All About Latvia

RIGA – To paraphrase the forefather of the first workers country in the world, Vladimir Lenin, the most important art form for the proletariat is film. The Bolsheviks were among the first ones in the world to develop a fresh, new film industry as way to impact public opinion, rather than a source of making money as it has been in the West.

In 1924, just seven years after the October Revolution, the Soviet filmmakers released a silent film “Unusual Adventures of Mr. West in the Bolshevik Country.” In the film, frightened by the foreign press regarding the Bolsheviks crimes, a U.S. Senator Mr. West decides to visit the Soviet Union to “learn of the savages that invaded that distant land.” The Internet Movie Database says, “Through various mishaps, Mr. West discovers that the Soviets are actually quite remarkable people, and, by the end of the film, his opinion of them has changed to one of glowing admiration.”

Mr. West was a work of fiction. The Soviet Story is not. Written and directed by the Latvian filmmaker Edvīns Šnore, the 90-minute film tells a tale of the Soviet atrocities, all too familiar to eastern Europeans. The Holodomor. Katyn.

The film made the international headlines after Russian nationalists burned Šnore’s effigy near the embassy of Latvia in Moscow. The Latvian national TV showed it last night on the day commemorating the Soviet occupation of Latvia back in 1940. Then, with an agreement of the Latvian government, the Soviet tanks rolled into the small Baltic nation and launched the year of terror. While the film received a lot of positive reviews, I found it an excellent work of modern propaganda. It’s no better than any other Soviet propaganda films. In some way, it is even worse than a propaganda film as it presents itself as a documentary. It is not. With a deep voice of the narrator on the background, images of mauled bodies, shot men, dead children flashed the screen at the Occupation Museum to an audience of mostly young people this afternoon. The director chose to repeat the grueling images again and again, with a clear purpose to disturb a viewer. The images are intertwined with commentaries from Western historians and former Soviet dissidents.

Not a single time, the narrator contradicts the so-called experts during the 90-minute film. For a good measure, the infamous Putin quote about the fall of the Soviet Union being the greatest calamity of the last century is played twice. It creates an impression that the script was written ahead of time – and experts were there to provide weight to the already conceived view of history. The visual effects, the replayed images are there to manipulate the audience, not to educate them. It is on the same par as Soviet propagandists who twisted facts, interviewed a certain group of people to get a certain point of view across.

In a way, I agree with a historian Gustavs Strenga. Perhaps, Latvians – as Russians – aren’t ready yet to study history for history’s sake. Twenty years after gaining independence from the Soviet Union, Latvians would rather use history as a political tool, which differs very little from Russian “documentary” masterpieces we’ve seen in the last several years.

And Lenin was right after all - films still matter.

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RIGA – Latvian miserabilism wants company.

It’s not enough that Latvians dwell on the past, dipping into an abysmal well of self-loathing and victimization that is an integral part of the Latvian ethnic identity as folk songs and dances. Eighteen years after they own their own house, Latvians want former invaders to feel as miserable as they are. The government is calculating a bill of the Soviet occupation to send to the Kremlin. At the same time, bills aren’t being sent to Germans, Poles, and Swedes who occupied what was to become Latvia. I guess there are occupiers and then there are occupiers.

A notorious victim complex needs a scape-goat. Up until late 1930s, the blame was with the Germans, the long-time oppressor of ethnic Latvians that became a subject of many Latvian folk songs. Following the Soviet occupation, the victim complexed Latvians turned from hating Germans to hating Russians.

On one hand, Latvian intelligentsia takes an immense pleasure in self-loathing. On the other hand, this eternal, “nobody loves me,” “no one has a pity on us” motif is evident in today’s Latvia. It’s other people’s fault for their miserabilism. Always. It is a constantly resurfacing theme in the pubic discourse on government matters. “Look, they steal, they hate us, they are corrupt, but we are poor, we suffer and bear it.” The nation of Latvia strives on appeasement and misery. Facing up to the fact that some Latvians participated in the killing of the Jews during the war is tough because if you accept it, you can no longer claim you’re a victim of the circumstance, but a willing participant.

Compare their mentality with Russians.

Ridden by centuries of dictatorship rule, Russians learned to adjust for survival. When you’re fighting for survival, pragmatism takes precedence over principles. Russians who may not have bought into ideals of a bright, glorious, communistic paradise, still uttered allegiances to the Party in exchange for a better job or some kind of benefits. In the West, they’d be called “sellouts.” In Russia, it was a matter of survival. Principled people were shipped to Siberia, killed, or were forced to flee to the West. It’s similar for ethnic Russians in Latvia. Most of those who naturalized since independence sold out. They gave the expected answered on familiar questions without much faith in what they were saying.

It’s just bizness.

Russians well aware of the Stalin crimes. Even one of the most anti-Latvian newspapers in town, Chas, published several accounts of ethnic Russians being deported along with the Latvians during the Soviet occupation. I’ve yet to talk to any Russian who does not know about “the great resettlement of the people.” Or about the Stalin’s oppressions. It’s no wonder that in 1989, the Soviet government called the Soviet-German pact invalid from the moment of its signing. While some political forces in Russia would like to see that 1989 declaration repealed, it is unlikely to erase what Russians know about that period of history.

In this, Latvian miserabilism isn’t compatible with Russian mentality. Russians don’t dwell on the past. They hardly learn from it. They don’t intend to put on sackcloth and ashes, roaming around the world in a state of perpetual mourning – unless it’s for bizness purposes. Nor should they. The Victory Day celebration is now part of the new Russian national identity - it’s got little to do with the figure of Joseph Stalin himself. It’s accentuated in the Baltics because Russians here feel as if the government or the ethnocentrism of Latvians threatens their own ethnic identity in their attempt to remake local Russians into ethnic Latvians. While some Russians would hold Stalin’s portrait dear and near to their hearts, they are dying out. When new generations of Russians came to the monument that Friday, Stalin was replaced with the Russian tricolor. For the younger generation, it’s a rebirth of the new Russia and May 9 is an integral part of the new Russia’s national identity as much as the Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon’s France was part of the national identity until the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

Russians aren’t Germans. Their mentality isn’t European, no matter how much you try to make them to be. Baltic Russians have a chance to become European, but it will takes years if not centuries. Regardless, though, they will not develop a perpetual guilt complex similar to the one espoused by modern Germans, who feel guilty for the crimes of their fathers and grandfathers, nor will they subscribe the perpetual guilt complex of the ethnic Latvians. Russians appear to be pragmatic people after centuries of oppression and fighting for survival under czars, Bolsheviks, communists. Russians want to move on instead of living in the past as Latvians appear to.As any pragmatics, Russians want to make money, have good jobs, raise their children, live in peace, rather than bickering over how many Latvians were actually in the Arajs commando, or how many Russians acknowledge the occupation. Now is the time to shred miserabilism, roll up our sleeves, and press on to a future without forgetting the past.

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RIGA – History plays an important part in the inter-ethnic relations in Latvia as well as in the relationship between Latvia and Russia. It has a direct impact on people here.

Russians who live here in the Kremlin-saturated media sphere know about the Soviet occupation. It’s hard not to. The Occupation Museum is next-door. Some have naturalized and answered the question about what happened on June 17, 1940. Latvia has many, many days of mourning, commemorating those who had been sent to Gulags.

Elderly people – the ones waving red flags at the Victory monument last weekend – get their news from Moscow. Young people like to watch comedy shows, music shows, films available on Russian TV.

Of course, some of those shows are turned into propaganda. In a Russian film “We’re from the Future” (trailer) four young hip heroes – you know they’re hip because they drive hip cars and one of them even has a hip tattoo of a swastika, another has a hip nickname like Borman – anyway, four young hip heroes make a living selling World War II medals they find in graves outside St. Petersburg. They uncover a mud-hut with skeletons inside. Anyway, they go skinny dipping in a nearby lake. They dive in. And when they come back out they end up in 1942 on the Soviet side of the front, learning an obligatory lesson that connects their modern lifestyle with those soldiers who perished during the Second World War.

But the film is not about Stalin, or his crimes. It is part of the great search for the national identity.

When it comes to the Stalin crimes, much wood has been turned into paper for publications about that topic. The Soviet Union Congress of Deputies, a fully elected parliament, in 1989 even adopted a resolution (the link’s in Russian) condemning the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939 and its secret protocols declaring them void from the moment of their signing.

At the same time, the press took a whiff of freedom and became high on publishing anything about the Stalin years – from a documentary research on the crimes to an absurd accounts of private lives of Stalin and his comrades.

A documentary was released here in Rīga trying to piece together communist crimes to persuade the West to place an equal sign between the communist crimes and the crimes of Nazi Germany. Surprisingly, the film caused little interest – some 900 people saw the film called The Soviet Story since it opened last week. But, the film would actually be a waste of time for educated Russians in the Baltics even if it’s subtitled in Russian. Nothing the film shows people don’t already know.

Most sane people without any political agenda don’t question whether Stalin’s crimes had taken place. In fact, the Russian-language press here went into great length to show that Baltic Russians (some did live here before 1940), too, suffered under Stalin. Russians generally question the necessity of those atrocities. They attempt to explain away deportations of Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Russians, Jews from this part of the world into Siberia. They say they deserved it for being too rich, or too intelligent, too political, too influential, or too nationalistic.

The disagreement is not whether crimes have taken place. The disagreement is about the interpretation of those crimes.

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RIGA – Here’s what the previous post is not about. It’s not about whether Russians have a right to celebrate the end of World War II the way they chose. It’s not about whether Russians were liberators or occupiers. It’s not about political consequences of the Second World War. It’s not about how good integrated Russians should celebrate this day. In a way, the previous post isn’t about March 16.

But here’s what this post is about. It’s about memory of people who died in the most awful war the European continent has ever seen. Every country has a day to remember its men and women who died serving their country. Americans celebrate Memorial Day. The British celebrate the Remembrance Day on November 11.

Each of these days are tied to a particular war, of course. Americans started commemorating the Memorial Day after the Civil War. It began first as a way to commemorate those Americans who gave their lives in the Civil War and after the First World War it included all men and women who had given their lives serving their country.

The Remembrance Day commemorates the end of the World War One. But now it involves veterans from WW1, WW2, the Falklands, Kosovo, Bosnia, Northern Ireland and the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq – some of which may or may not have been just and liberating.

Back in 1998, Latvian officials failed to explain the significance of March 16 to the international community. At that time, it’d been suggested to commemorate deaths of all fallen soldiers on November 11, the day of the Bear-slayer. However, it didn’t take place. November 11 is still largely about Latvia in 1919. And now March 16 is no longer an official day of commemoration and hardly any of the government officials attend its ceremonies.

My previous post was misinterpreted to mean that Latvians should join Russians in celebrating the Victory day. It wasn’t so. I was my dream it were so, but I realize that it’s my sick idealistic fantasy. The post was also misinterpreted to mean that any criticism of the Latvian government concerning the Second World War ultimately means the glorification of the Russian government and role of the Soviet Union in that war. This kind of black and white thinking is not what the previous post was about.

Nor was the post about politics. It was not about whether the war – any war – was just any more or any less so than wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Vietnam. Would we remember the two soldiers who died in the war in Iraq recently by pointing a finger at the government who sent them there contrary to what majority of Latvians thought? Or would we say that those soldiers who died there searching for the weapon of mass destruction were simply wasting the time and resources? How would we tell that to children and then grandchildren of those people who died in wars like that? I, for one, couldn’t do it.

But it seems that’s what we’re doing with those who died in the Second World War. For Latvia, those men and women regardless of their uniform or allegiance, or even deaths of civilians mean absolutely nothing. And I find it repugnant.

And that’s what the previous post was about.

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