Latvia is home to various minority communities - not only the ethnic Russian community, which has been most often highlighted in public discourse, but also Ukrainian, Belarusian, and others. So far language has been primarily highlighted as a cause of conflict and often has been a political tool, while the different experiences are often lost in generalizations and have been little addressed in research. However, recently, especially in the context of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the identities and everyday experiences of other ethnic communities in Latvia are undergoing both internal and external interrogation and revision. How does this relate to language use and choices, and how do these experiences differ in the borderlands and in the capital?
Similarly, a major source of tension since Latvia's independence has been the minority integration policy, which is largely linked to the language issue and has only been exacerbated since the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine. How has integration policy changed over the years and what has it affected? How has the Russian invasion of Ukraine changed Latvian society, mutual understanding, and communication?
The conversation was preceded by an audiovisual reflection on the experience gathered during this summer's research trip "WE - Stories of Our Time" where the LCCA team and invited individuals visited the Latvian-Belarusian border town Piedruja and listened to multilingual narratives of its residents about life on the border, about being Latvian, Russian, Belarusian, about being one's true self.
Participants: Mārtiņš Kaprāns, Sergejs Kruks, Gundega Evelone, Oksana Sičko, Chairperson of the Confederation of Ukrainian Associations "Viche". The discussion was moderated by Agra Lieģe-Doležko.
Dr. Mārtiņš Kaprāns is a senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, University of Latvia, and the author of numerous scientific publications. He has been involved in the development of Latvian policy planning documents. His research interests include the Russian-speaking community in the Baltic States, the historical politics of European countries and the oppositional practices of intellectuals in the late Soviet period.
Sergejs Kruks is a professor at the Faculty of Communication at Riga Stradiņš University (RSU), where he researches social perceptions and their relation to individuals' social interactions.
Gundega Evelone is an interdisciplinary artist interested in political and social issues, relations between the power and the individual, and how these can be reflected in a performative or installation format. In recent years, Gundega Evelone has not only been making art, but also writing about it. She is one of the participants of the research trip “WE - Stories of Our Time” and the exhibition “The Artist is Present”.
The event was part of the "Collective Community Movement" project. The project is implemented by the LCCA in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut in Riga and supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany.