This post is way overdue, but better late than never.
At Pierson College’s Master’s Tea, Latvia’s ex-President Vaira Vike-Freiberga participated in a talk with the crowd constisting mostly of Yale grad students and professors. A couple of Russian undergrad students, including myself, were present.
In Russia, Dr. Vike-Freiberga is usually portrayed as a stern, anti-Russian leader who made miserable the lives of many Russians living in Latvia. I went to that meeting hoping that maybe Russian media actually exaggerated their portrayal.
Dr. Vike-Freiberga is a very charismatic, well-spoken lady who seems to be able to make the audience happy. In the beginning, she talked a lot about Latvian history and of it being annexed and occupied by the USSR. Most Russian media disagree with that, but I believe she absolutely right describing the Soviets as ruthless invaders. The USSR (NOT Russia) did invade Latvia. But a side note: isn’t’ this how most of the world history is made anyway?
Dr. Vike-Freiberga’s hostility towards USSR/Russia is sadly based on her country’s history in general and her family’s history in particular. At the same time, Russians suffered just as much (and, as one of the guest who was siding with the Latvians admitted in a private discussion after a talk, Russians had suffered much more). Her family was escaped to Germany to avoid the Nazis; my grandfathers, both in Russia and Ukraine, were killed in the concentration camps.
During her two terms at the office, Latvia joined the EU and NATO – which is a big achievement for a post-Soviet country. Well that’s all warm and fuzzy and the audience was feeling happy for a small nation re-gaining its national sovereignty and pride.
Things got heated when the issue of the Russians in Latvia was raised. 20% of the Latvian population are Russian. Many never learned a word of Latvian, because they simply never had to. Everybody (including ethnic Latvians) spoke Russian in the USSR, of which Latvia used to be part. Schools and universities were taught in Russian; office and government work was done in Russian. Latvian was one of the official national languages of the USSR — along with Russian. Any Russian speaker has as many rights to speak Russian in Latvia as he did to speak Latvian. Most preferred Russian though, since it was a lingua franca of all fifteen republics of the USSR. In many mixed Russian-Latvian marriages, Russian was a language of choice for spouses and children.
These days when Latvia is a sovereign state, there is a clear attempt on the government’s part to oust Russians and Russian speakers out of the country. This campaign was largely initiated by Dr. Vike-Freiberga, who (coincidentally, of course) possesses an interest in linguistics and Latvian folklore.
Now, in order to obtain a job, the Russians have to pass what Dr. Vike-Freiberga referred to at that meeting as ” a minimal language proficiency exam.” She also claimed that “if someone lives in a country, they should speak a language of that country.” That “minimal” exam requires fluency in a language. And most developed countries have either no state language (e.g., the U.S, where people manage to live without speaking a word of English and where speaking Spanish is often an essential skill for employment in some parts of the country), or state programs that allow immigrants to learn the language (Germany, Israel, you name it).
Interestingly enough, after my questions to Dr. Vike-Freiberga, several Yalies approached me to discuss the issue. Russia was often portrayed as “the evil one” in this case, but many Yalies changed their understanding of the matter after that meeting. Yay for breaking stereotypes!
