Latvia - A Work in Progress?

In Bennich-Björkman’s view, however, the approach to citizenship can more plausibly explained by reference to geopolitical motives—namely, the argument that most Russian-speakers (even if they supported independence) retained strong historical and cultural ties to the Russian and Slavic cultural sphere and, had they obtained citizenship immediately and unconditionally, would have pressed for continued political and economic affiliation with the former Soviet space as opposed to the course of integration with the West advocated by Latvia’s independence movement. This argument, one can add, was given further weight by reference to the continued presence in Latvia of former Soviet troops as well as Russia’s own vision at a time when it was manifestly struggling to define a national identity not linked to the Soviet and longer-term imperial past.

By this interpretation, the citizenship law was dictated by Realpolitik and (on the part of many former Popular Front activists) a perceived need for consensus that could unite a majority of the state’s population. One can of course only speculate what might have been transpired had citizenship been made immediately available to all residents back in 1991. Nevertheless, citing the contrasting examples of other post-Soviet states such as Moldova and (to use a currently topical example) Ukraine, Bennich-Björkman suggests that the design of the citizenship law—and its consequent exclusion of a prospective “eastward-leaning” electorate—likely served to facilitate Latvia's remarkably fast and smooth association with the West and its membership in NATO and the EU, as well as making it easier to enact reform policies in support of this goal.

As Bennich-Björkman also observes, however, this approach can be seen as a departure from the democratic principles that were regarded as being of symbolically central importance in the repudiation of the former authoritarian regime. Democracy, she writes, “is inescapably rule not for, but by the people who are affected by decisions.” By this understanding, Soviet-era settlers and their descendants did not immediately become part of a demos or community of citizens with the right to participate in processes of state- and nation-building. Instead, they were recategorised as a Soviet “immigrant minority” which, in order to join the political community, first had to undergo naturalisation on terms set by representatives of (a now predominantly ethnic Latvian) citizenry. The naturalisation paradigm was adopted partly in response to external pressure from the Western democracies and international organisations with which the newly-sovereign Latvia was now seeking to engage. While these endorsed the principle of legal continuity as a basis for state-building, they were not willing to lend their support to the discourse of “decolonisation” propounded by the more radically nationalist parties that emerged from Latvia’s independence movement. They therefore insisted that Latvia should do its utmost to facilitate the rapid naturalisation of the large non-citizen population created in 1991.

The right-of-centre political parties that gained ascendancy in Latvia from 1993 struggled to reconcile these external demands with their own agenda of rebuilding a nation-state around a Latvian ethnocultural core, as well as with the associated discourse that deemed post-war Russian-speaking settlers “illegal occupants”. The resultant tension was reflected in initially restrictive naturalisation provisions—adopted only in 1995—that set annual quotas on the number of people who could apply for citizenship. Ultimately, however, the geopolitical logic of integration proved most compelling, and Latvia subsequently liberalised provisions for acquisition of citizenship as one of the conditions for entry to the European Union in 2004. On the back of these changes, substantial numbers of non-citizens underwent naturalisation during 1998–2004, while further changes to legislation mean that anyone born to non-citizen parents after 1992 can now obtain Latvian citizenship without fulfilling the naturalisation requirements, provided their parents request this when registering the birth. This means that access to citizenship is set to become increasingly moot as time goes on. The period since 1991 has also seen a marked growth in knowledge of the Latvian language amongst Russian-speakers, especially those of the younger generation.

Despite these encouraging trends, societal integration in Latvia still remains in many respects “a work-in-progress” when seen from the standpoint of 2016. The legal categorisation of Soviet-era settlers as an “immigrant minority” following independence obviously disregarded the complex institutional legacies bequeathed by Soviet rule: these mean that many Russian-speakers living in Latvia have maintained a strong attachment to their particular ethnocultural identity, and this has underpinned political mobilisation along party lines and around a range of issues, not least the longer-term maintenance of publically-funded education in the Russian language and the often diametrically opposed interpretations of World War II and the Soviet past that still predominate within the two ethno-linguistic communities. For the now politically dominant Latvian majority, meanwhile, the ethnic boundaries inherited from the Soviet period raise the question of whether the political community can be renconfigured along more culturally pluralistic lines, and those naturalised after 1991 accepted as full and equal members of this community.

This question is one of several addressed in the next chapter by Geoffrey Pridham, who offers a wide-ranging assessment of the extent to which, more than two decades on from the restoration of independence and a decade on from EU accession, Latvia can be considered a fully consolidated democracy. Here, Pridham focuses on different levels (state and institutions; intermediary actors (parties, NGOs, media); civil society and economy; external actors) and dimensions (structural, attitudinal and behavioural) of consolidation, setting these against the formidable challenges arising from the Soviet legacy and the need to effect what Claus Offe has elsewhere termed a “triple transition” entailing concurrent political liberalisation, economic marketisation and (re)construction of a sovereign nation-state.[12] Overall, Pridham sees evidence of considerable progress, especially as regards the routinisation and institutionalisation of democracy. EU accession and subsequent membership have had a significant impact in particular areas, while contributing to an international environment far more benign than the one with which Latvia was constructed between the wars. It remains to be seen whether the multiple crises currently besetting Europe (over Russia’s actions in Ukraine, the Eurozone and refugees) will mutate into the kind of “drastic international circumstances” that could shake the foundations put in place since 1991. Barring this, however, Pridham considers that democracy “has far stronger prospects of survival” than it did during the period of the interwar republic. Key challenges nevertheless remain, not least in the form of the still limited legitimation attained by democracy over the past two decades, as well as weaknesses in the internalisation of new rules and procedures. Continued ethnic divisions are also highlighted as a factor undermining participation, which, as already pointed out by Bennich-Björkman, can be considered a key hallmark of any democratic system.

Pridham’s analysis also leads him to conclude that adaptations made during Latvia’s accession to the EU had an opportunistic quality, which can be seen by some degree of backsliding since 2004. This issue is explored more fully in the chapter by Pēteris Timofejevs Henriksson, who uses the case of Latvia’s post-2004 foreign aid policy as a lens for revisiting and moving beyond the long-standing “rationalist” versus “constructivist” dichotomy that exists within the literature on “Europeanisation East.” In the case of foreign aid, Timofejevs Henriksson finds that Latvia (one of the poorest of the new member states) did not in fact comply with standard rationalist expectations of policy backsliding during the post-accession period, as aid volumes continued to increase in absolute terms and policy continued to evolve, even following the severe financial crisis that set in after 2008. His findings suggest that this can be attributed in large part to the fact that domestic decision-makers perceived peer pressure from governments of other EU member states and feared the opprobrium that might result should they fail to comply with the expectation that they provide aid to developing countries. This sensitivity, he argues, should be linked not to any measure of EU conditionality. Rather—adopting a constructivist perspective—he sees it as arising from a continued deeply-felt need for ontological security. This drives policymakers to present and act according to a coherent narrative of state identity capable of appealing to both a domestic and an external audience, and of sustaining a sense of coherent “Self” that would ensure Latvia’s credibility and predictability within the wider international community.

Alfs Vanags’ chapter on political economy further underscores the importance of EU and also NATO accession as “external anchors” for state and nation-building. The goal of entry to these two organisations, Vanags argues, served to depoliticise key issues and greatly assisted in “creating at least the infrastructure of a modern democratic state—if not always the substance.” A similar anchoring role is apparent in the case of entry to the Eurozone, which was used to justify austerity measures adopted in response to a 2008 economic slump exacerbated by fiscal irresponsibility during the boom years of the pre- and immediate post-accession period. The strategy of “internal devaluation” used to combat the crisis has since enabled Latvia to redress the steep decline in GDP during 2008–2010, but has further exacerbated levels of poverty and social inequality that are amongst the highest in the European Union.

The social costs of post-Soviet economic transition provide the focus for the contribution by Daina Eglitis, which uses the case of Latvia to illustrate a “new crisis of men” across the countries that have emerged from behind the former Iron Curtain. To talk of such a crisis is paradoxical, given the continued dominance (with some notable exceptions such as Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga) of men within the Latvian elite and, more broadly, the persistence of a societal context that privileges male actors and masculinity. This structural context, however, has seen the emergence of a population of marginal men characterised by poor health and increased mortality, as well as low educational attainment and labour market participation (in the latter case, Eglitis points to a further paradox whereby women’s apparent advantage in the labour market is in part built on a foundation of disadvantage—namely, a concentration within the lower-wage areas of the economy). Statistics also show that during the crisis years of 2009–2010, men were disproportionately represented amongst those leaving Latvia, in a flow of outward labour migration that has become arguably the most pressing issue facing the state following accession to the European Union. As Aldis Purs reminds us in the penultimate contribution to the volume, the scale of this phenomenon provided a key argument for former President Andris Bērziņš’ alarming assertion in 2013 that “unless Latvia achieves the average income level of the EU in 10 years’ time, it will cease to exist as a politically viable state.”

While Purs characterises Bērziņš’ statement as exaggerated and ill-informed, he nevertheless sees little prospect that Latvia will achieve convergence with the leading modern, industrial economies of Western Europe anytime soon. In this regard, he cites an analysis suggesting that in order to attain EU average GDP per capita by 2023, Latvia’s growth rate would have to outstrip that of the Union as a whole by 5% annually over the entire period in question. Expectations that Latvia would quickly catch up economically with its Western neighbours were widespread in 1991, and perhaps even more so immediately after entry to the EU in 2004. Underpinning such hopes was a prevalent historical narrative which held that the three Baltic States had attained parity with their Scandinavian neighbours during the interwar period and, had it not been for the ensuing Soviet occupation, would today enjoy comparable living standards. For Purs, however, this claim is unfounded, and part of a wider long-standing “myth of convergence” with the West. In so far as it had not been entirely decimated or dismantled during World War I, the economic infrastructure inherited by the interwar Republic of Latvia had been largely geared to the requirements of a large empire rather than to local needs. The post-war situation meant that there was no prospect of reviving the industrial base established in the late tsarist period. In its place came a system largely based on early-stage small market agriculture, which (while vital in undergirding the political legitimacy of the new state) was ill-placed to attract the capital and technical investment necessary to achieve rapid economic modernisation. With the Soviet takeover came a reversion to patterns of development characteristic of the tsarist era, creating an economic base which again all but collapsed with the demise of the USSR.

In short, Purs argues that the longer term economic development of Latvia over the past century has to be “measured against a backdrop of near constant change and frequent ruin.” Having reattained “agency” as a state in 1991, Latvia has linked its economic fate to that of the European Union, but still faces the challenge of how to access capital and expertise while maintaining a degree of local control over development. This challenge, moreover, should be viewed not simply in terms of attaining parity with the EU in per capita GDP terms, but also as one of eradicating pronounced levels of inequality and poverty within society. In his earlier chapter, Alf Vanags attributes the high degree of inequality in Latvia to the very modest redistribution generated by the current tax-benefit system, and advances concrete recommendations such as tapering of the withdrawal of benefits as earnings grow above currently very low minimum income thresholds. Vanags also offers further prescriptions for tackling key challenges such as strengthening education, eradicating the shadow economy and increasing accountability of elected representatives as a means of improving policymaking now that the previous external constraints are no longer in place.

Vanags’ key question—what to do now that all externally defined goals have been realised?—is of course one that has broader relevance beyond the economic realm. EU and NATO membership may have been hailed as marking an end to “transition” and a return to “normality”, but what does it in fact mean to be a “normal” (or “proper”, to use Timofejevs Henriksson’s term) European country amid the crises and political divisions currently besetting the European Union over monetary union, the response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine and, now, “Brexit”? During 2012–2016, the issue of European norms has also been thrown into especially sharp relief by the question of how to respond to the arrival in Europe of hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by the ongoing conflicts in Syria and Iraq. In a much earlier work on neighbouring Estonia, published in 1993, Rein Taagepera hailed that country’s return to independence, but underlined the scale of the challenges posed by independence in an increasingly interdependent world.[13] Nearly a quarter of a century on from the fall of the Soviet Union, Latvia and the other Baltic countries are still coming to terms with this state of affairs. As several the contributions to this volume underline, much still needs to be done to deliver on the initial promise of restored independence and to consolidate a democratic nation-state. At the same time, the nation-state model per se often appears ill-placed to contend with the challenges of the contemporary world.

These challenges are alluded to in the concluding chapter to the volume by Matthew Kott, who strikes a cautionary note in a further wide-ranging historical overview spanning the period from the 1905 Revolution right up to the present day. Taking as his central focus the intersection of class and ethnicity in Latvia’s politics, Kott highlights a persistent trend towards the securitisation of ethnicity and the “ethnification” of social issues, the result being a vicious circle of radicalisation that has consistently hindered the consolidation of an open, pluralistic, and inclusive polity. The experience of the past 100 years, Kott claims, has given rise to a nation “constructed to view itself as constantly under threat” and to a continued tension between ethnic and civic nationalism that appears to have grown sharper since 2010. While the current international context means that security—as more conventionally understood—remains a real issue for the restored Latvian state, history shows that ethnification and securitisation of social issues offers no long-term perspective. Only by breaking the cycle so often repeated in the past can Latvia hope to move towards the situation of human security that has proved so elusive over the past century.

[1] David J. Smith, David J. Galbreath and Geoffrey Swain, eds., From Recognition to Restoration: Latvia's History as a Nation-State (Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2010).

[2] Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (London: Bodley Head, 2010).

[3] The editor and authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support for this event provided by the Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies (UCRS) and the Centre for Russian and Central and East European Studies (CRCEES) of the University of Glasgow.

[4] Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, Md., London: Johns Hopkins University Press,1996), 16.

[5] Artis Pabriks and Aldis Purs, Latvia: The Challenges of Change (London, New York: Routledge, 2001), 22.

[6] Pabriks and Aldis Purs, Latvia, 23.

[7] On the Lithuanian case, see Violeta Davoliūtė, The Making and Breaking of Soviet Lithuania: Memory and Modernity in the Wake of War (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2013).

[8] Quotation from Davoliūtė 2014, 3.

[9] Ronald Suny, “Incomplete Revolution: National Movements and the Collapse of the Soviet Empire,” New Left Review 189 (1992): 113.

[10] Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8.

[11] V. Stanley Vardys, “Modernisation and Baltic Nationalism,” Problems of Communism September–October (1975): 36.

[12] Claus Offe, “Capitalism by Democratic Design? Democratic Theory facing the Triple Transition in East Central Europe,” in Claus Offe, ed., Varieties of Transition (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), 29–49.

[13] Rein Taagepera, Estonia: Return to Independence (Boulder: Westview Press), 217–220.

Death and Transfiguration: Reflections on World War I and the Birth of the Latvian State

Andrejs Plakans, Iowa State University

1. Short-Lived “Master Narratives”

In contemporary historical research the concept of “master narrative” has had considerable success in becoming a component in descriptions of modern nation-states. It is widely believed that nation-states generate from within their cultures a dominant interpretation of their long-term history, bordering on the mythical or at least containing mythical elements. In time, the interpretation takes on hegemonic characteristics because it is reiterated over generations, appears in the textbooks of primary and secondary schools, and speads widely throughout popular culture. A “master narrative” is taken to reflect a collectivity’s sense of self—its identity—and often serves as an overall justification for domestic or foreign policies and for conceptually separating “us” from “them,” the members of the national collective from those who do not belong to it.[1] The term “master narrative” is sometimes used interchangably with an analogous phrase—”official history”—the latter suggesting that the “master narrative” has been produced, directly or indirectly, at the behest of the central government in order to legitimise existing power arrangements.[2] Critical assessments of “master narratives” and “official histories” have for a long time taken both to task for not having insufficient distance from Power—meaning State Power—and for subordinating the investigation of a country’s past to the interests of those in power. Other critics tend to be less condemnatory because they recognise that the origins of a society’s understanding of its own past emerges through far more complicated processes than simply on “orders from above.” Also, most historians will admit that the desconstruction of established “master narratives” is not self-justifying but can be a power-play in disguise, aiming to substitute a new “master narrative” for a prevailing one because the new narrative better serves the political purposes of its proponents.

With respect to Latvian-language history writing in the 20th century—the century in which it became a continuous activity—it can be said that various proposed “master narratives” have had little luck in living a long life. Latvia has not been an hospitable context for the development of all-inclusive historical accounts of the kind that frequently characterise the writing of history in nation-states with relatively stable borders, stable governments, a stable population, and institutional continuity among the professional researchers who call themselves historians. At the end of the 19th century, Jānis Krodznieks (1851–1924), who is understood to be the “founder” of modern Latvian historiography, sought to depose what he believed to be the “master narratives” about the Baltic littoral in the history writing of Baltic German scholars.[3] Yet, even as Krodznieks was writing, he was already finding himself in competition with the Marxist-inspired general history of Kārlis Landers (1883–1937), who sought to dethrone both the Baltic German and the early Latvian nationalist historical discourses.[4] In the meantime, a “popular” narrative of the Latvian past, accumulating in the pseudo-historical writings of Latvian nationalist activists, was constructing a long-term story about the centuries-long travails of the Latvian tauta (Engl. nation) that, according to this version, had been blocked from normal historical nation development by the arrival in the 13th century of German merchants and crusaders who in due course established themselves as regional overlords. How firmly any of these competing “master narratives” seized the imagination of the Latvian-speaking population of the Russian Baltic Provinces remains an open question. But they probably were more appealing than those being written by Imperial Russian historians, who conceptualised the Baltic region as a borderland and tied its story to that of the rise of the Russian state.[5]

The “competition of narratives” before World War I was temporarily rendered moot by the founding of the Latvian state in 1918 and the gradual entrenchment of a self-referential national historical narrative with the Latvian tauta as the central actor.[6] Historical developments over the centuries were evaluated in terms of how they affected Latvians, and judgements were made about other peoples in terms how helpful they had been in the emergence of Latvians as a distinct and self-conscious people. As it happened, the interwar Latvian historians—numbering no more than perhaps a dozen—were opening themes that elsewhere in Western history writing became popular some 30 years later: the focus on Latvians was certainly “history from below” (in the Baltic context), and because details of their everyday lives in the past were now at center stage, it was also “social history” and Alltagsgeschichte simultaneously. This thrust was was inevitable if one was to highlight the bottom layer of Baltic society—the peasant estate, Bauernstand—to which most Latvians had either belonged for centuries or from which they had become in recent decades only one or two generation removed. The new master narrative that struggled to emerge from these “national” studies meant to link centuries of subordination to the 19th-century “National Awakening” and eventually to the appearance of the Latvian state in 1918, the latter—a relatively recent event—being portrayed as the culmination toward which long-term historical change was pointing. In these reconceptualisations, Latvian academic history moved closer to the “popular” version of the same story, since both were tauta-centred.