Mia asked, "What exactly were the rules instated by the USSR in Latvia? How did this oppression contribute to animosity between Latvians and the USSR?" in her post here. I will attempt to answer your questions while also discussing a documentary I found titled "My Latvia", which can be viewed here: Part 1 and Part 2. This post is sort of related to the post in which I discussed how the soviets took control of Latvia. That post is a continuation of the post in which I briefly discuss most of Latvia's history.
This short film does a wonderful job in exposing the injustices, oppression, and awful treatment that the Latvians experienced while occupied by the soviets. At the very beginning of the film, the creator, Albert Jekste asks us to look at what happened to Latvia and see that it could happen to other nations and has happened to other nations. Thus, we know from the beginning that this film is meant to act as a cautionary tale and and expository piece, showing the atrocities that took place in Latvia.
When the introduction is over, we see Latvia when it was enjoying peaceful independence, which they gained in 1918. The people in the images look happy and all is serene. It is clear that the Latvians were proud of this independence, which can be seen in the fact that they had well-attended song festivals and the like during this period.
However, there is a clear difference in the tone of the film when it starts to explain what happened when the soviets started to take over in 1939. it discusses how the soviets violated many treaties and such. All of a sudden, the background music becomes very heavy and foreboding and images of military machines and the like appear. These new images of Latvia and the descriptions of what is happening are very reminiscent of Germany under Hitler. The narrator goes on to explain how the new Latvian the new Latvian delegate read a speech in Latvian that had been written in Moscow that was not understandable to the Latvians, but they clapped anyways when the names of the communist leaders were read because they had to.
Next comes pictures of men who had been in prison in Latvia who were given high positions in the new soviet government. These pictures (or, rather, mug shots) are effective as it is difficult to believe that these criminals were made government officials by the soviets. Then the topic of propaganda comes up. The narrator talks about how propaganda was used by the soviets to convince the Latvians that they were still free. Along with this, images of the soviet flag being made and hung in Latvia are shown along with images of people painting pictures of Stalin and his cronies, which were hung all over Latvia. He also goes on to discuss how the media was also completely taken over by the soviets as “Latvian movies made in Moscow replaced our own”, “Radio Riga was taken over”, and all the newspapers were given to and run by the soviets and Latvian communists. We then are shown clips from a play that was written for Latvian children that essentially tells them to support communism and its mission to take over the world (many new plays and books that were supposedly written by famous Latvians were trickling into Latvia in large numbers at this time). We also see images of the collective farms people were forced to join and of pieces of paper that have written on them the death sentences of Latvians who were sent off to Siberia to work camps and were killed there.
Possibly the most disturbing aspect of this film was when they began to discuss the deaths of Latvians caused by the soviets. This is when the real injustices and horror appears. We are shown images of a torture chamber in a basement in Riga that the soviets used to torture Latvians. Then we see the dug up bodies of people who had been killed in the torture chambers. Close ups of their faces appear on the screen. From these disturbing close ups, one can see that these people were beaten and mutilated quite severely. Then we receive some statistics. 15,000 bodies were found (they believe there were still more out there) in these secret mass graves the soviets had made with a total of 50,000 Latvian deaths caused by the soviets.
All in all, it is pretty obvious that the Latvians were treated awfully during this occupation. Their lives as Latvians ceased to exist. Not only were they forced to join communism, but they were treated like dogs while doing so. Mia, I hope this helps you understand more thoroughly why animosity between Latvians and the USSR existed/ still exists. I think a major point to remember is that all of this ended less than 20 years ago. These wounds are still fresh and the bitter taste still remains. It is no wonder that the Latvians were so intent on not granting Russian immigrants citizenship status. I know that the Ireland/England conflict is somewhat modern (as in happened in the 20th c.), so I wonder id animosity still exists in Ireland towards England. Do you know, Mia? Laura, you're conflict happened a very long time ago, so I'm not sure how this pertains to you, but maybe there is still some animosity. Do you know of any?
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