InSchool of Europeanness, Dace Dzenovska argues that Europe's political landscape is shaped by a fundamental tension between the need to exclude and the requirement to profess and institutionalize ...the value of inclusion. Nowhere, Dzenovska writes, is this tension more glaring than in the former Soviet Republics.
Using Latvia as a representative case,School of Europeannessis a historical ethnography of the tolerance work undertaken in that country as part of postsocialist democratization efforts. Dzenovska contends that the collapse of socialism and the resurgence of Latvian nationalism gave this Europe-wide logic new life, simultaneously reproducing and challenging it. Her work makes explicit what is only implied in the 1977 Kraftwerk song, "Europe Endless": hierarchies prevail in European public and political life even as tolerance is touted by politicians and pundits as one of Europe's chief virtues.
School of Europeannessshows how post-Cold War liberalization projects in Latvia contributed to the current crisis of political liberalism in Europe, providing deep ethnographic analysis of the power relations in Latvia and the rest of Europe, and identifying the tension between exclusive polities and inclusive values as foundational of Europe's political landscape.
The collapse of the Soviet Union suddenly rendered ethnic Russians living in non-Russian successor states like Latvia and Kyrgyzstan new minorities subject to dramatic political, economic, and social ...upheaval. As elites in these new states implemented formal policies and condoned informal practices that privileged non-Russians, ethnic Russians had to react. InRussian Minority Politics in Post-Soviet Latvia and Kyrgyzstan, Michele E. Commercio draws on extensive field research, including hundreds of personal interviews, to analyze the responses of minority Russians to such policies and practices. In particular, she focuses on the role played by formal and informal institutions in the crystallization of Russian attitudes, preferences, and behaviors in these states.
Commercio asks why there is more out-migration and less political mobilization among Russians in Kyrgyzstan, a state that adopts policies that placate both Kyrgyz and Russians, and less out-migration and more political mobilization among Russians in Latvia, a state that adopts policies that favor Latvians at the expense of Russians. Challenging current thinking, she suggests that the answer to this question lies in the power of informal networks.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Communist party, Komsomol youth organization, and KGB networks were transformed into informal networks. Russians in Kyrgyzstan were for various reasons isolated from such networks, and this isolation restricted their access to the country's private sector, making it difficult for them to create effective associations capable of representing their interests. This resulted in a high level of Russian exit and the silencing of Russian voices. In contrast, Russians in Latvia were well connected to such networks, which provided them with access to the country's private sector and facilitated the establishment of political parties and nongovernmental organizations that represented their interests. This led to a low level of Russian exit and high level of Russian voice. Commercio concludes that informal networks have a stronger influence on minority politics than formal institutions.
For more than three decades the author has been concerned with issues to do with emotion, suffering and healing. This volume presents ethnographic studies of South Wales, Maharashtra and post-Soviet ...Latvia connected by a theoretical interest in healing, emotion and subjectivity. Exploring the uses of narrative in the shaping of memory, autobiography and illness and its connections with the master narratives of history and culture, it focuses on the post-Soviet clinic as an arena in which the contradictions of a liberal economy are translated into a medical language.
This book provides a fresh methodological approach to the study of discourses and discursive strategies, especially within post-Soviet contexts. What makes this project distinctive from a number of ...other studies of discourse is that it is concerned with the temporally contingent nature of discourses. As such, it outlines a coherent methodology to study the evolution of discourses over time, rather than a single de-contextualised and static time period.
Defining Latvia Michael Loader, Siobhán Hearne, Matthew Kott / Michael Loader, Siobhán Hearne, Matthew Kott
2022, 20220308, 2022-03-08
eBook, Book
In just over a century, Latvia has transitioned from imperial
periphery to nation-state, then Soviet republic, and finally
following the collapse of the Soviet Union to an independent
republic. ...Defining Latvia brings together the latest research on
the multiple social, political, and cultural contexts of Latvia
throughout this turbulent period. Its ten chapters are written by
leading political scientists, historians, and area studies
specialists from across Europe and North America.
The volume moves beyond an exclusively political context to
incorporate a variety of social and cultural perspectives, ranging
from the experiences of Latvian mapmakers in the Russian Empire, to
the participation of Latvians in the Wehrmacht and Red Army during
World War II, Latvian national communism, and the development of
extremist politics following Latvia's accession to the European
Union. Other chapters address developing trends in the fields of
history and political science, including the history of
antisemitism, memory, language politics, photography, and political
extremism.
Based on the book's temporal span from the nineteenth century to
the present, the authors and editors of Defining Latvia
understand the construction of Latvian identity as a continuous and
interconnected process across significant political and ideological
ruptures.
"The best book written on Latvia by a foreigner: incisive, well-informed, and persuasive"Edward Lucas, The EconomistWhat do we know about Latvia and the Latvians? A Baltic (not Balkan) nation that ...emerged from fifty years under the Soviet Union - interrupted by a brief but brutal Nazi-German occupation and a devastating war - now a member of the European Union and NATO. Yes, but what else? Relentless accusations keep appearing, especially in Russian media, often repeated in the West: "Latvian soldiers single-handedly saved Lenin's revolution in 1917", "Latvians killed Tsar Nikolai II and the Royal family", "Latvia was a thoroughly anti-Semitic country and Latvians started killing Jews even before the Germans arrived in 1941", "Nazi revival is rampant in today's Latvia", "The Russian minority is persecuted in Latvia. . ." True, false or in-between? The Finnish journalist and author Jukka Rislakki examines charges like these and provides an outline of Latvia's recent history while attempting to separate documented historical fact from misinformation and deliberate disinformation. His analysis helps to explain why the Baltic States (population 7 million) consistently top the enemy lists in public opinion polls of Russia (143 million). His knowledge of the Baltic languages allows him to make use of local sources and up-to-date historical research. He is a former Baltic States correspondent for Finland's largest daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat and the author of several books on Finnish and Latvian history. As a neutral, experienced and often critical observer, Rislakki is uniquely qualified for the task of separating truth from fiction.
Lettland Torgāns, Jānis; Boiko, Martin
MGG Online,
12/2021
Reference
I. Geschichtlicher Abriss
Lettland (lettisch Latvija, Latvijas Republika) stand unter livländischer (1290-1581), polnischer (1581-1621), schwedischer (1621-1710) und russischer (1710-1917) Herrscha...
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.
