Russians in Latvia

The Latvian word krievi for "Russians" and Krievija for "Russia" (and Krievzeme for Ruthenia) is thought to have originated from Krivichs, one of the tribal unions of Early East Slavs.

East Slavic presence remained, primarily as merchants in cities; trading ties to Muscovy and other parts of what is now Russia were preserved as well.

During the Livonian War Russian tsar Ivan the Terrible captured several castles and towns in Eastern Latvia and held some of them even for 4 years.

In the 17th century, during Russo-Swedish War initiated by Alexis I of Russia, the Russians seized much of eastern Latgale, renamed Dünaburg into Borisoglebsk and controlled the region for 11 years between 1656 and 1667.

Count Sheremetev's capture of Riga in the Great Northern War in 1710 completed Peter I's conquest of Swedish Livonia.

The reforms of Alexander II, including the abolition of serfdom in 1861 throughout the rest of the empire, further stimulated the rise of national consciousness.

Social agitation built up over the course of several years; when workers protested at the Winter Palace, police and Cossacks attacked the procession, killing or wounding hundreds.

Although Russification as a policy was not withdrawn, the Baltic German elite once again found themselves in the Tsar's favor as his agent to maintain control.

The majority were descendants from Old Believers who had fled to the Baltics to escape religious persecution – and still regarded the tsar with deep suspicion, if not as outright evil.

The Latvian Riflemen were particularly active and instrumental, assisting in organizing urban workers and rural peasants, in confiscating estates, and in setting up soviets in place of former local councils.

The Civil war and the establishment of Soviet power in Russia caused a flow of refugees and emigrants to many countries, Latvia included.

According to the Peace Treaty between the Latvian Republic and Soviet Russia, some lands of the Pskov province with a large number of Russians passed on to Latvia.

In comparison with the tsarist period of the history of Latvia, Russians acquired more "country and agricultural" features and lost those of "town and industry".

Russians differed from Latvians, Germans and Jews by a smaller part of property owners and widespread use of child labour.

The total level of literacy of the Russian population at the very beginning of the history of the Latvian Republic was lower than at the time of the Empire.

During the years of independence, the number of Russian pupils at schools increased greatly (1.5 times – the highest rate in the period of 1925–1935).

At the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, there was an increasing tendency by parents from minority groups to send their children to Latvian language schools.

[citation needed] The establishment of the Latvian State, on November 18, 1918, made local Russians determine new principles in their relations with the government.

From the liberal consciousness of the NDL there emerged some elements of a specific ideology among part of the Russian population of Latvia – "democratic nationalism".

Three kinds of positions can be discerned: During one year of Soviet power, local Russians were deprived of all their national periodicals, and many of their prominent public figures were subjected to repression or killed.

Collective farms emerged in Latvia and there were a large number of Russians in the security services and units of the workers' guard.

In Soviet times, this period was known as the Great Patriotic War, a term that retains resonance with the Russian community of Latvia today.

A part of the local Russian population chose to resist the invaders by serving in the Red Army and in the partisan movement, and supporting the underground Communist Party.

They worked on the newspapers propagandising the myth of "a national Russia" free of Bolsheviks and Jews, and "the liberating mission" of the Wehrmacht.

The Russian language also formed a new group of Russian-speaking Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles, Jews and Germans[citation needed] of Latvia.

For the whole Soviet period, there was no agreed-upon formula at the official level to express the national-cultural identity of this large group of Latvian residents.

The ideology of the Communist Party rejected the tradition of the Latvian Republic which identified the Russians of Latvia as one of its national minorities.

The International Front of the Working People of Latvia or Interfront, established in 1989, came out openly for remaining in the Soviet Union and preserving a socialist economy.

[7] After re-establishing independence in 1991, Latvia did not automatically grant citizenship to anyone whose forebears arrived after June 1940, a policy that mainly affected ethnic Russians.

These political parties support Russian language rights, the granting of automatic citizenship to all non-citizens of Latvia and tend to be left-wing on other issues.