Thread: Языковая обстановка в Латвии и др.

According to the ideology, the USSR liberated the countries.
For example in Finland (which was very poor at the time) there were quite a few communists who were keen to be "liberated" by the USSR, and thought they'd get a better and more fair lifestyle in the USSR. But they were not the majority.

I think the situation was the same in the Baltics. I have some distant relatives of Estonian origin. They were farmers. Everyone in the family moved to Sweden in 1945 because they had a bad view of the USSR. However one brother was happy to stay there. According to my grandfather, he was a communist. Lots of people in the Baltic states too, were communists. The Baltic SSR states were not run by Russians, but by local people who were communists.

Secondly, Stalin was just as much a national leader/dictator who wanted more power, influence territory... as he was a communist.

Basically a lot of the things that the USSR did in the the 30s - 50s have a lot more to do with what Stalin wanted, than what was necessarily communist idelogy. For example, communism does not say that people should be sent to labour camps in distant locations. That was just Stalin continuing an old Russian tradition from hundreds of years back... but greatly increasing the scope because he was not willing to accept any dissent.

I don't know any details of this, like I said - in school I was told the version that they were liberated from nazism by the Red Army and then incorporated into the USSR - end of story. I was aware that some people disagreed with this view though and in the 1990s the views of the Baltic people became clear. But the Baltics practically never were independent countries, always part of other countries. Just for about 20 years or so, they were independent. Russia, Sweden, Germany, Poland and probably some other country have been running part of that area for many decades.

Originally Posted by Hanna

But the Baltics practically never were independent countries, always part of other countries. Just for about 20 years or so, they were independent. Russia, Sweden, Germany, Poland and probably some other country have been running part of that area for many decades.

Oh, hanna, what a mistake are you doing? if your teacher said to you that baltics practically never was independent countries then I'll start to doubt if she ever studied history at all... As you know Lithuania also is one of the Baltic countries, so if we never were independent then how it happened that Lithuanian is one of the oldest indo european languages and that in 2009 we celebrated 1000 years anniversary since our country exists??? I guess you didb't know that the first time when name of Lithuania was mentioned was in 1009 and that in middle ages while Lithuania was one of the strongest countries in Europe and it's territory looked like that http://77.79.38.19/mokinys/Svetan%EB...VytautoLDK.png So you know it's very strange that someone coudn't notice that there exist such country which have teritory from Baltic sea to the Black sea. However time passed and Lithuania in 1569 made a commonwealth with Poland and it actually existed till 1795 ( then Russia, Austria and Prusia just simply shared Poland and Lithuania.) Since then The bigest part of Lithuanian territory was joined to Russia. Russians of course forbade Lithuanians to talk in our mother tongue, use it envery day life, started closing churches and tried to make athesists of us. Also as they saw that Lithuanians are not giving up to their rule and still are printing secret books in Lithuanian even if it's forbiden, that they are creating secret schools where teaches their children of Lithuanian language, Russians tried to become our ''friends'' and said that we can write Lithuanian words in Kirilica, however Lithuanians weren't that stupid so that they would do that. They simply didn't read your printed books in Russian. So Lithuanians had to endure this terrible russian policy till started the first WW. Also when in 1905 Russia lost war against Japan and all the world saw that russia isn't as strong as they thought beforethen Didysis Vilniaus seimas was arranged ( Lithuanian parlament) and during it 2000 Lithuanians who came to Vilnius (from Moscow, Odesa, sankt Peterburg, and many other cities of Lithuania and Latvia) come to conclusion that Lithuania won't stop reaching for it's independence. Later on started the first world war which changed the balance of strenghts in the Europe. Also February and October events which happened in Russia was quitea good circumstance which helped to regain our independence. In 1917 there was a conference in Vilnius where was accepted Lithuanian independence declaration and then Lithuania canceled it's diplomatic relations with Russia and Poland and started conversation with Germany. However Germany didn't accepled this independence declaration and did it just in 1918 when on 16th of february Lithuania announced it's independence note, act, or certificate. Ofcouse Russia didn't liked it and there still was fights in 1919-1920 Betvien Lithuanians and der army. However, Lithuanians in 1920 January finally defeated bolsheviks. In 1920 12th of July there was made an agreement where Soviet Russia accepted independence of Lithuania. Then Lithuanians lived in free democratic Lithuanian respublic till second WW started and in 194015th of June Russia again occupied Lithuania. Then lasted long terrible years full of agression against Lithuanians, full of stupid policy which Russians made in my country. And you say that Lithuanians where ruling Lithuania back then? wake up! there might have been few Lithuanians in higher posts but all the orders came to Moscow. Lithuanians cfoudn't say anything against SSRS because they simply would have been deportated to Siberia, or would have been shot right away. And if there are people who says that Baltic countries wanted to be the part of this Soviet union then maybe they can also explain why in 1990 they said that they want to be free and soviet tanks went on alive unarmed people who did nothing wrong at all. How does it looks? http://images.alfa.lt/68/96/23.JPG Anyway, as you see baltic states are free again. Does it still seems to you that these countries never were independent? if so, then try to count how Long Lithuania was independed. I hope that you are better at math than history.. And I don't know if you have ever heard such name like Kārlis Ulmanis. But if you did then you shoud also know that other baltic states also were independent much longer than just 20 years.

And I don't know if you have ever heard such name like Kārlis Ulmanis.

Latvians have very mixed opinions about him. Some view his reign as a golden age for Latvia.
But some think that we should not honor him because he destroyed our democracy and gave our country to Staļin without resistance.

why Russians are still staying and living in Latvia if life there for them is so bad and they are so much discriminated there

Some of them are emigrating, but... not to Russia .

I think the reason for all this is in the PAST.

But it is not a distant past like between Finland and Sweden. Nobody hates Sweden now but ~300 years ago they occupied us.
Soviet army left only in 1994.
My grandparents that were deported are still alive.
Most of 30+ year olds remember when everything here was in russian - education, government, etc.
Remember soviet guest workers and military that immigrated here in large numbers (Lithuanians were more lucky).
(can't really blame these people - life in the rest of Soviet Union was a lot worse than in the Baltic states)
Remember KGB officials that were infiltrated everywhere.
Remember that russian was FORCED on everyone.
That's why most of people here do not want to see signs in Russian - reminds them of USSR.
And this was not 200 years ago - only 20.
That's why Russian will not be an official language anytime soon. Maybe after ~20 years.

Originally Posted by nulle

Latvians have very mixed opinions about him. Some view his reign as a golden age for Latvia.
But some think that we should not honor him because he destroyed our democracy and gave our country to Staļin without resistance.

We Lithuanians also have mixed oppinions about our pressident Antanas Smetona because he also left Lithuania one day before Russians illegally occupied Lithuania. Anyway, some historians say that there was actually no other choice for him because if Lithuanians tried to fight back against red army then Russians would have made just a terrible mascare in my country. Back then we wasn;t so strong to fight back against Russia. And when when I think about Latvian president's decision it's really understandable why he behaved so because in 1940 06 15 Russia occupied Lithuania and just when red army was everywhe in Lithuania's teritory, then on 16th of June Russia announced ultimatums both for Latvia and Estonia. This way these countries fell like into some kind of traps which Stalin arranged. And it doesn't matter if Latvia and Estonia would have accepted these ultimatums or not, Russia still would have occupied them because these countries were surrounded by huge russian army. So, overall, these Stalin's ocupation plans worked out just perfectly for Russians and then they reached their aim...

So, overall, these Stalin's occupation plans worked out just perfectly

Authoritarian regimes are partly at fault here.
If Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, and Finland (and maybe some other central European countries too) had united in some kind of Central-North European Union - maybe history would have been different.
But authoritarian leaders at that time were too arrogant to agree on something like that - Ulmanis, for example, was not thinking about foreign relations at all.
Latvia was a "neutral country" at that time - LOL.
At least our politicians have learned of his mistakes - and that's why we are in the EU and NATO now.
The fact that Lithuania and Poland did not have diplomatic relations was a biiig mistake.
Lithuania got Vilnius back, but with that came 50 year long occupation.

Well I am trying to be understanding about why the Baltics are choosing to discriminate against Russian speakers

As I said - the fact that some employers can refuse to speak Latvian proves that Russians are not the ones discriminated here.

And in Lithuania there are no such thing as non-citizens.