Skylarks and Rebels is a story about the fate of Latvia in the 20th century as told by Rita Laima. Laima, a Latvian-American, chose to leave behind the comforts of life in America to explore the land ...of her ancestors, which in the 1980s languished behind the Iron Curtain. In writing about her own experiences in a totalitarian state, Soviet-occupied Latvia, Laima delves into her family's past to understand what happened to her fatherland and its people during and after World War II. She also pays tribute to some of Latvia's remarkable people of integrity who risked their lives to oppose the brutal and destructive Soviet state.
This article examines the British Foreign Office decision to abandon a British-run war crimes trial after the Second World War against suspected perpetrators of the Holocaust in Latvia and the ...efforts of a Holocaust survivors’ organization to seek justice. Faced with repeated inquiries from The Association of Baltic Jews in Great Britain and their parliamentary allies, the Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin repeated a lie told to him by his subordinates that Holocaust victims were imprecise in their testimony, making them unreliable witnesses and justifying the release of several suspected war criminals. Although very few German and Latvian perpetrators saw the inside of the courtroom, survivor advocacy countered the prevailing silence about the Holocaust in Eastern Europe during the Cold War.
The Silurian was a dynamic time characterized by significant climatic and sea level changes, biotic crises, and carbon cycle volatility. The largest magnitude perturbation to the Silurian global ...carbon cycle was the mid-Ludfordian carbon isotope excursion, termed the Lau CIE, which was coincident with the Lau/Kozlowskii extinction (LKE). Much of the published research on the late Silurian has described changes in the biotic record and global marine redox conditions. Limited work has been done, however, to elucidate the variability in local paleo-redox conditions. Here, we use a suite of paleo-redox proxies to examine a shallow shelf carbonate succession from Gotland, Sweden, and a deep shelf clastic sequence from Latvia. Low iodine-to‑calcium ratios from the carbonate succession suggest an anoxic water column, or significant exchange with nearby reducing water masses. Iron speciation data and moderate trace metal enrichments suggest that the sediments of the deeper shelf were deposited in an oxygen minimum zone with a denitrifying water column before and during the LKE with sulfidic conditions limited to the sediment porewaters. After the extinction, a relative depletion in trace metal concentrations (V, Hg, U, Mo) suggest that water column conditions were locally less reducing. The depletion in trace metal concentrations is coeval with previously reported global increases in anoxia and euxinia after the LKE and, thus, potentially could have resulted from a global drawdown in trace metals overprinted upon the local record of paleo-redox change.
•Local changes in marine redox tied to late Silurian extinction event.•Local redox environment interpreted as an open-marine OMZ along deep shelf.•Significant exchange between OMZ and water column above shallow shelf carbonates•Possible overprint of global trace metal drawdown on local paleo-redox record.
The development of the historical field is an important aspect of modern European education and science. The study of the transformations of this important part of the modern humanities, comparison ...with the Ukrainian and Eastern European realities is a goal of our article. The work is based on the analysis of modern specialized literature and the use of scientific research methods: analysis and synthesis, induction, and deduction. The comparative method shows the peculiarities of the development of the historical branch in the EU countries (in particular, in Latvia). In modern historical education, the principles of consolidation prevail. European historical science is characterized by the importance of international conferences that promote consolidation. Ukrainian historical science has its successes and problems, it can also be compared with European, in particular Latvian (although Latvia was also part of the USSR).
Latvia stands out as the East European country hardest hit by the global financial crisis; it lost approximately 25 percent of its GDP between 2008 and 2010. It was also the most overheated economy ...before the crisis. But in the second half of 2010, Latvia returned to economic growth. How did this happen so quickly? Current Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, who shepherded Latvia through the crisis, and renowned author Anders Åslund discuss why the Latvian economy became so overheated; why an IMF and European Union stabilization program was needed; what the Latvian government did to resolve the financial crisis and why it made these choices; and what the outcome has been. This book offers a rare insider's look at how a national government responded to a global financial crisis, made tough choices, and led the country back to economic growth.
A quarter century after the formation of the Popular Front and a decade since joining the EU, processes of state- and nation-building in Latvia are still on-going. Issues such as citizenship, ...language policy, minority rights, democratic legitimacy, economic stability, and security all remain objects of vigorous public discussion. The current situation also reflects longer-standing debates on the relationship between state, nation, and sovereignty in Latvian society and polity. By examining different aspects of these relationships, this volume aims to reveal both key turning points and continuities in Latvia's development, thereby helping to inform current debates.
