Unruly actors: Latvian women of the Red Army in post-war historical memory

Abstract

This work highlights the case of Latvian women volunteers of the Red Army who worked and fought on the eastern fronts of World War II. An estimated 70,000–85,000 Latvians served in the Red Army, some as conscripts, others as volunteers. At least several hundred of those who volunteered were women. How are Latvian women volunteers of the Red Army represented and remembered in Soviet and post-Soviet historical accounts of World War II? Why have they not been remembered in most historical accounts of this period? How are ethnicity, gender, and associated social roles implicated in their historical marginality? These questions are situated in the context of literature on collective memory and microsociological literature on social roles, and used to develop the analytical concept of the unruly actor – historical actors who are challenges to dominant memory narratives because they fail to conform to normative social roles ascribed on the basis of, among others, gender and ethnicity. We use the case of Latvian women volunteers to articulate the argument that the marginality of some groups in dominant historical narratives can be understood in terms of their disruption of the historical “scene”, which is configured to reflect a desired social order.

Keywords:

• Latvia
• gender
• World War II
• historical narratives
• social roles

Notes

1. According to Latvijas Strēlnieks (1942, January 1), women occupied three of the top five positions in the Latvian division in “snuffing out fascists”.

2. Krylova (2010, 3) writes that over the course of the war, “520,000 Soviet women had served in the Red Army's regular troops and another 300,000 in combat and home front antiaircraft formations – a level of female participation far surpassing that in the British, American and German armed forces.”

3. National Archives of Latvia, State Archives of Latvia, f. PA-301.

4. National Archives of Latvia, State Archives of Latvia, f. PA-301, Latvian State Archives of Audiovisual Documents, Special Collections of the 130th Latvian Riflemen Corpus.

5. National Archives of Latvia, State Archives of Latvia, f. PA-301, Latvian State Archives of Audiovisual Documents, Special Collections of the 130th Latvian Riflemen Corpus, State Archives of Latvia, f. 301, apr. 1, l. 122.

6. For example, see Sāre (1960), Avēkse (1960), Strautmane (1975), Sokolova (1977), Kūlis (1985), Zīle (1985) and Rukšāns (1985).

7. Museum of the Occupation in Riga, 2300/599-603 (Interview with Mirdza Austriņa, 13 January 2004), 2300/822-825 (Interview with Inese Spura, 18 March 2005), 2300-899 (Interview with Aleksandra Andreeva, 30 June 2005), 2300/1339, 1343 (Interview with Lidija Andersone, 9 March 2006).

8. Interview with Inese Spura, 12, 19, 26 January 2009, 18 July 2010, 24 August 2012. Interview with Irma Leščinska, 5 November 2010. Interview with Ieva (Eva) Vatere, 7 August 2012. See also Meimane (2012).

9. For a comprehensive treatment of this period, see Lumans (2006) and Bleiere et al. (2008).

10. On estimates of Latvian participation, see Bleiere et al. (2006), Briežkalns (2009), Neiburgs and Zelče (2011), Eglīte, Zelče, and Zellis (2012) and Žvinklis (2005).

11. The devastating losses were characteristic of the Soviet Army. Merridale (2006, 3) writes that, “[by] December 1941, six months into the conflict, the Red Army had lost four and a half million men [sic].”

12. National Archives of Latvia, State Archives of Latvia, f. 270, apr. 1, l. 390, 43–44.

13. Among Latvians were those who welcomed the end of the “bourgeois” interwar era and what they believed to be the beginning of a more socioeconomically just order: as a Latvian historian points out, “workers and those who had gotten land had no particular hatred toward the new power [holders]” (Vārpa 2006, 461). While the new Soviet Latvian regime would bloody its hands destroying political enemies, the bourgeoisie, and the kulaks [the rural bourgeoisie], the initial transfer of power and establishment of a new order was focused on the transformation of structures of power and instruments of socialization, such as schools and the press. Many of those who sympathized with the new order – or did not have any particular animus toward it – were still largely ignorant of its crimes (Briežkalns 2009, 8–9).

14. National Archives of Latvia, State Archives of Latvia, f. PA-301, apr. 1, l, p. 122.

15. National Archives of Latvia, State Archives of Latvia, f. PA-301, apr. 1, l, p. 122, apr. 4, l. 4, p. 48.

16. For example, see the oral life history recorded by Red Army veteran Russian Latvian Valdis Oldbergs for the Latvian Museum of the Occupation. OMF 2300/438-440 and a collection of memoirs by Latvians living in the Bashkir Republic (Rukšāns and Auns-Urālietis 1996).

17. Interview with Inese Spura, Riga, 26 January 2009; Interview with Ieva (Eva) Vater, 7 August 2012; Interview with Irma Leščinska, 5 November 2010; See also Ineta Meimane (2012).

18. Interview with Valdis Kuzmins, Latvian War Museum, Riga, May 2008.

19. Savchenko (1975, 10–11) writes that in November 1941, when the Soviet Union was facing an onerous military situation, the National Defence Committee created ethnic military units as part of the Red Army. Together, fully 5 riflemen's brigades and 20 cavalry divisions were established. The Red Army had 21 national riflemen's divisions, including 8 from Georgia, 5 from Armenia, 4 from Azerbaijan, 2 from Latvia, 2 from Estonia, and 1 from Lithuania.

20. The book to which Briežkalns (2009) refers was written by Savchenko and published in 1975.

21. It is worth noting that the majority of press outlets available to women veterans were at women's or children's magazines, which may have been seen by Soviet authorities as marginal cultural products.

22. See Bērnība (1947, nr. 3 (March), 9–10), Lašuka and Spura (1964, 443–455), Draugs, 1973, nr. 12 (December), 2–4, Eiduss (1973, 7–9) and Padomju Latvijas Sieviete, 1973, nr. 12 (December), 7.

23. Gorohovets was the home of the 201st Latvian Riflemen Division, later of the 43rd Guard Latvian Riflemen Division.

24. For example, see Kacena (1951); Rozentāls (1975); Ūdre (1982); Spura (1985); Grods (1985).

25. This narrative of historical events informs the exhibits on this period in the Latvian Museum of the Occupation in Riga.

26. By contrast, the dominant Russian-language narrative in Latvia has, particularly in the last decade, taken up the historical mantle of the Soviet period. The dominant historical account in the Russophone community, actively disseminated in publications and the press, closely reflects the account of history that highlighted Soviet “liberation” of the Baltics in World War II and marginalized both national formations and women of the Red Army (Zelče 2009).

27. Vera Kacena's diary [1960s–90s]. Museum of Literature and Music (Riga). Vera Kacena collection, Kac R 5/3.