Latvia Russia

Strategic Frames analyzes minority policies in Estonia and Latvia following their independence from the Soviet Union. It weighs the powerful influence of both Europe and Russia on their policy choices, and how this intersected with the costs and benefits of policy changes for the politicians in each state. Prior to EU accession, policymakers were slow to adopt minority-friendly policies for ethnic Russians despite mandates from the European Union. These initiatives faced majority opposition, and politicians sought to maintain the status quo and their positions. As Jennie L. Schulze reveals, despite the credit given to the democratizing influence of European institutions, they have rarely produced significant policy changes alone, and then only when domestic constraints were low. Whenever domestic opposition was high, Russian frames were crucial for the passage of reforms. In these cases, Russia’s activism on behalf of Russian speakers reinforced European frames, providing powerful justifications for reform. Schulze’s attention to both the strategic framing and counter framing of external actors explains the controversies, delays, and suboptimal outcomes surrounding the passage of “conditional” amendments in both cases, as well as the local political climate postaccession. Strategic Frames offers a significant reference on recent developments in two former Soviet states and the rapidly evolving spheres of political influence in the postindependence era that will serve students, scholars, and policymakers alike.

There is no lack of amateurs ready to solve the riddle of the Russian sphinx. Each government represented at the Peace Conference possesses its own point of view on the Russian question; each political party, each organ of the Press has its own remedy for saving Russia. Nor is that all, for there are Orientals who have come to plead on behalf of their Fatherland before the world’s Forum. Russia teems with people and opinions, so each group of the crowd assembled in Paris brings forward a programme of salvation. There is the Russian Political Conference, consisting of Sazonoff, Tzarist ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs; the prince Lvoff, ex-Premier; Tchaikovsky, President of the North Russian Government, and Maklakoff, ex-Ambassador of Russia under the Provisional Government. This Conference has a theorist, an ex-director of the Juridical Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia under the Provisional Government, M. André Mandelstam, who has published a series of pamphlets in which he sets forth the theoretical and practical bases of the views of the Russian Political Conference. Outside this Conference, Kerensky, ex-Premier, is busying himself; and with him, Avksentieff, Zenzinoff, Argounoff, Rogovsky, Minor, Sokoloff, Slonin, all members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly. We find also the Paris Section for the Regeneration of Russia and the Russian Republican League. Add to these the representatives of the government of Admiral Koltchak and of General Denikin. From the South of Russia comes Schreider, ex-mayor of Petrograd, at present the president of the “Committee of the South,” who was compelled to leave the four other members of his delegation behind on the Prinkipo island. Finally, to close the name-list, there is A. N. Briantchaninoff, “Chairman of the Slav Congress in Moscow and of the Russian National Committee in London.” In the Pages Modernes are collaborating Savinkoff, L. Andreeff, Strouve, etc. Briefly, the Russian chaos is completely enough represented, and the plans of salvation are not lacking.

This book explores Russia’s relations with Latvia, arguing that Latvia, with a higher proportion of Russian speakers than other Baltic states, is especially vulnerable to Russia’s “sharp power”. The book highlights how authoritarian and totalitarian regimes are unable to exercise soft power based on the attractiveness of the country's culture and values, which would help them gain the favour of the audience of the target countries, but instead, as in the case of Russia, use public diplomacy, compatriot policy, media policy, propaganda, and disinformation to produce a destructive effect, distorting the democracies of target countries and increasing national security risks. The book provides in-depth detail on how Russia is making use of this “sharp power” in Latvia, examines the consequences and assesses the dangers for the future.

Introduction -- Discourse, memory, and identity -- Latvian state and nation-building -- Russian-language media and identity formation -- Examining Russian-speaking identity from below -- The "democratisation of history" and generational change -- The primacy of politics? Political discourse and identity formation -- The Russian Federation and Russian-speaking identity in Latvia -- A bright future?

Border Conditions combines history and memory studies with literary and cultural studies to examine lives at the limits of contemporary Europe: Russian speakers living in Latvia. Since the fall of the USSR in 1991, Latvia's Russian speakers have balanced between Russia and Europe as well as a socialist past, a capitalist and liberal present, and an illiberal regime rising in the Russian Federation. Kevin M. F. Platt describes how members of this population have defined themselves through art, literature, cultural institutions, film, and music—and how others have sought to define them. At the end of the Cold War, many anticipated that societies globally could agree on the meaning of past history and a just politics in the present. The view from the borders of Europe demonstrates the contradictions pertaining to terms like empire, state socialism, liberalism, and nation that have made it impossible to achieve a consensus. In refocusing the examination of state socialism's aftermath around questions of empire and postcolonialism, Border Conditions helps us understand the distinctions between Russian and Western worldviews driving military confrontation to this day.