Russian language in Latvia
The Russian language in Latvia is spoken by a significant
History and distribution
Early influence
The modern
In the Governorate of Livonia (1721–1918) and Courland (1795–1918)
On September 14, 1885, an
According to the
In independent Latvia (1918–1940)
In the 1925 census,
In the 1930 census, Russian was reported as a family language by 13% of inhabitants.
In Latvian SSR
1944–1957
The number of native Russian speakers increased sharply after the
Russian became the language of State business, and administrative positions were largely filled by ethnic Russians. In addition to that, Russian served as the lingua franca among the increasingly urbanized non-Russian ethnic groups, making cities major centres for the use of Russian language and functional bilingualism in Russian a minimum necessity for the local population.[12]
Soviet policies promoted
bilingualism for all Soviet citizens, but the bilingualism that resulted from official dogma has often been said to be unilateral. Non-Russian nationalities acquired Russian as a second (or often a first) language, while Russians remained overwhelmingly monolingual. Statistics for bilingualism in the Latvian SSR are particularly telling in this regard.— Lenore Grenoble, Language Policy in the Soviet Union (2003)[11]
In an attempt to partially reverse the previous Soviet Russification policies and give the Latvian language a more equal position to the Russian language, the Latvian national communist faction within the Communist Party of Latvia passed a bill in 1957 that made the knowledge of both Latvian and Russian obligatory for all Communist Party employees, government functionaries and service sector staff. The law included a 2-year deadline for gaining proficiency in both languages.[13]
1958–1970
In 1958, as the two-year deadline for the bill was approaching, the
The reform was strongly opposed by both the faction of Latvian national communists and the Latvian public who believed that, in reality, it would allow Russians to not learn Latvian, while still forcing Latvians to learn Russian, and perceived the reform as linguistic Russification. Deputy Education Minister Erna Purvinska insisted that proficiency in both Latvian and Russian should be regarded with equal importance.[13]
Due to widespread opposition from other republics as well, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union was not able to implement Thesis 19 as an All-Union law and each republic was allowed to decide on it individually. However, in the end, Latvia was only one of two of the 12 Soviet Republics that did not yield to the increasing pressure and excluded the contents of Thesis 19 from its ratified statutes.[13] This led to the eventual purge of the Latvian national communists from Communist Party ranks between 1959 and 1962,[13] during which as many as 2,000 party officials, including all the native Latvians in senior positions, were demoted or removed.[14] A month after the removal of the Latvian National Communist leader Eduards Berklavs, All-Union legislation was implemented in Latvia by Arvīds Pelše.[13]
In an attempt to further widen the use of Russian and reverse the work of the national communists, a
The effect of the reform was the gradual decline in the number of assigned hours for learning Latvian in Russian schools and the increase of hours allocated for learning Russian in Latvian schools. In 1964–1965, the total weekly average of Latvian language classes and Russian language and literature classes in Latvian schools across all grades was reported to be 38.5 and 72.5 hours respectively, in comparison with 79 hours being devoted to Russian language and 26 hours being devoted to Latvian language and literature in Russian schools. The reform has been attributed to the persistence of poor Latvian language knowledge among Russians living in Latvia and the increasing language gap between Latvians and Russians.[13]
1970–1991
In 1970, Russian was spoken as the native language by 36% of inhabitants of the Latvian SSR, including 6% of the total population who were not ethnic Russians, and fluently as a second language by a further 31% of inhabitants[15] (including 47% Latvians), while only 18% Russians reported having any knowledge of Latvian. It was even more disproportionate among the Latvian SSR's non-Russians and non-Latvians: 152,897 claimed Russian as their first language, in comparison with only 28,444 who claimed Latvian as their first language.[11]
In 1972, the
In 1989, Russian was the native language to 42% of inhabitants, including 8% of the population who were non-Russians, while 39% of inhabitants spoke it fluently as a second language.[18] Non-Russian ethnic minorities had been particularly susceptible to linguistic Russification as, for example, the percentage of Belarusians who reported Belarusian as their native language had decreased from 42.6% in 1959 to 32% in 1989, while Poles with Polish as their native language had dropped from 55.3% to 27.3%. 95% of Belarusians and 88% of Poles had proficiency in Russian, but only 18% and 37% of them had knowledge of Latvian. The only ethnic minority with a higher proficiency of Latvian (64%) than Russian (48%) were the Lithuanians.[10]
From 1989 to 1990 an average of 47.5% of pupils had enrolled in schools with Russian as the language of tuition, and the number was even higher (69.3%) in urban centres, meaning that not only an overwhelming majority of non-Latvians but also some Latvians had enrolled in Russian-language schools.[11]
A January 12, 1989 article of the newspaper Jūrmala reported that the vast majority of Latvians in Riga would begin conversations with strangers in Russian, while only 17% would do so in Latvian. Similarly, 96% of Russians and 85% of people of other groups were also reported as beginning the conversation with strangers in Russian, resulting in the general isolation of Russians living in Latvian cities and an establishment of relatively separate communities that did not integrate with the local population.[11]
In independent Latvia (1990–present)
In 2000, Russian was spoken natively by 17.5% of inhabitants and by 23.7% as the second language. Among them, 73% of Belarusians, 68% of Ukrainians, 58% of Poles and 79% of Jews reported Russian as their native language.[19] In the 2011 census , 37.2% reported Russian as the language they primarily speak at home. In the Latgale region, Russian was spoken at home by 30.3% of the population, but Zilupe Municipality was the municipality with the biggest percentage of Russian speakers (42.1%). In the capital, Riga Russian was spoken at home by 55.8% of inhabitants.[20][21]
A 2012 research "Language situation in Latvia: 2004–2010" by the Latvian Language Agency reported that the overall proficiency of Russian as a second language was decreasing due to it losing its popularity among the youth, especially in areas with a very large Latvian majority. In a 2004 survey 73% of the respondents rated their Russian language skills as good, but in 2008 the overall proportion had decreased to 49%.[22]
The number was even lower among young people (between 15 and 34 years of age), of whom 54% said they have a good command of Russian, 38% have a low command, and 8% have no knowledge of Russian. Nonetheless, the proportion of people knowing Russian (98%) was still higher than the proportion of people knowing Latvian (92%). If overall 1% of the respondents with the native language of Latvian did not know Russian, 8% of the respondents whose native language was Russian reported not having any knowledge of Latvian in return.
The follow-up research "Language situation in Latvia: 2010–2015" pointed to the dysfunctional
In January 2018,
On November 1, 2018, Saeima approved amendments to the employment law proposed by the National Alliance, stipulating that employers cannot request knowledge of foreign languages if the use of the said languages are not included in the employee's duties and cannot deny employees the right of using the state language. According to the authors, the amendments were mostly aimed towards employers requesting the Russian language, even when the company has no dealings with foreign clients.[28][29]
2012 constitutional referendum
IN FAVOUR 100.0%—90.0% 89.9%—80.0% 79.9%—70.0% 69.9%—60.0% 59.9%—50.0% | AGAINST 50.0%—59.9% 60.0%—69.9% 70.0%—79.9% 80.0%—89.9% 90.0%—100.0% |
On September 9, 2011,
The
On December 22, 2011, deputies from Harmony walked out of the meeting before the vote, in which the Saeima rejected the proposal.
The former
In education
Russian is one of the seven minority languages alongside Polish, Hebrew, Ukrainian, Estonian, Lithuanian, and Belarusian national minority education programmes are provided in. In 2018 there were 94 schools implementing education programs in Russian and bilingually in Latvia.[50]
In 2014, schoolchildren of Latvia demonstrated the highest overall results in Russian language (70.9%) of all the
In 2017, a total of 7% or 5,332 students studied in Russian in Latvia's state and private higher education institutions (around one third in private colleges and less than 1 percent in state higher institutions), the most being at the
2004 education reform
In 2004, the Ministry of Education and Science of Latvia transferred to bilingual education in minority schools (60% in Latvian and 40% in the minority language), causing a series of protests and opposition from Headquarters for the Protection of Russian Schools and Association in Support of Russian Language Schools.[53][54]
Publications in the news media from that period showed that the use of Latvian among non-Latvians had become to be viewed sharply negative, however, after a compromise on the proportion of languages of tuition in secondary schools was reached and various support activities were organized (such as the release of tutorials and guidance materials and Latvian language improvement courses for teachers) attitude towards Latvian in every-day communication improved.[55]
2019–2021 education reform
On January 23, 2018, the
On July 4, 2018, Vējonis promulgated a controversial bill proposed by the Ministry of Education and Science on extending the same language restrictions for public higher education institutions to apply for private universities and colleges as well, meaning that private higher education institutions beginning from September 1, 2019, will not be allowed to enrol new students in study programs taught in
On April 3, 2018, the
On late April 2018, former MP and head of the Action Party Igor Melnikov filed a complaint to the Constitutional Court of Latvia over the transition's potential incompliance with several articles of the Constitution of Latvia and a number of international conventions.[74] On July, the party "Harmony" submitted a similar lawsuit contesting the constitutionality of the reform on the basis that it allegedly discriminates ethnic minorities.[75][76] On November Constitutional Court received one more complaint from students of a private elementary school with Russian as the language of tuition.[77] On April 23, 2019, the Constitutional Court ruled that the transition does not infringe the right of ethnic minorities to education and dismissed the case submitted by members of Harmony.[78][79]
The reform also saw a series protests from some Russian speakers. On October 23, 2017, almost 400 people, mostly the elderly and children, gathered outside the Ministry of Education and Science in a protest organized by the political party
In the first half of 2019, the research agency "SKDS" conducted a survey on the attitude towards the reform among the inhabitants of Latvia. Overall 41.4% of respondents supported the motion and 34.7% opposed it, however, the results showed a significant polarization of opinions, depending on the language spoken at home. Of those who spoke Latvian at home almost 60% expressed either full or partial support for the reform, whereas 64% of respondents speaking Russian at home said they were partially or completely against the motion.[86]
In mass media
The most prominent Russian-language newspaper in Latvia from 1918 to 1940 was Segodnya and it was known far beyond Latvia. During the Latvian SSR Sovetskaya Molodyozh first published in 1945 became a popular newspaper successfully competing with other Russian-language newspapers from the rest of the USSR. After the restoration of independence in 1991, the traditions of Sovetskaya Molodyozh were continued by newspapers such as Vesti segodnya, Chas, Biznes&Baltia , Telegraf and others. Nowadays, 4 daily Russian-language national newspapers, 11 weekly newspapers, as well as a dozen regional papers and over 30 magazines on various topics are published in Latvia.[87]
According to the social and media research company TNS market 2016 survey, non-Latvians preferred watching Russian TV channels
Conflicts over language choice
On September 1, 2010,
On October 17, 2016,
I understood that they simply want to use this situation. To come to the show and say, look at how patriotic we are as even here we talk Latvian and no one can object...I don't want me and my show to be involved in these cheap political ploys.[92]
LTV responded by saying that it "could provide an interpreter for people who can't or won't speak Russian" and that "the public broadcaster cannot allow a situation where someone is excluded for wanting to speak the official state language."[92]
See also
References
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External links
- Russian in Latvia Euromosaic III pp. 184–188. Research Centre on Multilingualism at the KU Brussel.
- LTV online documentary examines 'Russification' and its effects. 16 April 2020. Public Broadcasting of Latvia.
- Lauris Veips (March 20, 2018). Things of Latvia: Accidental knowledge of the Russian language. Public Broadcasting of Latvia. Retrieved: July 31, 2018
- Silvija Smagare and Edgars Kupčs (November 28, 2014). Latgale thinks/speaks in Russian; feels Latvian. Public Broadcasting of Latvia. Retrieved: July 31, 2018.