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Soviet Union [USSR] Latvians
Like the Lithuanians, Latvians are descended from the tribes
that migrated into the Baltic area during the second millennium
B.C. Subsequently, they mixed with the indigenous Finno-Ugric
tribes and formed a loose defensive union of Latvian tribes. Until
the end of the thirteenth century, these tribes were preoccupied
with the constant threat of invasion and subjugation, first by the
Vikings and the Slavs and later by the Germans. Early in the
thirteenth century, the Germanic Order of the Brethren of the Sword
forcibly began to convert the pagan Latvians to Christianity. They
were finally subdued by the Livonian Order of the Teutonic Knights,
which then established the Livonian Confederation, a state
controlled by landowning German barons and Catholic clergy but with
no strong central authority. The Latvian people were reduced to
enserfed peasants. By the end of the sixteenth century, the power
of the Teutonic Knights had weakened considerably, and Latvia was
partitioned between Sweden and Poland, with only the Duchy of
Courland remaining autonomous under the Polish crown. Russia,
desiring to reach the Baltic Sea, also wanted Latvian territory.
These desires were realized in the reign of Peter the Great, when
Sweden was forced to cede its Latvian territory to Russia. With the
partitions of Poland in the late eighteenth century, the remainder
of Latvia fell under Russian control. In the nineteenth century,
Latvians experienced the same period of national reawakening as the
other nations in European Russia.
When the Russian Empire collapsed in 1917, Latvians sought
national autonomy. Overrun by the German army, and formally ceded
to Germany by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918, Latvian
nationalists overcame both German and Soviet Russian forces before
they established an independent Latvian Republic later in 1918.
Latvian independence lasted until 1940, when the Latvians, like the
Lithuanians and Estonians, were forced first to allow Soviet troops
to be stationed on their soil and then to accept a communist
government. Shortly thereafter, Latvia was incorporated into the
Soviet Union. Thousands of Latvians were killed or deported by the
Soviet regime in 1940 and 1941 and again after the Red Army drove
the Germans out of Latvia at the end of World War II. The Latvian
peasantry was forcibly collectivized. Like the Lithuanians,
Latvians carried on a guerrilla war against the Soviet occupation
forces until 1948.
The vast majority of the almost 1.5 million Latvians in the
Soviet Union in 1989 lived in the Latvian Republic, but they
constituted a bare majority (52 percent) in their own republic.
Russians made up almost 34 percent of the republic's population,
with about twice as many Russians residing in the Latvian Republic
as in the Estonian Republic or the Lithuanian Republic. The rest of
the population consisted of considerable numbers of Belorussians,
Ukrainians, and Poles.
The Latvian language is a distinct language, although it
belongs to the same group of Indo-European languages as Lithuanian.
The first books in Latvian appeared in the early seventeenth
century, but literary Latvian was not fully established as a
national language until the nineteenth century. In 1989 about 95
percent of all Latvians in the Soviet Union and 97.4 percent of
those living in the Latvian Republic claimed Latvian as their first
language.
The Latvian Republic was one of the most urbanized republics in
the Soviet Union. In 1989 about 70 percent of its population
resided in urban areas, which made it the third most urban
republic. The most populous city was the capital, Riga, with about
915,000 people; two other cities had over 100,000 people each.
Latvian cities have become very Russified, however, by the
continuous influx of Russians. The Latvian Republic also has a
highly educated population. In 1986 the republic ranked fourth in
the proportion of people with higher or secondary education. The
more urbanized Russians in the republic, however, reaped most of
the benefits of higher education. In the early 1970s, Latvians
ranked only twelfth in the number of students in higher and
secondary education and sixth in the number of scientific workers
compared with their share of the Soviet population.
In 1984 the percentage of Latvians in the CPSU in the Latvian
Republic was well below the percentage of Latvians in the republic.
In the past, non-Latvians or Russified Latvians, some of whom could
no longer speak Latvian, have held the top posts in the party
leadership of the republic.
Data as of May 1989
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