Lives on the border: language and culture in the lives of ethnic Russian women in Baltinava, Latvia

Abstract

This study draws on ethnographic research conducted in a small village, Baltinava in Latvia, 2.5 kilometres from the border with Russia. The research examines how ethnic Russian women create a specific Latvian Russian identity by contrasting themselves from ethnic Latvians and Russians who live in Russia and identifying with both groups at the same time. To narrate their lives and to make them meaningful, real and/or perceived “attributes” are combined to draw boundaries between “us” and “them.” Thus, the same thing such as language can be used not only both to distinguish themselves from Russians in Russia or Latvians but also to form coherent identities and to emphasize similarities. This study suggests that ethnicities cannot be reduced to a list of set ethnic groups that are very often used in official government statistics. Ethnic identities have to be viewed as fluid and situational. Moreover, this study shows the dialectic nature of ethnicity. On the one hand, external political, historical and social processes create and recreate ethnic categories and definitions. Yet, on the other hand, the women in this study are active agents creating meaningful and symbolic ethnic boundaries.

Keywords:

• ethnicity
• Russians
• Latvia
• language
• identity

Notes

The internal passports in the Soviet Union identified every citizen by “natsional'nost'” (nationality), e.g. Russian, Ukrainian, Latvian, Estonian. This was on the so-called “pyataya grafa” (fifth row) of the passport. Currently in Latvia's passports there is no “nationality line,” but should somebody want to, he/she can indicate his/her ethnic origin on the second page.

One of these schools is a boarding school for children from socially disadvantaged families and disabled children from all of Latvia.

The Latgalians are the descendants of the ancient Latvian tribes that were referred to as Letthi and Letthigalli in the ancient chronicles. These tribes had a leading role in the development of the Latvian people and in the eleventh century inhabited a wide territory that extended over the area of present-day Latgale and eastern Vidzeme and included land now located in Western Russia and Belarus.

The Abrene district was an administrative district in the Republic of Latvia formed in 1925 as the Jaunlatgale district, but this was renamed Abrene in 1938. This part of the former Abrene district is now part of Russia as the Pytalovo district of Pskov Oblast, bordering Latvia. “Abrene region” in current usage very often treats the area joined to Russia as though it had comprised the entire district, which can be misleading; nearly three-quarters of the former district is in Latvia. Part of the Latvian population left these localities at the end of the war. The remainder were systematically driven out by the Soviet authorities from the first post-war days. As a result, in 1945, only 12.5% of the Pytalovo population was ethnic Latvian. In 1985, some 10,000 people were living in the town of Pytalovo, practically all of them Russian. After regaining independence, Latvia tried to reclaim the Abrene region that was lost after World War II. Moscow refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Latvian reclamation of this territory, calling the lands of the Pskov region “indigenously Russian territory” that were lost by Bolshevik Russia in 1920. In 2005, the issue of control over Abrene district emerged as the main obstacle to the signing of an agreement on the state border between Russia and Latvia. There was some opposition (particularly among right-wing parties) to formally ceding the Abrene region at government level, yet surveys show that most Latvians did not believe that the transferred territory would ever again be administered by Latvia and also saw it as culturally distinct and very Russified. In February 2006, the Latvian parliament agreed to sign the treaty, making no open references to the 1920 treaty.

See, for example, Melvin; Shlapentokh, Sendich, and Payin; Chinn and Kaiser; Kolsto, Russians in the Former Soviet Republics; Laitin; Kārkliņš, Ethnic Relations in the USSR; idem, Ethnopolitics; Pisarenko; Ponarin; Poppe and Hagendoorn, “Types of Identification”; idem, “Titular Identification.”

Although in the official discourse and policy documents Latgalian is merely a dialect of the Latvian language, it is very often perceived by the informants as a separate language that is different from the Latvian language.

While in the early 20th century, Latgalians numbered around half a million people, the population has been largely assimilated by Latvians and Russians. Today approximately 15,000 people speak Latgalian as mother tongue. Between 1919 and 1922 Latgalian held the status of official language in Latgale alongside Latvian and Russian. However, after Latgale was fully incorporated into Latvia in 1921, Latgalian was relegated to a dialect and Latvian became the only official language. Under the nationalist regime of Kārlis Ulmanis the teaching of Latgalian in schools and its public use was also banned in 1934. Following a brief revival between 1940 and 1959, the language was banned once more and could only experience a revival at the end of Soviet rule. Despite the publication of books and TV broadcasts in the 1990s in Latgalian, the language holds no official status as language in Latvia and is considered a Latvian dialect. According to the State Language Law of the Republic of Latvia (1999), the literary form of Latgalian is considered a “variety” of the Latvian language. If circumstances were favorable, more than the 150,000 mother speakers of Latgalian could consider themselves Latgalians which would mean that Russians would constitute a majority in Latvia (http://www.casadelest.org/foro/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=947).

According to the Research Institute of Latgale, Latgalian was banned after the failed Polish uprising of 1831when the Russian empire repressed all cultural expressions which it associated with Polish. This followed several decades of relative tolerance since the incorporation of Latgale into the Russian Empire in 1772. The dominance of Russian was consolidated by the ban of the Latin script from 1864 and 1904, forcing all publication of Latgalian books into illegality. The ban was eventually lifted as it failed to repress Latgalian culture and language (http://www.dau.lv/ld/latgale(english).html).

• After the print ban was cancelled in 1904, there was a fast rebirth of the Latgalian literary tradition; the first Latgalian newspapers, textbooks and grammars appeared. In 1918, Latgale became part of the newly created Latvian state. From 1920 to 1934, the two literary traditions in Latvia (Standard Latvian and Latgalian) developed side by side. Latgalian was used in local governments and education as well. During the Soviet occupation of Latvia (1940–1991), Latgalian survived as a spoken language, while no printed literature in Latgalian appeared in Latvia between 1959 and 1989. (Druviete and Sterelevica-Osina 117)

One has to be careful to generalize this statement to all Russians in Latvia and all spheres of life. As broader surveys show (see Language), Russian is still widely used in the private sphere and there are differences in the use of the Latvian language in the public sphere between urban and rural areas. Moreover, the balance between the use of the Latvian and Russian languages depends on the proportion of ethnic Latvians in the area.

A calque is a borrowed word or phrase that is shifted from one language into the other language by translating individual parts (words or roots) of it.

A loanword is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation.

Code switching refers to the situation where speakers alternate between two or more languages and/or dialects in a conversation. Speakers in this situation usually have more than one language in common. For example, code switching happens when one person speaks Russian and the other one Latvian, or when Russian, Latgalian and Latvian words are used in the same conversation by the same speaker.

See Pavlovich; Lebedeva; Payin; Melvin; Pilkington; Apine; Simonian; Polese and Wylegala; Flynn.