Many authors, such as Kolstoe 1995 or Pabriks 1999, juxtapose the
decrease of interethnic stability and solidarity following regaining
independence with the Latvian citizenship policy, indirectly suggesting that
the former results from the latter. The focus on pure political developments
seems safe enough, as it involves working with more-or-less verifiable
historical facts, figures and documents. Its failure, however, is that it
ignores the human factor behind these facts and figures. Granted, psychological
and social developments are much more difficult to pin-point and analyze
objectively, but ignoring them seriously flattens the picture.
Focusing only on describing and analyzing politics and policies has
also another advantage: it makes it easier to preserve a consistent line, keep
to one side. Paying attention to the “human” circumstances of creating those
policies may inadvertently lead to mitigating the hard line. Commercio (2010)
studies mostly Russian informal networks in post-Communist countries, but the
formal policies of those countries form a necessary background:
What is happening in the post-Soviet states (…) has nothing to do
with nation-building (…) on the contrary, post-Soviet elites are engaged in
nationalization, which is founded on the principle of ethnic differentiation rather than ethnic integration. (p. 18, emphasis original)
The state of affairs regarded in this somewhat critical statement
becomes more justifiable, understandable, more “human”, if we consider it against
the backdrop of the following claims:
Russification generated resentment toward Russians that provided
legitimacy for nationalization policies and practices (p. 28)
Russification eventually generated anti-Russian sentiment that elites
channelled into support for nationalization projects (p. 30)
elites who wished to nationalize the state over which they presided
were able to mobilize popular support based on the plausible claim that Moscow
had, at some point, persecuted the respective titular nation. This made it
easy for elites to frame nationalization projects as remedial and therefore
justifiable. (p. 29)
On the one hand, these fragments present Latvian policies in the
negative light, implying that they made use of, turned to their advantage the
suffering of Latvians during the Soviet times. What is more, the repeated use
of the word elites suggests that this
abuse of a traumatic experience came “from above”, was a deliberate and
scrupulously designed political move. On the other hand, these fragments presuppose
Russification as a historical fact, and
this term is not neutral; it undeniably entails coercion, compulsion, violence,
and resistance as an understandable and justifiable reaction to it.
Blaming (however implicitly) the existence of a two-community
society in Latvia on the Latvian exclusive citizenship policies suggests that
such a society was created in the
1990s. If a publication does not include even a short description of social
relations in Soviet Latvia, its readers might receive a distorted picture. This
shows how important the historical context may be.
In the following fragment, however short, Mole (2012) captures not
only the existence of a two-community society in Latvia during Soviet times,
but also hints at the issue of two different versions of history[1] that is
still an important part of the interethnic conflict today:
Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians (...) became
profoundly alienated from the societies in which they lived. The Soviet
project was, however, successful at embedding its particular version of history
and society among the non-indigenous inhabitants (p. 62)
Note that in this interpretation, it is the titular nations that became alienated from the societies in
their own republics. The passive
voice reinforces lack of popular support, consent, legitimacy for this
alienation that was forced upon them.
The meaning of the next fragment from Mole (2012) basically
corresponds to that of the quote from Commercio (2010) above. But the use of
passive constructions makes it much less judgemental, and the lack of a
responsible actor makes the demands
more universal and objectified (they may potentially be shared by the entire
society, not only the elites):
all laws, institutions and values from the
Soviet past as well as the Soviet past itself were considered not just
illegitimate but a threat to the continued existence of the desired
conceptualization of the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian nations and states.
In the immediate post-independence period it was thus sufficient for social,
political and economic demands to be presented as negating Soviet practice for
those demands to be considered legitimate. (p. 82)
Negating everything Soviet basically meant negating everything
Russian, as the two identities merged both in the minds of Latvians and in the
minds of non-Latvians: “the
Soviet practice of conflating Soviet with Russian meant that there was also a
tendency among Balts to conflate “Russia with the USSR”
and cast everything Russian as a threat”[2]; “the distinctions
between Russia, the Soviet Union and the ‘Motherland’ had become blurred in the
mind of most Russians. The Russians are the only group among the major Soviet
peoples to have linked their national identity to the multinational Union to
any appreciable degree”[3].
Pabriks (1999) makes a very interesting claim – that the population was
“ethnicized” discursively so that the Soviet identity could be marginalized and
loyalty to the Soviet state weakened:
people’s collective identities were ethnicized, and the population became increasingly aware of its ethnic
variability. Frequently, ethnic identity replaced the former political
identity, which meant that the link between the population and the Soviet state
was weakened and lost its legitimacy in the eyes of the population. (p. 148)
The use of active voice in the fragment underlined suggests that
there was a kind of “grand design” imposed on people from above (compare with
Commercio’s (2010) statements analyzed above), which brings to mind
constructivist theories of identity and the creative power of language
propagated by critical discourse analysts.
Let us now go back to the issue of ethnic differentiation being
preferred over ethnic integration, as Commercio (2010) claimed in the fragment
quoted above. It is often presupposed that the latter is the solution to the
ethnic conflict in Latvia, that it is what Russians in Latvia need and want and
Latvians resist and oppose. For example:
Segregation was a post-colonial strategy which guaranteed that
Russian culture would not marginalize Latvian culture. (Björklund 2003, p. 267)
many ethnic Latvians were more concerned about reversing the decades
of Russification by rejecting everything associated with Russia and
Russian-speakers. Given their “demographic minorization” (Karklins, 1994),
ethnic Latvians were concentrating on healing their ethnic identity and ensuring
their majority rights. (Silova 2006, p. 86)
The second quote raises some interesting issues: first, the
discourse of medicine used when talking about national identity (it needs healing because it has been infected,
polluted) and the somewhat surprising combination of majority and rights.
Under normal circumstances, we talk about ensuring minority rights, because majority rights are obvious, taken for
granted. This reversal indicates abnormality, which refers to the “order of the
absurd” which was prevalent under the Soviet rule; the absurd was the official
definition of normality[4].
Jubulis (2001) suggests that it is the minorities, not Latvians, who
oppose ethnic integration, because this integration is not necessarily in their
interests:
For most purposes, the crucial status is residence, not citizenship. (p. 118)
non-citizens enjoy certain benefits in Latvia, such as the
ability to travel more easily to Russia and the fact that non-citizens avoid
military service (…) many residents may simply lack the necessary motivation to
apply for citizenship because they don’t feel that it will have a significant
impact on their lives. (p. 119)
Elsewhere he also refers to advantages of being a non-citizen
(p. 180).
There are also publications which attribute resistance
to ethnic integration to both sides:
latviešu attieksme pret naturalizāciju nav
gluži tāda pati kā pret latviešu valodas izplatību cittautiešu vidū. Latvieši
nepilsoņu naturalizāciju uztver rezervēti, daudzos gadījumos noliedzoši. Arī
liela daļa cittautiešu (nepilsoņu) visumā apzināti izvairās no naturalizācijas.
(Vēbers 2007, p. 118)
(transl.) the
attitude of Latvians towards naturalization is not exactly the same as towards
the use of Latvian among other nationals. Latvians approach the naturalization
of non-citizens with reservation, in many cases with rejection. Also a large
part of other ethnic groups (non-citizens) deliberately avoid naturalization.
Also Silova (2006) indicates that “the ideas of ethnic integration
(…) were initially perceived to be threatening to both Latvian and Russian
language speakers in Latvia” (p. 86); “for both sides, it was quite difficult
and in some cases impossible to accept the principle of living together” (p.
87).
Attitudes of both sides must be regarded with understanding: while
for some Latvians it may be difficult to understand why they should “share” the
freedom they fought so hard to achieve with exactly the people they won it
from, Russian-speaking Soviet-time immigrants must “make the psychological
shift from being members of the dominant cultural group of the Soviet Union to
being a minority group in Latvia”[5].
What is interesting, some authors seem to go to great lengths in
criticizing Latvian resistance towards ethnic integration, presumably in order
to defend “minority rights”, even if the minorities themselves (at least the
Russian-speaking groups) appear to be relatively satisfied with the status quo. In the fragment quoted above
Björklund (2003) refers to segregation
of minorities, elsewhere also called non-recognition
or exclusion. She even goes as far as
suggesting that Latvians fear that their culture could be “transformed or
diluted by the more established and resourceful Russian culture” (p. 278).
At the same time, at least some Russian-speaking leaders might have “found the
idea of a segregated, two community society more useful politically” (Silova
2006, p. 88).
*part of the project “Discourse-historical analysis of the press discourse on ethnic conflict in Latvia” carried out at the Herder Institute in Marburg, Germany, in January-February 2013. For full bibliography, see here.
[1] “As Jānis Jurkāns, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the
Republic of Latvia, reminisced: ‘I learned two histories: one at school and one
at home.’” (Mole 2012: 62).
[2] Mole 2012: 83.
[3] Kolstoe 1995: 7.
[4] B. Lindqvist 2003: 298.
