Nearly a year after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we can see many Russians in Latvia still have an identity crisis. At the same time, we can see that some of the residents who actively condemn the Russian aggression are prepared to become like our aggressive neighbouring country, admits Riga Stradins University Assoc. Prof., social anthropologist Klāvs Sedlenieks.
«People should keep in mind that, when fighting evil, there is a risk of us becoming evil.
This is a classic problem.
You are as though on the side of good, but when fighting an enemy, you become so incredibly evil, that you lose sight of what you were fighting for in the first place,» says the social anthropologist. He mentioned the wish of many Latvians to brand all Russians as «bad» and put them in the box labelled «putinists».
Sedlenieks said categorising people into a single group is a radical injustice. He reminded that Latvia had once suffered from this unfair approach before: «Our countrymen were eradicated in Russia [in 1937] simply because they were Latvians, belonged to the wrong nationality. Stalin said there are no «good» Latvians. This was later seen in the two phases of deportations». The social anthropologist says «now we [Latvians] want to apply the same principle to all Russians living here».
Sedlenieks also pointed to the paradox when the minds of many Latvian nationalists show signs of a strong lingering Soviet-era beliefs and
many who want for make Latvia into a Latvian environment are basically reproducing totalitarian ideas.
The Russians community in Latvia is still experiencing an identity crisis. «On the one hand, we associate all Russians with Russia and the situation in the country. On the other hand – not all Russians support the Kremlin,» admits the professor.
Stressing that he is not talking about the so-called «vata», Sedlenieks allows that for a part of Russian community in Latvia it is purely psychologically difficult to protest against Russia, because no such thing ever happened in the past. At the same time, he stresses that he cannot say for certain relations between Latvians and Russians have become more tense, because there aren’t any serious conflicts observed in the country.
So far the biggest conflict was observed at the Soviet Victory Monument on the 9th of May last year. This monument is no more. The last time there was a great deal of discontent in the Russian community was a couple of years ago, during the school reform. But last year, when the Saeima decided to transition to education only in state language, there weren’t any major protests, Sedlenieks reminds. He adds that on the 10th of May there were «several dozen» people at the monument again, which is significantly fewer when compared with the masses of people that gathered there in previous years.
The professor concludes that many Russians in Latvia feel bad about the war in Ukraine. They also understand that they themselves are in a very bad situation: they are Russians and Latvians look at them with suspicion. «It’s not like all Russians in Latvia support Putin, but Latvians still look at them with suspicion,» stresses Sedlenieks.
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