bring up private conversations, but as long as we’ve dragged them in… how Russian are your relatives? You know perfectly well that many Russians in Latvia live in a virtual Russia—they’re closer to Putin than they are to Dr. Z. They resent this nation-state at a fundamental level. They deny history. They screw with reality.

But if somebody learns Latvian—look, Aleks… Visvaldis Lācis backed Loskutovs, no?

If one wants to be more than a guest, one works towards that. Politically, all citizens are equal. No one is dissing the Old Believers as such. From what I’ve seen, Russians are respected. Do Russians respect Latvians? I think not, sorry. These are generalizations, but they are operative. In some fairy tale, Latvia might give Shtab’s 40% 40% of the power. But this would be wrong on every level, Aleks—historical, national, linguistic, liberal. It’s not going to happen.

And yes, your identity is up to you for the most part. You want Russian theaters, Russian schools, etc.—davai! You can have all of that and you have it at a level that most minorities never enjoy—the state rarely supports such things in most countries. And yet you elect people who actively work against this country, like Mme. Zhdanok. I think that’s ugly. It is ugly. In essence, it is the abuse of a democracy most Russians worked against. Some guests behave badly.

Vysu lobu,
/P

“English is rather vague, which Latvian (latviešu-latvijas) did you mean when you said, “the only nationality in Latvia which should take precedence over others is Latvian?” Don’t have a problem if it’s Latvijas, which is the identity that ought to be developed and maintained by all people of Latvia. Russians are developing their own national identity here and yes, they probably have a longer way to go compared to ethnic Latvians (all the more reasons why a statesmanlike remark would have helped).”

As I’ve defined it before it would be a primarily linguistic national identity. To be explicit I would say that the only group with rights to be monolingual and monocultural should be Latvians. If they so choose. Its up to the hyphenated (myself included) to maintain their own identity if they so choose. I don’t have a problem with the hyphenated. Frankly I think its a richer way of life, but no (I guess this will show my hardline) I don’t think Russians should have a right to develop a national identity inside Latvia’s borders. Ethnic identity, sure. National? No. I don’t think the two can coexist within Latvia’s borders. But I don’t think you meant it quite that way.

Andrejs

Peteris, Andrejs, and as you say it et. al.

A couple of things. One - if one is defending one aspect of the Russian press in Latvia, it does not mean that one is supporting all aspects of the Russian press in Latvia. My comments regarding the lack of the March 25 coverage were narrowly tailored. They were specifically addressing the issue of March 25th deportations, not the broad issue of the Russian-language media in Latvia.

Two - and probably the most important for me - is that issue of “a guest.” Next time I’m down in Dvinks, I’ll sleep in your bed. I’ll repaint the walls. I’ll decorate the room the way I see fit. I’ll get rid of that Satan you have hanging on your door and throw out that skull of a German soldier you have. It gives me the creeps. And end up staying there forever. Bring down my family as well, have children, grandchildren. All in your house. 

You probably wouldn’t like that. But that’s exactly what you’re suggesting by calling me, er, Latvian citizens of _________ origin guests. To me, a guest is a notch lower than an owner. A guest is only a guest as long as an owner says so. A guest is operating under the authority of the owner. He can kick you out any time for any reason. Politically, it means that I, with my right to vote, my right to care for the best of this house, am still a guest; am still at the pleasure of the owner, who treats me well. Heck, my citizenship could probably be revoked – chances of that happening are probably likely than an ethnic Latvian. If that doesn’t make for a second-class citizen, I don’t know what does. So there’s an inherent distinction that you’re making between ethnic Latvians (who may not even be citizens of Latvia) and ethnic _______ who may be citizens of Latvia, but are not ethnic Latvians.

All I can say is “Massa treats me good. Massa gives me food. And clothes. What more does a man need?” Shall I sing to you a Negro spiritual?

What you refuse to address is the fact that most Russians do not identify with this state. You would like to blame the state for that. But you know very well that that’s a crock...

I don’t see it possible to make Russians identify with this state if it’s based purely on ethnicity. It’s repelling, especially if you’re suggesting that they’re guests here. Even the umbrella revolution was a typical Latvian gathering. A Russian told me, “Yeah, we’ll go because we support the rule of law. There’ll be patriotic singing there, but we won’t participate because that’s not how Russians do it.”

Cultures are indeed different.

Russians here identify themselves as русские, not as россияне. Yes, allegiance to the state is weak among the local Russians. I’m often a subject of jokes because of my own allegiance to the state that brought me here in the first place. So what? Allegiance or not, fluent speaker or not, according to your guest philosophy, I’m still a guest. My rights of a guest are still not your rights of an owner, even though we’re both Latvian citizens.

This goes beyond Russian theaters, schools, etc., which, I believe, is the job of the Russian community here to maintain, upkeep and support. It goes into this core of interaction, a common ground between two main ethnicities in Latvia so needed to create a cohesive society here in Latvia.

Here’s another bit of a private conversation between Peteris and I that I’m sure ambersun will find “revealing.”

me: here’s a question - are Latvians generally superstitious?
Pēteris: hmm… i guess yes
so are russkies, of course
me: now why is that relevant?!

It’s always a comparison, isn’t it? It’s always a competition. Segregation. Separation.—feel like I’m turning into Al Sharpton. But why? Us. And them. Latvians. And Russians. Why?

It reminds me of the time when ambersun “outed” me as a Russian. I can imagine her jumping up in the air, spilling her morning coffee, and eager to spill all that hatred or anger or phobia of everything Russian onto the keyboard. It’s her reaction to the Soviets invading, pillaging, murdering. The counter-reaction from me is more Russian nationalism and lesser allegiance to this country, especially considering that one can never become of the owners ilk.

Доброе утро!

But you do sleep in my bed when you’re a guest… being halfway polite, I sleep on the floor!

Allegiance or not, fluent speaker or not, according to your guest philosophy, I’m still a guest.

No, that’s not so. I had written: If one wants to be more than a guest, one works towards that. Politically, all citizens are equal. I used the example of Loskutovs—despite his ethnic origin and heavy accent, he’s admired on both sides of the aisle… even more on the Latvian side, I would guess. For a time, the most popular person in Latvia was a Jew, Mavriks Vulfsons (before he went over to the Jurkāns camp). Vulfsons distinguished between calls for a latviska Latvija and Latviju latviešiem, saying he was comfortable with the first. Vulfsons brandished the secret protocols of the Pact in Moscow—thus he was one of the first prominent people to denounce the occupation. The trouble with Russophones, as a group, is that most are on the other side in fundamental ways. They’re not comfortable with a latviska Latvija and instead lean towards a bicommunal state. They have a very different view of history on questions basic to the Republic. They want Russian to have official status. They want non-citizens to be given the vote. They don’t see Russia as a threat. The division isn’t ethnic as much as it is national. And to individuals? People like Ludmila Azarova are honored members of society to Latvians. They’re not guests—they’re members of a loyal minority who cultivate their own culture but have worked to learn the national culture.

I don’t see it possible to make Russians identify with this state if it’s based purely on ethnicity. It’s repelling, especially if you’re suggesting that they’re guests here. Even the umbrella revolution was a typical Latvian gathering. A Russian told me, “Yeah, we’ll go because we support the rule of law. There’ll be patriotic singing there, but we won’t participate because that’s not how Russians do it.”

So what did you want—40% balalaika music, or looting shops and burning cars? ;) Damn right it was a typical Latvian gathering. Rule of law is connected to the state, which is a nation-state. The state isn’t based, purely or impurely, on ethnicity—but it is based on nationality. It’s obviously difficult for Russians to identify with the state. Part of the American Heritage definition of nation: a people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language; a nationality. The problem, Aleks, is that most Russians don’t share much of any of the above with Latvians. We’re therefore talking about a multinational rather than merely a multicultural country. Should we adopt the flag some carried in the demonstrations against the education reform, with the Russian tricolor where the stars are in Old Glory?

Regards,
/P

By the way, there is an article called “Is Nationalism Good for You?” in Foreign Policy. I don’t have access—maybe someone could post it?

Your metaphor, Aleks, caused me to dig out somehing I composed over at s.c.b. almost a decade ago (the rest of it, and reactions, can be found here).

It’s 1939. We live in a nice house. Our family consists of 7 Latvians, 2
Russians and 1 German Jew from Poland who reads Gypsy tarot cards. Our papa is
kind of pompous and somewhat authoritarian.

It’s 1940. The guys in the big nasty apartment building next door break in – or
they are let in by devious Latvian Number Six and Russian Number Two. They
wreck the house, rape some of us and kidnap others.

It’s 1941-45. Some other guys, from the sleek abattoir to the west, come kick
the invaders out and go rapin’ and murderin’ in the nasty apartment building.
They also kill the Jew and Gypsy, with the help of devious Latvian Number
Seven. The apartment dwellers come back, kick their enemies’ asses and take
over the whole neighborhood including half of the abattoir.

It’s 1945-91. They do more rapin’ and murderin’ and kidnappin’ in our house,
which remains so in name only, with this tacky SSR thing tacked on. They turn
our house into an apartment building and invite their relatives to come live
with us, almost none of whom bother to learn our language and most of whom act
as if they own the place, which, of course, they do ("the laws at that time").
They give birth, we give birth, the raped give birth, and by the time their
rotten apartment building falls apart and the big piece gets some new, halfway
decent (by their standards) management, our house, which is once again our
house because despite the murderer-rapists’ attempt to reeducate us, some
marginalized grandmothers kept the memory of 1939 and 1940 alive instead of
staring googly-eyed into some bright future beyond ethnos with red bandanas
around our necks… by that time, our house contained 5 Latvians, 1 Latvian who
thought he was a Russian, 1 of the old Russians, 1 murderer-rapist, 3 of the
murderer-rapist’s supposedly innocent relatives and 1 Russian-speaking Azeri
with Karelian blood, Ukrainian convictions and a penchant for Chuvash music,
Georgian food and Moldovan women.

Whew. Our flag is flying, granny is relieved, several of the
Kalshnikov-wielding lice on the single murderer-rapist have decamped for the
beautiful arsenal in Kaliningrad and we may now set about restoring order. It
is, of course, the nineties, and order is different now than in 1939, both in
fact and in the latest musings from the Sepulchral City and the Soros
Foundation.

We start by deciding that decisions will be made by those of us who were around
the last time there weren’t people being tortured in the basement and their
babies. The murderer-rapist, who has taken the nicest room in the house, and
one of his relatives, is sulking. For one thing, he can no longer drink the
Latvians’ beer without paying for it, or at least asking for it in Latvian.

Surprise! Enter Mad Max to oversee the situation. He struts on over to Vlad the
murderer-rapist and his relatives, hears them out, chastises our popularly
elected daddy about this language stuff and asks questions about the vindictive
revocation of the beer privileges, explains how things are in his neighborhood,
where the rapin’ and murderin’ is now a subject of nostalgia in many a hash
house, and sits down to watch. Vlad is happy to have found an ally and screams
louder.

Parts of the house get fixed up, it is decided that the murderer-rapists and
their relatives can become part of the family if they ask for their beer in
Latvian, and things are pretty nifty if we don’t take into account that our new
daddy looks the other way when various shady dealings take place, the
murderer-rapist and one of his brethren is discontented, half of the family
would be starving if they didn’t grow vegetables and sometimes the whole place
seems kind of confusing.

The house is not very large, but rather labyrinthine, and most of the
inhabitants don’t hear Vlad’s nocturnal ravings. Of the seven family members
(vs. the prospective adoptees, i.e., the 5 Latvians, 1 Latvianoid and 1 old
Russian), 1 sells cellphones by the Ventspils shore, 1 is a schoolteacher, and
3 plant potatoes and chop wood and have grandmothers. The Latvianoid hawks
leather jackets in the market (and the smuggled “American” cigarettes I ain’t
never seen in America that are hidden under them). The old Russian is an
Orthodox priest and would wish that everybody would just shut up if he was
listening to them.

Their political opinions differ, but except for a couple of them they want to
be embraced by the Sepulchral City, not because they think it’s that great but
because they’re worried about the nasty apartment building next door, or the
main structure thereof, which exudes ominous rumblings. The Lett who sells
cellphones and the gal who deals jackets are pretty hot on it for financial
reasons, too. The two dissenters are a nationalistic peasant and the
schoolteacher, whose primary worry about the EU is that prices will go up
before she gets the raise that never comes.

The mutt, the one soaking up some rays with his Kishinev gal and exporting
Georgian cheese to Liechtenstein, is also happy, because he knows that he can
be a Tatar or Ossetian or Chukchi and no one will have a problem with it. He is
learning Latvian, is used to being a minority, and happens to hate Russians
anyway.

[To be cont’d.]

[Cont’d.]

The three murderer-rapists’ relatives are considered to be a problem. One is a
really cool guy, studies Latvian while working on the house, and would be okay
if it wasn’t for the occasional cold shoulder he gets from those Latvians who
seem to have a mysterious dislike for his ethnicity. He realizes, however, that
once he shows them that he is not like his brothers and sisters and cares about
his environment, even the really whacky ones will accept him.

His sister, Nastya, is another matter. Her daddy was a murderer-rapist and she
is very proud of him. When people didn’t talk about these things, she liked
verbally slapping the peasants around and had the kind of stubborn sense of
superiority that conquerors’ daughters have the world over. Now there is also
an element of wounded spite.

Their nameless cousin couldn’t care less about any of this. She is only
interested in survival, and assumes that survival means having enough kopecks
or santi’mi or whatever it is now to pay for the cable so that she can watch
Mexican soap operas.

That leaves Vlad, who would be a scary guy if he wasn’t for the most part
impotent. Vlad learns quick, though, you’ve gotta hand him that – he picked up
on that Holmanesque rhetoric in a jiffy and uses it on Max whenever he visits.
Nastya joins in, too.

It has been decided that if everybody is going to get along, they will all have
to learn Latvian, behave properly, and know a little about the history of the
house. There are plans to put a Museum of Torture in the basement and a library
in the attic, a couple of nooks have been wired for the Internet so that we can
get a glimpse of people gorging on egalitarian pommes frites in the Sepulchral
City, etc.

There are many practical problems. Vlad, Nastya, and the nameless soap opera
connoisseur don’t speak a word of Latvian. The latter may learn, but Vlad and
Nastya wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. The Latvianoid, the old Russian
and the mutt don’t speak Latvian very often, either, with the result that half
of the household is using the language of the rapist-murderers. This is galling
to those with grandmothers, and some say that it is merely a manifestation of
the fact that the shadow of that vile apartment building next door falls
heavily upon us.

It is also a haunted house. There is still grafitti on some of the walls saying
KILL ALL LATVIANS. There are people buried in the backyard – it was a nice
cemetery in the thirties, but the Russians knocked over most of the tombstones
while they were rapin’ and murderin’. Not a few of the folks buried there died
building the house. Others were shoveled under the ice on the far side of the
apartment building.

Not a few of us think that this house will only be nice when we understand how
it came to be, what happened to it, what we want it to be, etc. Several of us
believe that the restoration of the cemetery, the singing of the old magical
beer songs, hanging nice paintings on historical subjects here and there and
things like that are just as important to our well-being as wiring more rooms
for the ‘Net and selling cellphones. There are also potato planting traditions
which will probably be swept away, but we think it’s important that the
grandmothers be heard regarding such change.

There’s this Holman dude, an African-American academic from a nice house not
far from here, who says things that cause consternation and he even pisses some
of us off. He seems to give inordinate attention to things like moving the
little rapist-murderer graves out of the middle of our old cemetery, to the guy
who helped the Russians get in back in ’40, to the evil Latvian who helped with
the abattoir, etc., as if these were the central problems we have faced. He
couples this with slogans about the future that are suspiciously similar in
tone to those of the googly-eyed Komsomolets we came to detest – he’s fair, of
course, but has the same rose-colored worries about “wallowing in history.” He
treats Vlad and Nastya with the same respect with which he treats the people
who suffered under them, and endlessly lectures us on how these creeps aren’t
Russians at all because the name on the apartment building’s been changed
again. He even points to the primitive and broken washing machines and talks
about how the murderer-rapists invested in the house, when half of the
machinery they brought here was used for sinister purposes in the basement.
Even the washing machines usually necessitated the importation of Russian
repairmen.

He comes up with a hypothetical Uzbek married to a mutt and their
Latvian-speaking children. In Daugavpils, there are 17 Uzbek non-citizens and 8
Uzbek citizens. There are 27 058 Russian non-citizens and 39 988 Russian
citizens, not to mention, say, 8 479 Belarussian non-citizens, many of whom are
daily inspired by the huge red flag outside their mother country’s consulate.
Yet Alminas is a buffoon for trying to get you to acknowledge that when we are
talking about demographics we are talking about Russians, in the main.

There, beyond Bigosovo, in brave Belarus, is the result of the new man, the one
who has progressed so far that he can’t talk to his grandmother.

Sveiki!

Pēteris wrote: “Guests are treated well, y’know. /...../

If you’re not guests—what are you? Last I checked, the percentage of Russians fluent in Latvian was in the teens./..../ Excuse me, but the fact that your own papers don’t want to talk about what happened to the Russians who flourished in an independent Latvia is indicative of your problem.”

Pēteri, when did you become an advocate of collective responsibility?  Why is Aleks, who is a citizen of Latvia and more fluent in the Latvian language than many who read this forum - and by your explicit implication - responsible for the % of Russians who aren’t fluent in the Latvian language?  Why is Aleks also responsible for what is or isn’t printed in Latvia’s Russian-language newspapers?  Surely, you’re not willing to take personal responsibility for what is (and isn’t) written in the Latvian language press?  (Or are you?)

From what you’ve written, it’s very difficult not to conclude that non-ethnic Latvians who are in fact citizens are nonetheless viewed by you as not even 2nd class citizens unless they agree with your particular ethno-political points of view.  Does this mean that you also view ethnic Latvians as 2nd class citizens if they hold, according to your values, disagreeable points of view?  20% of PCTVL’s electoral support (and presumably SC’s as well) has been widely assumed to be composed of ethnic Latvians.  Are they, too, misbehaving “guests” in Latvia?  If not, why not?

I personally wouldn’t want to be part of a body politic that had the kind of litmus tests that you’ve intermittently & informally proposed.  Jauki, ka tādi nav.  Vismaz tik daudz.  : )

Visu labu,

Elizabete

Labdien, Elizabete!

From what you’ve written, it’s very difficult not to conclude that non-ethnic Latvians who are in fact citizens are nonetheless viewed by you as not even 2nd class citizens unless they agree with your particular ethno-political points of view.  Does this mean that you also view ethnic Latvians as 2nd class citizens if they hold, according to your values, disagreeable points of view?  20% of PCTVL’s electoral support (and presumably SC’s as well) has been widely assumed to be composed of ethnic Latvians.  Are they, too, misbehaving “guests” in Latvia?  If not, why not?

Nowhere did I suggest implementing litmus tests (except for naturalization)—I specifically said that politically, all citizens are equal. As it is written: Viens likums visiem. I’m not asking Aleks to take personal responsibility for the Russian language press, either—but part of what we are debating, though that should have been made more clear, is indeed about collectives and collective rights. The deeper sorts of questions that are in play here, and have been brought up in one way or another, as I see them, are things like this: Should the concept of latviešu tauta be replaced by Latvijas tauta, and in what context? Does the political nation supersede the ethnos—when, why and how? The inventor of the phrase in the Satversme himself later rejected the formulation.

I think I’ve made my values clear over the years. I’m strongly against discrimination on the basis of ethnicity. We don’t discriminate against people for being Russians (Jews, Udmurts, whatever) by blood. As it is, many people have mixed blood. We do discriminate against the Russian language—Latvian is the sole state language. The state is supposed to promote Latvian (and Livonian, and literary Latgallian), and Tsilevich mumbled his oath.

I began using the “guests” concept with tongue in cheek, actually (I happen to suffer from a Lettish sense of irony). But the concept becomes useful when we talk about shared values. Even if you subscribe to the “imagined communities” theory, the substance of the matter is a lot more basic than mere “disagreeable points of view”—we imagine very different things. Common ground? Good governance, the political nation, viens likums visiem, etc. are things many of us, Russian, Latvian, or Udmurt can agree upon. Nowhere have I suggested retracting people’s citizenship.

I see this as the home of the Latvian nation. It’s also a home for others. But unless Latvians feel at home, it’s destined to be a dysfunctional household at its very core. The sharp distinction between Latvijas and latviešu is so sharp for a reason—we lost our home.

Aleks identifies himself as a Russian; if 20% of the people voting for SC and/or PCTVL are Latvians (and I’d guess that it’s probably a higher percentage!)—how are they Latvian, if not by self-identification, mostly? “Second class citizens” implies that they have fewer rights—nowhere have I said that anybody should have fewer rights. 

I don’t intend to denigrate anybody, and Aleks and I are friends. We seem to disagree on a lot, even on fundamental things, but that’s normal. To me, the main problem is that most Russians aren’t part of a traditional minority and Latvia is not a normal nation-state, comparatively.

I will say again that the whole reason Latvia exists is Latvian nationalism. If the latviešu tauta is discontented with the result, the Latvijas tauta has a snowball’s chance in hell.

Surely, you’re not willing to take personal responsibility for what is (and isn’t) written in the Latvian language press?  (Or are you?) I do at least criticize what appears in the Latvian press, on a regular basis. But I can’t help thinking that one of the difficulties in this argument with Aleks is that I’d be required to focus on “the people of Latvia” whenever confronted with the tragedy of “the Latvian people.” Like I said, I think that’s the worst sort of PC, and many people call the occupation “the Russian era” for a reason. Our country was colonized, the Latvian percentage fell to 52%, and Latvian was slowly but surely being pushed out of the public sphere. I went to Slavas skvērs this morning and meditated upon the fact that the “liberation monument,” consisting of a central statue by a Latvian and lots of stones, is entirely in Russian.

As Irēna asked in another thread, if you’re an ethnic Latvian trimdie, how and where do you fit in with Latvia’s ethnic Latvians, etc. As Andrejs keeps insisting—isn’t it primarily linguistic? And it’s cultural, historical, political. There are ways in which the Russian next door is closer to the Belarusian next next, and ways in which the Latvian is closer to the trimdinieki-- our best and most popular President so far was a trimdiniece.

The movement that led to the restoration of the Republic had this as an anthem.  Perhaps it should be revised to Latvijas tauta?

Vysu lobu,
/P

All,

As long as there’s a way to become an owner of the house, I don’t have a problem with the guest concept. I personally found it offensive when I was labeled as a guest. Not the whole staff of the Russian-language newspaper, not all citizens who have (not) naturalized, but me. In turn, naturally it caused a reaction, similar in a way like the identity of a diaspora Latvian which circles around their hatred of them rooskies. I’ve said before: my three ethnic identities compete for attention. I don’t think I’m the only one. With the right buttons pushed, the Russian identity will surface. Peteris’ comments made it personal for me. It made me angry in a way – one’s family has lived here for generations and one is still a guest here. Seemed unfair. It probably is unfair. 

Having said that, I’ll continue to live in the Russian and Western culture. I see nothing wrong with enjoying the Russian literature, Russian music (although that pop music is godawful), or Russian plays at the Russian drama theater here in Latvia. At one point in history, Riga was the home of the most moving Russian literature published by a newspaper here. The Soviets closed them down. And I’ll continue criticizing the culture of urlas and sports-track suited businessmen of the early 1990s. Or stereotypical Russian obsession with a strong man. Or stereotypical Russian attitude toward principles of democracy and the rule of law. Or your stereotypical Russian form of argument, “So you’re a Nazi, then.” Or lack of true memory for the dead. Part of self-discovery pushed me to start reading an English-language book on the cultural history of Russia. It was very educational.

So as long as I can enjoy my native culture and be a patriot of Latvia, I’ve no problems with the concept of a guest.

But unless Latvians feel at home, it’s destined to be a dysfunctional household at its very core.

I’m not sure what it will take for a people who suffered throughout centuries from other nations to develop a health dose of self-esteem. Here, in Riga, things are different than in Dvinsk. So, I don’t get the sense that Latvians here don’t feel at home, but I may be wrong.

Anyway, for me the issue of a guest is closed.

High art for Aleks.

Having said that, I’ll continue to live in the Russian and Western culture.

Doesn’t that make Latvia a caurstaigājamā istaba?

Ar cieņu, and with self-esteem,
/P