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WE ARE NOT US:
INTRA-ETHNIC DIFFERENTIATION AMONG LATVIANS
Mari-Ann Herloff-Mortensen
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In
"transitional" Eastern Europe,
ethnic and national identity are intimately tied to
the restructuring of the relations of power. Usually, the problem is one of
exclusion or inclusion of certain segments of the population into political
and economic life. In the case of Latvia, most observers emphasize
the necessity of integrating the sizable Russian minority -34% of the total
population - into the new Latvian state. The Latvians try to limit Russian influence, and the situation appears to be another example
of a traditional" ethnic conflict: the majority dominating a minority
within a multiethnic state.
In such conflicts,
a distinction between members and non-members of the nation is often made via
the category of citizenship. This is also the case in Latvia, and
the criteria for citizenship set by the new state is
a major topic of discussion by both local and international experts. These
discussions operate on the implicit assumption that the official divide
between "Latvians" and "Others" exists solely between
those who have Latvian citizenship and those who have not, i.e., that all who
are citizens are real Latvians. Little attention is paid to the categorizing
practices among the ethnic Latvian population itself. Closer examination of
these practices, however, demonstrates that gaining the rights associated
with citizenship does not in itself make one an accepted member of the ethnic
group or nation.
This paper will
argue that Latvia's
"ethnic identity" problems do not lie
solely in the realm of Latvian-Russian relations or in the question of
citizenship, but are also tied to intra-ethnic divides among the Latvians
themselves. The present study thus tries to extend the traditional
perspective on ethnic boundaries by concentrating on what intra-ethnic
categories of identification. I am especially interested in challenging the
accepted notion that the only problematic categorical divides in present
Latvian society are between citizens/non-citizens or Latvians/Russians.
My focus will be on
the discourse of "authentic" versus "partial" Latvians,
as articulated by three groups within the officially homogenous
"Latvian" ethnic group. These are (1) the local Latvians, (2)
returned Latvian exiles from the West and (3) Latvian deportees returning
from the former Soviet Union. I begin by
describing the historical background for the fragmentation of the Latvian
population into the three groups. I then analyze the relations between the
three groups by looking at how they articulate and negotiate their respective
identities. Finally, these negotiations will be related to the larger context
of Latvian transitional society.
Data for this paper
is based on 3 months of fieldwork in Riga
during 1995 and represents a partial summary of my MA thesis in social
anthropology.
Latvia and the Latvians
Latvia's history
has been linked to the domination of the two great Others of Latvian
historical consciousness, Germany
and Russia.
As an independent nation-state, Latvia was born only during The
First Republic (1918-1940). Nevertheless, the notion of a historically
unified Latvian people or nation has been central in the restructuring
process following the post-Soviet independence, as the existence of a Latvian
"Volk" is the pillar from which is constructed an ethnocratic Latvian state.
After being
absorbed into the Soviet Union in 1944, Latvian society experienced several
waves of migration: an immigration of approximately 700,000 Soviet citizens,
largely Russians; and the deportation of an estimated 150,000 Latvians to Russia.
Finally, 240,000 ethnic Latvians escaped to the West to avoid the same
deportations, and a large number were killed during World War II (Williams,
1992, Statistical Yearbook of Latvia 1994). These figures are discussed with
great vigor in current attempts to re-construct Latvia's national history, a
debate which will not be described in detail here. In 1994, the Latvians were
almost outnumbered by non-Latvians: the balance resting at 54% Latvians and
46% non-Latvians (most of whom are Russians and other Russian-speaking groups).
Latvian historians call this a "national catastrophe".
As Latvia gained
independence in 1991, one of the main problems to be faced became that of
"turning the demographic tide" and ensure
a growing number of ethnic Latvians living on Latvian territory. Apart from
generally praying for an increased Latvian birth-rate and a Russian exodus,
the return of the Latvians living abroad was seen as a means of preventing
the ethnic minoritization of the Latvians in Latvia.
Latvians Abroad
During our interviews
and informal conversations, the Latvians divided themselves into three
separate categories: (1) "Local Latvians" ,
"Latvian Latvians" or "Latvians from here" (vieteije latviesi, Latvijas latviesi, latviesi no sejienes); (2)
Western Latvians, who are mainly returnees from the U.S.A., Australia,
Canada, Germany, Great
Britain and Sweden. The local Latvians call
these people "exile Latvians", "American Latvians",
"emigrants" or "Latvians from there" (trimdas
latviesi, Amerikas latviesi, emigranti or latviesi no turienes). The
Western Latvians call themselves "Free World Latvians" (brivas pasaules latviesi); and (3) "Eastern Latvians" who have
returned from the former Soviet republics, predominantly from Russia. The
locals call them "Russia's
Latvians" (austrumu or Krievijas
latviesi).(Readers will
excuse the absence of Latvian accented characters due to computer problems).
The "Western Latvians" escaped the
country during and immediately after World War II. The life histories of a
number of these former exiles or their descendants resemble those told by
refugees all over the world: the sudden uprooting of whole lives and
families; the leaving behind of relatives and friends in the midst of war and
chaos; the immediate loss of social and material status; insecurity
concerning the future; and the pain and sorrow of leaving one's homeland.
Most of these Latvians were gathered in Displaced Persons' (DP) camps, mainly
in Germany and Belgium, for
periods lasting up to 8 years (1944/45- 1949/52. Karklis,
Streips & Streips,
1974). The stories told about life in these camps are quite varied. Some
informants talk of the suffering and humiliation of living together with
thousands of other refugees, the scarcity of food and other necessities, and
the overall sense of losing personal dignity. Others emphasize that the
refugees were mainly well-educated, middle class intellectuals, who were
quickly able to organize the camps and get them functioning. One interviewee,
"Gorbatchev", a 31-year old American
Latvian, recalls how his parents and grandparents described their stay in a
DP camp in postwar Germany:
"There were hundreds of thousands of refugees
from all over the place, who had ended up in Germany - in the American zone.
It was huge...basically a transplanted Latvia, over 100,000 Latvians.
They had their own publishing house. Apparently it was very difficult
although...the people who left were basically the cream of the crop, all the
cultural and political elite, so they made their own publishing house,
theaters, choirs and such."
The notion of being
the "cream of the crop", the intelligentsia, is frequently repeated
in the stories told to me by the Western Latvians.
From the DP camps,
the Latvians scattered all over the world in more or less random fashion. The
Western Latvian diasporas maintained their high degree of formal social
organization. From the outset, the "preservation of Latvian
culture" was regarded as imperative. The networks created in the West
had as their centers the Latvian Lutheran Churches, through which were
organized Latvian Sunday-schools (Svetdienas skolas), choirs and Latvian summer camps (Vasaras nometnes). All the Western Latvians I interviewed have celebrated Latvian
Christmas (Ziemassvetki), Easter (Lieldienas), Midsummer-festival (Jani),
etc. Among the younger generation, some have attended the Latvian Gymnasium
in Mnster,
Germany, and others the Latvian College
at Western Michigan University,
U.S.A. The
extent to which the Western Latvians have
worked to establish Latvian communities cannot be discussed in detail in the
present context, but the existence of such networks has certainly been a
major factor in communicating and reproducing a collective Latvian diasporic identity.
The majority of Western Latvians have retained the citizenship of both
Latvian and their adopted country. They seldom express any wish to renounce
their Western citizenship in order to become members of only one nation. Most
of them say that if ever forced to choose, they would give up their Latvian
citizenship.
The "Eastern Latvians" narratives focus on being
brutally woken up in the middle of the night by the KGB; on the splitting of
families; on tales of thousands of kilometers of long, horrible train-rides
squeezed into cattle-cars, on repeated humiliations and dreadful experiences
in the Soviet prison camps. The deportees generally talk of facing a hostile
environment: the harsh tundras of Siberia,
the prison conditions and struggles with the local authorities (Williams:
1992).
Both the Western
and the Eastern Latvians adapted to their surroundings over the years,
although the Eastern Latvians experienced difficulties in preserving
themselves as an ethnic group: they did not have the opportunities to
organize themselves to the degree characteristic of the Western
Latvians. Eastern deportees often lived isolated from other
Latvians, and their position in Stalin's U.S.S.R. was under a cloud. The
Latvians had been accused of collaboration with Nazi Germany, which often
made explicit signs of ethnic affiliation hazardous. Furthermore, the Eastern Latvians often lacked the possibility to speak
their native language. As the years passed, many of the deportees married
Russians or other non-Latvians and in this process changed their surnames in
order not to be too conspicuously Latvian.
Only about half of
the Eastern Latvian informants who I interviewed have Latvian citizenship.
The main hurdles they face in order to obtain citizenship are their lack of
language-skills or lack of sufficient documentation of Latvian descent.
Conflicting Codes
of Ethnic Membership
The process of
restructuring the social and politico-economic fields of Latvia, basically on
a conception of the nation-state dominated by the titular ethnic group, has
spurred desire for ethnic unity: a sense of sameness, of shared
value-systems, of a common and essentially undisputed perception of ancestry
and history, of an ethnic identity on which the legitimacy of the
nation-state rests safely. This need is explicit in several areas of Latvian
community life: in political narratives, in public and private discussions
about "true" Latvian identity, in newspaper and magazine articles
about the primordialism of Latvian traditions and
culture in relations between the Latvians and the Russian minority in Latvia,
and in the intra-ethnic relations among the Eastern, Western and local
Latvians. It is the latter field that will be described here.
As the diasporic Latvians return, reality seems to conflict with
the dream of a Latvian Volk with a single ethnic and cultural identity. While
all three groups consider themselves "Latvian", they do not share
the same criteria or codes with which they identify others and themselves as
members of the Latvian ethnic group (Borneman
1991).
"Being Latvian
means living on the territory defined as the residence of the Latvian ethnic
group". This definition is heard mostly from the local Latvians who are
born and raised on Latvian territory. What is emphasized here is jus soli:
the right of the land, the right of the inhabitants of a territory to claim
it as theirs and to make it the homeland of the nation defined by them as
such. Ethnic identity is regarded as being shaped by the historical habitat
of the ethnic community, and in the eyes of the local Latvians, as the
non-resident Latvians lose "the sense of the land", they lose the very locus of their - Latvian - identity.
My hostess, "Anna", a 70-year-old Latvian woman, explains her
views:
"Latvia
might be the fatherland [Tevzeme] of [the Western Latvians] but it is not their homeland [Dzimtene]. It is not where they are born and have lived.
It is the homeland of their forefathers! It is not the same, and when you
[i.e. they] are born in America,
that is your homeland, and that makes you an American. That is where you
belong. Not in Latvia."
"Kolja", a 24-years-old local Latvian man, says:
"Well, we can't say anything They are Latvians, or so-called Latvians.
But in their nature they are not Latvian anymore."
The view of many
local Latvians with whom I have spoken is that a given culture is located . If you move away from a "cultural
territory" for a given period, you are no longer a natural member of
that culture. Obviously, Eastern or Western Latvians
have difficulty using the territorial criteria for evaluating Latvian ethnic
membership. They regard themselves as Latvian, although they have been living
outside Latvian territory almost all their lives. What is essential to them
is the fact that they are of Latvian origin, that they have "Latvian
blood" in their veins. They are affiliated to the nation, and their
ethnic membership is defined by this filiation.
They claim the "right of the blood", "jus sanguinis".
Of course, the local or "native" Latvians also claim this right,
but the diasporas have only this criteria for
evaluating their own membership of the Latvian ethnic nation.
In most writings on
national and ethno-cultural identity, the notion of common descent is central
as a form of self-ascription by which people regard themselves as members of
a specific ethnic group or nation. In the Latvian case, ethnic affiliation is
the subject of negotiation: the locals tend to discredit the Latvian descent
of the Eastern and Western Latvians and
hence their membership in the Latvian ethnic group. If you can prove that you
are of Latvian descent, you receive Latvian citizenship, but that does not
necessarily make you a Latvian! "Vackins",
a 20-years-old local Latvian man, express the dilemma as follows:
It is the same with
the Eastern Latvians. They have Latvian
parents, but we can't say that they are Latvians. We can't be certain that
they are. You have to live here and see what is going on and what is
happening. Then you can understand.
The family and the
"continuity of the blood" is repeatedly
emphasized by the "foreign" Latvians, even if they haven't set foot
on Latvian soil before 1991. "Solvita", a
42-year-old American-Latvian woman, responds to the question, "Do you
have any sense of belonging here?":
"Oh, certainly! It's the language, it's the
relatives, the belonging has to do with relatives. I
don't even have that close a contact with my relatives,
I have a couple of cousins here, whom I haven't been seeing because I don't
have any relationship with them... But the sense of belonging...it almost has
to do with just knowing that my parents and grandparents have grown up
here."
The Eastern Latvians have serious bureaucratic problems
when t comes to proving their Latvian ancestry and affinity. Many of the
Eastern Latvians who were born in Russia
or married Russians chose Russian as the ethnic designation in their
passports in order to improve their own or their children's opportunities in Russia. The
local Latvians often express skepticism, when it comes to the claimed
affinity of the Eastern Latvians with the Latvian nation: "The attitude
toward the Western Latvians is better than the attitude toward the Eastern
Latvians, who are considered mostly as Russians", says my local
informant Vackins.
Cultural Capital
and Language Proficiency
Local Latvians do
not shy away from describing the differences between them and their titular
ethnic brethren: "It's not just the accent," says my informant Vackins, "they are absolutely different people. They
have become accustomed to different things, to other ways of living."
Since the three
groups described here have been living in completely different environments,
they have been socialized to behave within totally different social and
cultural fields. The Eastern Latvians have lived as isolated households among
Russians (or Ukrainians, Byelorussians, etc.) ,
while the Western Latvians have been
integrated into American, Australian, German or other Western societies. The
different behavioral traits of the Eastern and Western groups are sometimes
used by local Latvians to emphasize that the foreign Latvians are exactly
that: foreigners!
In response, the
Western and Eastern Latvians reassert their
claim that they have preserved Latvian culture which in their view is to a
large extent inherent in customs, traditions and folklore. The more
culturally conscious Western Latvians claim
that present-day Latvian culture is not "the real thing". It is a
Soviet culture pervaded by a habitus of bureaucracy , suspicion and general passivity, cultural
traits very unlike their memories or perceptions of ways of the Old Country.
The most nationalistically-minded Western Latvians
sometimes insinuate that the locals have allowed the old traditions to be
diluted and destroyed. Latvian culture has been contaminated through contact
with the Soviet culture.
Language is the
most important national symbol in Latvia. It "proves"
that the Latvians are an ethnic group, a nation with a common language.
Because language has played a major role in "re-Latvianizing"
Latvia,
it is a heavily politicized subject. Hence, inability to speak Latvian is one
of the primary criteria for being disqualified as a loyal member of the
nation. The local Latvians tend to discredit the Latvian spoken by the
Western Latvians as being old-fashioned", an outdated language spoken in
a time-void far from Latvia. They emphasize that the Western
Latvians speak with Western, mostly American, accents and that
their Latvian has been heavily Anglicized. Local Latvians claim that the
local dialect is more authentic and therefore more legitimate, as it has been
spoken continuously over the years. In other words, they speak the real
Latvian.
The Western Latvians seem embarrassed by their own accents,
often stating that they work hard on improving their pronunciation. However,
they do not accept the discrediting of their Latvian. Instead, they discredit
the local language as being Russified, as having
been destroyed by too much contact with Russians. Some returned Latvians even
claim that Western Latvian is the original language that was spoken in the First Republic. The discussion about
language competence is hardly academic. In the emigré
communities in the West, learning and speaking Latvian functioned as a key
marker, differentiating those who were "loyal" to the Latvian cause
and those who were "disloyal". "Krista", a 35-year-old
Canadian-Latvian woman, says: "My family was more or less ostracized
from the Latvian community because we didn't learn Latvian, God forbid! We
didn't learn Latvian and that's the biggest no-no of all!".
The function of language in the diasporic
communities makes the criticism by the local Latvians that much harder to
accept for many Western Latvians. The same
accusations of language disloyalty they had used in the West against others
are now turned against them in the guise of language
"incompetence", such that their loyalty to Latvia is
called into question.
A high degree of
proficiency in Latvian is a key criteria if one
applies for citizenship. Apart from being a way of keeping the resident Russians
from gaining too much influence (as in most other republics, the Russians
seldom speak the native tongue), discussions about "true" Latvian
language seem to be part of an ongoing struggle of intra-ethnic
boundary-maintenance between the three categories of Latvians: can you be a
Latvian at all, if you don't speak the language correctly? Are you less of a
Latvian if you speak with an accent? And who has the right to define what is the authentic language: those who speak an
old-fashioned, Anglicized version or those who speak an "updated",
but Russified version?
The Politics of
Identity
While the homelands
are grateful for [the diaspora's] support, they
view the diaspora with a certain disdain for having
been enticed by the fleshpots of capitalism and for retaining a vulgarized
ethnic culture. This is among the reasons why homelands do not necessarily
want to welcome their diasporas back from abroad. Returnees, particularly
from host countries more advanced than the homeland, might unsettle its political,
social and equilibrium (Safran 1991).
Discussions about
who is the most authentic Latvian ramify into the larger political field. As
the Latvians have created a nation-state based on (and named after) the
Latvian ethnic group, defining the barriers of the same ethnic group becomes
co-terminus with defining the legitimate political actors. Controlling access
to the political field by defining the criteria with which to evaluate others
as members or non-members of the Latvian nation is a powerful tool. Gaining
control of such a tool is an important activity in all societies, but
especially those societies undergoing massive socio-economic
"transition". The struggles over which criteria to use when judging
ethnic membership are struggles for power, just as the criteria for
citizenship can be regarded as a way of controlling the access to power and
influence.
Western Latvians possess
skills regarded as necessary in the reconstruction of the democratic state
(English skills important in international relations; knowledge of computers,
of market economy, etc.). However, most local Latvians think that the foreign
Latvians should limit their activities to the role of advisors instead of
occupying key posts in Latvian society and political life. As few local Latvians
have these type of skills, they see the privileges
of the Westerners and of the Western Latvians as a threat to their re-claimed
power over Latvia's
institutional infrastructure. The local Latvians have often expressed to me
their frustration over what they see as arrogance and patronizing attitudes
from Western experts as regards their evaluation of local academic skills.
They feel that both Westerners in general and Western Latvians in particular
discredit their skills or dismiss these as being useless leftovers of the
communist educational system.
The local Latvians,
furthermore, see the easy access of the Western Latvians
to high positions within the government as a threat to their control over the
direction of the state. Unable to question their professional competence,
they attack their cultural pedigree. Subtle attempts are made to discredit
the Western Latvians' claim to be
"true" Latvians: "Latvians from there," as they are
called, might have the necessary legal or constitutional knowledge, it is
admitted, but they do not know Latvian culture or "mentality" as it
really is. True Latvianness can only lie with
"Latvian Latvians"! Dismissing or casting doubt on the validity of
the Western Latvians' claim to Latvianness becomes a way of questioning their right to
make policies on behalf of the "real" Latvians. Insofar that this
strategy is successful, local Latvians may gain power by acquiring the
positions now occupied by Western Latvians.
Educational skills
are a sore point for both local and Eastern Latvians.
The latter mostly have their education from the Russian universities. The
locals tend to discredit these as being inferior to their own, despite the
fact that during the Soviet period many local Latvians also studied at
Universities in Leningrad and Moscow, where the education was said to be
very good. The discrediting of the Soviet educational system, and the
tendency to retrospectively emphasize Latvia's universities as being superior
to the main Soviet institutions, have left the Eastern Latvians bitter. One
Eastern Latvian woman stated that the locals knew that the Russian
universities were better than the national ones, but that all the jobs were
given to the Western Latvians anyway. The
locals did this because they thought they might gain something from it, not
because the Western Latvians were better
qualified:
There is this book
called "The Measuring Time of the Latvians" or something like that,
and it says that if somebody is rich and is not a Latvian, if we are polite
to them, maybe they will give us something, so we are becoming more and more
polite and doing everything for them... If they come from the West, maybe
they have something...but not if they come from the East!
It is difficult to
make contact with the Eastern Latvians in Latvia. Their organization in Riga, the Association
of Russia's Latvians, is quite anxious that too many questions might
"harm our cause". Their main goal is to assist Eastern Latvians
coming back from Russia to
gain citizenship and to find housing, often by exchanging apartments with
Latvian Russians leaving for Russia.
The Association runs a small language-school connected to their offices and
provides legal aid to people whose applications are mired in the citizenship
bureaucracy. According to their leader, the Eastern Latvians "somewhat
suspicious attitude is a response to the constant pressure from the locals,
who "don't understand that we love Latvia." The difficulties of
gaining citizenship described by the Eastern Latvians, when combined with the
attitudes of the local and Western Latvians led me to conclude that political
struggles lay behind the discrediting of Eastern
Latvians as "true" ethnic kin. Downgrading the Eastern Latvians was a means of preventing their entry
into the country as public charges, and of blocking their path to even
minimal political, social and economical influence. An elderly Western
Latvian man comments:
" But this is a subject that no-one wants to talk about. Nothing is
officially said or done about this in the government. But I suppose the
government is worrying over some sort of stampede... worried that people in
Russia will all of a sudden decide to come to Latvia because things are
better here. And that the people who will come will be the ones who have it
worse off over there, and they will need all kinds of assistance, so they
will be just a burden on the government."
In the discursive
practices surrounding the issue of education, there seems to be a subtle
narrative concentrating on the differences in class-affiliations among the
three groups. As the Western Latvians represent themselves as "the elite
that left", some local and Eastern Latvians feel that those who stayed
or got deported are indirectly categorized as "uneducated", as
"working-class", as never having been a threat to the Soviet
system, and therefore not quite loyal to the Latvian nation. The subtle
class-rhetoric inherent in the elitist remarks by the Western Latvians
provokes strong feelings of resentment in both local and Eastern
Latvians, for they see themselves opposed to everything Soviet
(such as being working-class"). That the Western
Latvians now occupy positions in Latvian society which belong to
what might be called the educated upper class (with incomes 10-100 times
higher than the average local salaries) does little to remove the image of
"the super-privileged who left and came back".
The economic
differences between Western Latvians and the
local/Eastern Latvians are immense, and the above discussions can thus also
be seen as a struggle not only for influence and positions within the
emerging political hierarchies, but also as attempts by the locals to gain
access to high positions in the evolving political-economic structures.
Conflict about who
is really Latvian is also a means of determining who has the authority to
represent and articulate "Latvia" within and outside
the country. A Western Latvian informant states:
[The Western Latvians]
occupy important positions in different ministries, newspapers and so on,
where they have a lot of contact with foreigners. They explain Latvia, they
do translations, they are advisors. Basically they
are the transmission belt in the middle between Latvia and the West. Most local
Latvians don't understand how to do that, they don't understand the West.
The Western
Latvians have a quite substantial influence on the image of Latvia
presented abroad, an image not always shared by the local population.
Questioning the cultural expertise of the Western
Latvians also casts doubt on their suitability to occupy positions
in the field of international public relations.
Conclusions:
Latvians and Other Latvians
The resourceful Western Latvians are a valuable asset in the Latvian
transition, but they are also a foreign force in the eyes of many locals.
Local interests see it necessary to dam up their influence on Latvian
affairs. They do so by discussing the very criteria with which the Western Latvians evaluate themselves as members of the
Latvian ethnic community: cultural capital and language proficiency. In this
context, the articulation of national and ethnic identity takes on an
instrumental character, defining the boundaries of the political community.
Excluding all "Russian influence" also means the exclusion of Russified Eastern Latvians. Denial of citizenship, or
creating insurmountable obstacles to obtaining it, is thus not the only means
of controlling the ethnic and cultural boundaries of the nation. Within the
category of "citizens", other categories are being negotiated. It
is a process so complex that it prevents the analysis of ethnic boundaries
solely via the category of citizenship. At the political level, citizenship
laws are but one field of ethnic boundary-maintenance and ethnic politics.
When we examine actual social practices and narratives within the group of
"Latvian citizens", other equally problematic processes of
categorization become apparent. Here, in the intra-ethnic arena, discourses
based on authentic/artificial, continuity/discontinuity and Western/Soviet
constitute stronger categorical divides than whether or not one is a citizen.
When "Other Latvians" (or Latvian Russians for that matter) gain
the democratic rights connected to citizenship, how will they respond to the
more sophisticated categorical exclusions within the field of Latvian
identity? Western Latvians returned "home" to Latvia with
high hopes of finding "one's own people" the one's they dreamed of
while in the diaspora. They instead face a general
exclusion within the social field, or stigmatization as
"foreigner", some react with frustration, some with anger and some
with sadness. Many return, disillusioned, to their
former diaspora in the West. The diaspora has become "home", "home"
has become foreign.
Apart from
exploring the field of identity in a transitional society, the study of the
relations between the locals and the Other Latvians has other implications.
First, the processes within this relationship both mirror and influence the
general attitude toward Westerners now evolving among the Latvian population.
These attitudes need further investigation as the flow of personnel capital
and images from the West into Eastern Europe
increases. The negotiations of identity described above influence the
relationship toward the Western world and its experts on democracy, human rights
and market economy, experts who by many local Latvians are seen as being too
powerful. Latvia
still needs the aid of Westerners-claiming Latvian descent or not. The
relationship to the West, like so much else in the post-communist transition,
remains one of continuous ambivalence.
References Cited
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Formation in the Postwar Berlins,
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Karklis, Maruta, Streips, Liga & Streips, Laimonis (eds.), 1974.
The Latvians in America
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Oceana Publications, Inc.
Lieven, Anatol, 1994. The
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Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence. New
Haven and London:
Little Brown.
Safran, William, 1991. Diasporas in Modern Society: Myths
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Originally published at http://condor.depaul.edu/~rrotenbe/aeer/aeer14_1/herloff.html
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