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Mari-Ann Herloff Mortensen. Distributed by www.AnthroBase.com. |
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 economical 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 themselves 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, the distinction between
members and non-members of the nation is usually 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 prominent subject of discussion by both local and international
experts alike. 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. It is these practices that demonstrate
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 the ethnic identity problems of Latvia 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. In
this way, the present study extends the traditional perspective on ethnic boundaries
by concentrating on what might be called intra-ethnic categories of identification,
more concretely, it challenges the notion that the only problematic categorical
divides in present Latvian society is between citizens/non-citizens or Latvians
/Russians.
My focus will be on the discourse of authentic versus partial Latvians, as it is articulated by three groups within present Latvian society: (1) the local Latvians, (2) returned Latvian exiles from the West and (3) Latvian deportees returning from the former Soviet Union. My argument will begin by describing the historical background for the fragmentation of the Latvian population into the three mentioned groups. I will then analyze the intra-ethnic relation between the groups by looking at the negotiations of identity taking place among them. Finally, these negotiations will be related to the larger context of Latvian transitional society.
The data is based on 3 months of fieldwork
in Riga during 1995, data which will enter into my MA thesis.
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 present Latvian attempts to re-construct 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. 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 demographical tide"
and ensure a growing number of ethnic Latvians living on Latvian territory.
Apart from generally praying for an increasing Latvian birth-rate and a Russian
exodus, the return of the Latvians living abroad was seen by those feeling pressured
by the Russian presence 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)
and, (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
"exileLatvians", "American Latvians", "emigrants" or "Latvians from there" (trimdas
latviesi, Amerikas latviesi, emigranti or latviesi no turienes). The Western
Latvians call themselves "the free world Latvians" (brivas pasaules latviesi).
The final category is (3) Eastern Latvians returning from the former Soviet
republics, predominantly from Russia. By the locals these are called "Russia's
Latvians" (austrumu or Krievijas latviesi ).
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 Person's (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 more or
less immediately got the camps organized and 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 so on.
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. What characterized the Western Latvian diasporas was their high
degree of social organization. From the very beginning, 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 Münster,
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 have certainly been a major factor in communicating and reproducing
a collective Latvian diasporic identity.
The majority of the Western Latvians maintain dual citizenship of Latvia and
that of their host 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 my Eastern Latvian informants 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.
We Are Not One
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 same-ness, 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. Most Western Latvians
are sure that they themselves are Latvians. The Eastern Latvians regard themselves
as Latvians. And of course, so do the locals. The problem is that the three
groups do not share the criteria or codes with which they identify others and
selves as members of the Latvian ethnic group (Borneman, 1991).
Conflicting Codes of Ethnic membership
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 these people [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 affinity. 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 it 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 and 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.
Fields of Differentiation: Cultural Capital and Language Proficiency
It's not just the accent, they are absolutely different people. . They
have become accustomed to different things, to other ways of living (Vackins).
It is obvious, that since the three groups described here have been living in
completely different environments, they have acted 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, in other words, 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. As language has
played a major role in re-Latvianizing Latvia, it is a heavily politicized subject,
and 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 pronunciations. 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 of the local Latvians even harder to accept for many Western
Latvians, the language critique seems to call into question their loyalty to
Latvia.
A degree of proficiency in Latvian is a central 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), the discussions of the 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
The relation between any homeland and its diaspora has always been problematic.
"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 economical equilibrium
(Safran, 1991)
Discussions about who is the most authentic Latvian ramify onto 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-terminous with defining who are 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 in 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.
The 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 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 when it comes to academic traditions. 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 to discredit the Western Latvians as 'true' Latvians : Western Latvians might have the necessary legal or constitutional knowledge, but they do not know Latvian culture or mentality as it really is. The only true Latvianness lies with the Latvians of Latvia! Doubting 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 educations 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,
and it says that if somebody is rich and is not a Latvian, if we are polite
with them, maybe they will give us something, so we are becoming more and more
polite and do everything for them. ( ) If they're coming from the West, maybe
they have something....but not if they come from the East!
It is rather difficult to make contact with the Eastern Latvians in Latvia today.
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 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, combined with the expressed attitudes of the local and Western
Latvians gave me the overall impression that the discrediting of Eastern Latvians
as true ethnic kin was a means of blocking their entry into the country, or
at least hindering their 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 are
worse 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-middle class (and, furthermore, have 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 economic structures now evolving.
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 the 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.
In this context, excluding all "Russian influence" also means the exclusion
of Russified Eastern Latvians. The categorization of citizens/non-citizens 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 through the category of citizenship. At the political level, citizenship
laws are but one of the most visible fields 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 one is a citizen or not. 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 who return home with high hopes
of finding one's own people ... dreamed of in the diaspora. They instead face
a general exclusion within the social field, or stigmatization as "foreigner",
some react with disillusion, some with anger and some with sadness. Many return,
disillusioned, to their former diaspora in the West.
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 - so 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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1945-1989. Cultural Anthropology, Vol 7(1), 1992, pp. 45-62
Karklis, Maruta; Streips, Liga & Streips, Laimonis (eds.): The Latvians
in America - 1640-1973. A Chronology & Fact Book.Ethnic Chronology Series
No.13. Oceana Publications, Inc. 1974.
Lieven, Anatol: The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path
to Independence. New Haven and London, 1994, Little Brown.
Safran, William: Diasporas in Modern Society: Myths of Homeland and Return.
Diaspora 1(1), 1991, pp. 83-99.
State Committee for Statistics of the Republic of Latvia : 1993 Statistical
Yearbook of Latvia, Riga, 1994.
Williams, Eugene: Gulag to Independence: Personal Accounts of Latvian Deportees
sent to Siberia Under the Stalin Regime 1941-1953., Decatur, Michigan: Johnson
Graphics, 1992.