Thread: Members of Ukrainian parliament fight over Russian language

...they are a legacy of illegal occupation of the Soviet.

All this talk about "occupants" is just rhetorics for biased or ignorant. Most of these "occupants" lived there for generations without having any specific rights or privileges over "natives". They worked usual jobs, including unglamorous ones, such as janitors or nurses, they lived at the same types of flats, they were no richer or more powerful. Basically it was just natural working migration.

So now you are gleefully punishing their children and grandchildren for that, acting all wounded and self-righteous? Kind of petty mentality. Especially considering that some of Baltic states probably would not have been independent now without said annexations.

I find that rather hard to believe - based on the people of pre baltica that I know here say - where do you get your statistics from?

Most - if not all - of them are firmly "anti-russian" language - even if they know how to speak it.

Also - nearly all of them I know (maybe 5 or 6) say that there was NO "indigenous" Russian speakers until the "occupation".

So - do you DENY that Russia FORCIBLY OCCUPIED pre balitica?

I am just wondering about your own perception of "history" here.

Originally Posted by KLAPA

Also - nearly all of them I know (maybe 5 or 6) say that there was NO "indigenous" Russian speakers until the "occupation".

Are you serious? native Russian speakers were 12 % of the population in the pre-war Latvia.

Originally Posted by KLAPA

So - do you DENY that Russia FORCIBLY OCCUPIED pre balitica?

I am just wondering about your own perception of "history" here.

Well, possibly many of the Baltic peoples were not happy with the unification with the USSR, but actually an invasion by Nazi Germany was anticipated and the governments had to choose between the two evils, as they saw it, and choose the USSR. It is known that Roosevelt during the war asked Stalin to repeat the unification referendums in those republics after the war, because the pre-war referendums were influenced by the immence threat by Germany. Stalin rejected this proposal, saying that the pre-war referendums legally valid even if they were made in a difficult international situation.

So it is possibly true that the majority of those people did not like the idea to join the USSR for ever very much, but it is also true that they made their choice between Germany and the USSR in the pre-war situation. They possibly thought that Germany will not be bold enough to attack the USSR and that they would be able to leave the USSR after the world war is over.